Male asked if I am pregnant when donating blood

[slipperypenguin]

I am a GC male. I am a regular blood donor, but today for the first time I was specifically asked by the nurse to confirm if I am / could possibly be pregnant.

I laughed as I thought she was joking as I felt it was obvious I am a biological male and therefore could not possibly be pregnant, but she told me they were "inclusive" and had to confirm.

This was in Scotland at a regular blood donor clinic.

Am I just out of touch with the times or is the world gone man? I can confirmed that I am a male yet am forced to answer this question in order to donate.

@RaininginDarling About as positive as I know most 10 year olds aren’t pregnant but I’m still asking and testing. Or about as positive that most minor head injury or sore ears are fine but I’m still going to check.

My point is for many things it doesn’t matter the sex of the patient but for certain presentations it does. Is that unconscious v. sick looking patient a urosepsis or a ruptured ectopic? Could a blood donation be affected by pregnancy? It’s important to know.

Yes world has gone mad. Utter nonsense.

The medical professionals surely know it’s beyond a joke.

Please speak up - we need more men to care about all this

Are you being dense on purpose?

A young girl could feasibly be pregnant.

A man cannot. You know this. If you don’t, please go back to nursing college

Why do you care? Fragile masculinity? If it’s “obvious” you’re a biological male, what difference does this harmless box ticking make

What difference does it make to ask what sex people are?

Because it matters? Because I think just taking a passive attitude and going along with it silently because it's a "box ticking exercise" is akin to effectively walking like a zombie into a changed world where it's somehow expected or normal that biological males are considered that they may be pregnant. It's wrong - biological males cannot be pregnant. Why should I or anyone else zombie walk into a society where we are brainwashed into thinking otherwise - most likely at the expense of actual females who can be pregnant?

Nothing to do with fragile masculinity and I am not going to waste my time arguing with you otherwise. I thought it was a ludicrous question and it's not something I've been asked in any of the prior times I have donated blood so it made me realise there really has been a change / shift and I am not going to brush that under the carpet or be blamed for having fragile masculinity for wanting to question that.

@HermioneKipper have you met many transmen or women? I have. It’s not always obvious.

So imagine a scenario of a patient who’s medical records state male, appears male however their biological sex is female. How would you ensure you didn’t miss a gynae related issue?

All if you who don’t like the question being asked. Are you all happy for a currently/previously pregnant transman to give blood without any note attached that it is a pregnancy donation and for that blood to be given to your male relative?

The problem there, obviously is the corruption of medical records. This should never have been allowed to happen.
They should all be corrected to state sex at birth, and then have additional information, if appropriate, re gender reassignment.

@Wishiwasatailor should the onus not be on the trans person to fill out that information when donating blood though? The section is present on the form and so if applicable they could fill it in - much like the section around sexual health is.

Appreciate that's not full proof though as they could just miss it - but this is a new thing where they are now asking all males this so how was it handled before?

It’s a disgrace that medical records can be changed in this way.

And yes I have met plenty of trans people. And you can ALWAYS tell

@ErrolTheDragon I absolutely agree. If this is the way it’s going let’s have gender and sex or some other way to identify trans.
because the nurse in a&e or hca in the donation venue just wants to get on with their job and do it in a safe and effective way and I’m sorry to say but that does currently mean we need to ask these kinds of questions

@HermioneKipper well done can you tell me how you do this because clearly I’m missing something incredibly obvious.

I use my eyes and my ears

If only the first question was 'what sex are you' and an accurate answer was given, then all this nonsense could be avoided 🐖🪰

@HermioneKipper I think you could be at risk of stereotyping with that method though.
but thanks for the tip 😂

I agree entirely. It is completely ridiculous that some people can lie on their birth certificates to satisfy a feeling that has no basis in reality.

But whilst I understand there are a few outliers who pass on first glance, the reality is most trans identifying people do not pass. Not even remotely. So please stop using the strawman argument that is "should we be checking people's genitals?" It's silly.

The onus should be on the trans identifying patients to tolerate being honest about their sex when it matters and not for the rest of the world to pretend reality doesn't matter when it does.

I have to ask in my job.

Sure ok!

Gaslighting to tell women the evidence right in front of them is wrong. That’s how we ended up in this mess!

I'm a secondary school teacher. The first time a pupil used they I genuinely thought she was referring to multiple pupils (crying in the toilets in this case), when she'd only mentioned one girl initially. I've also had pupils using they to refer to a single pupil like it's standard English (pupil being referred to is not trans). It irritates me as it's confusing and unnatural. Happy to honour people's pronouns if they're trans/ non-binary etc but I refuse to be part of a deliberate effort to change the way standard English is used to refer to the vast majority of people who are happy to use their sex based pronouns. It's not helpful and just confuses matters.

Utter lunacy. Particularly from health professionals.

It is indicated on the records though

This happened to my DH when he went to give platelets. He refused to answer and they said 'well, you can't donate'. He said 'fine' and got up to leave. They told him not to be so hasty and because they had phoned him desperate for platelet donors and he felt guilty about saying no, he ticked the box and donated. I told him he should have walked out.

It is indicated on the records though

Unfortunately, the 'sex' recorded on the medical records of gender reassigned individuals is liable to be inaccurate. Which is potentially dangerous to them, and in the case of blood donations to others.

@RaininginDarling checking genitals was in relation to a comment about an unconscious patient- man in his 60s can be pretty confident about his sex, man in his early 20s not as confident. The thing is with hormones being given to younger patients and presenting as a different sex from younger and younger it is becoming much much harder to tell and can be harder with certain ethnicities. I’ve walked into rooms expecting a girl but am met with a passing male and have to double check I’m in the right place. I’ve met young people who are purposefully obese to enable them to pass more easily. It’s not always cut and dry.

Part of the issue is that if they don’t believe in their biological sex then their identifying sex is their “real” sex. Once they are 18 they can legally change their sex on medical records and are given a new nhs no. Transmen are then no longer invited to smears.