Biological man not allowed to give blood because he refuses to say whether or not he's pregnant

[Gymnopedie]

Link here (not the Daily Fail)

NHS Scotland (them again) can dress it up as being for donor safety all they like, but it's the trans agenda in fancy clothes.

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen thats appalling. Did he say yes?

every single time they asked him if he was pregnant. Every single day.

I can sort of see the point of having checklists to go through to make sure nothing gets missed, but surely asking pointless irrelevant questions regardless has the effect of switching off critical thinking skills, which is the opposite of what's wanted.

I suppose there are women who identify as men and look suitably masculine to be assumed to be men. Do you just fill in a form or is it read to you? If it's just a unisex form you just tick no or say not applicable. If it's read to you it's a bit daft, but there may be a very small number of male looking people who could be pregnant.

I spent half my working life getting correspondence to 'Dear Sir', although my first name was obviously female but I worked in an at the time 99.9% male job. I just ignored it. Maybe I should have put my preferred pronouns on my correspondence back in the day.

A standard question for a WOMAN. Not a man.

If healthcare professionals are going to pretend they don't know the difference between male and female any more because of a stupid ideology, damned right I'm going to give them a hard time over it.

He should request an internal scan just in case...

Years ago when I tried to give blood I was turned away because of a question I remember as basically Have you had unprotected sex with a man from any of these African countries in the last six months.

Yes. Yes I had. Because my husband and I are both from one of them. Monogamous, extremely HIV aware, but no. The tick box was what it was.

You fill in the form yourself, then a nurse comes and verbally double-checks each question with you.

A few years ago part of the form was unisex, then a section for males and a section for females. Before they handed over the form they'd usually cross off the section which was not relevant.

Now the whole form is unisex. (They changed the format when they reviewed the questions assessing HIV risk from sexual history)

Interestingly, I've just looked up the sample form and they are back to listing the donor's sex. A couple of years ago I noticed they had changed to listing only "gender." It was printed off automatically with your name and donor ID; you couldn't choose it yourself on the form (apart from when you first signed up).

https://www.scotblood.co.uk/giving-blood/publications/donor-health-check-form-sample/

As I said, it's good they've cracked the shortage of donors, otherwise this would be fucking stupid.

I can't give blood anymore. 80+ donations of O -ve was the best I could do.

Asking all women if they are pregnant - even 80-year-olds, even those who have extensive investigations for infertility on their medical notes - is a different issue and I think it is wise.
It makes sure you catch all the edge cases (women who get pregnant when older than average age of menopause, etc). You don't want the medics to have to make a judgement call ("Is she old enough to definitely not be fertile?") and run the risk of missing someone. And in many situations I wouldn't expect them to look back through your medical history. Better that everyone gets the safety questions, unless she has just had a hysterectomy (ie during that same hospital stay) AND the person doing the questionnaire is from that team!

And it would be a huge problem if a transman was thought to be male, so was not given appropriate medical treatment / not asked the correct questions. So in some situations it might be worth asking everyone for pregnancy status. And in most of those situations I'd think men should just tick "No" on the form and that they'd be silly to make a fuss.

But for giving blood it is important to know whether the donor is male or female. (And due to risks to the recipient, rather the risk to the donor of donating while pregnant or postpartum, so arguably more important!)
And no male can ever be pregnant, so not the same as judging whether a woman is postmenopausal.

So if staff wouldn't let a man donate because he answered "I'm a man" to the question "are you pregnant?" I think they do need to brush up on their critical thinking, or biology knowledge, or the reasons behind the risk assessment questions. So he does have a point.

I can't help but notice that the article treats this as humorous--the situation is obviously bananas and the man is portrayed as sensible. No one is insinuating that there is anything transphobic about this at all. I am not sure a woman donor would have got off so easily if she refused to answer a gender-ideology question.

Asking all women if they are pregnant - even 80-year-olds, even those who have extensive investigations for infertility on their medical notes - is a different issue and I think it is wise.
It makes sure you catch all the edge cases (women who get pregnant when older than average age of menopause, etc). You don't want the medics to have to make a judgement call ("Is she old enough to definitely not be fertile?") and run the risk of missing someone.

True.

Also, in the current world of egg donation and IVF treatment it is possible for post-menopausal women to bear a child. You do hear of women in their 60s undergoing treatment and becoming pregnant.

Isn't there currently a 60-something actress pregnant with her own grandchild?

The point is it is conceivable (pardon the pun) that a woman beyond the age of natural childbearing could become pregnant. There is absolutely no way a man could ever become pregnant.

If the NHS stuck to asking about biological sex, and dealt in material reality, we would all be better off.

Isn't there currently a 60-something actress pregnant with her own grandchild?

@EdgeOfACoin no she used a surrogate.

Ana Obregón is 69, her son died of cancer. It's caused a massive hoo ha in Spain. No idea how she got hold of his sperm.

And due to risks to the recipient, rather the risk to the donor

The sad history of the HIV contaminated blood shows that isn't really a big worry to the powers that be.

Now if it was a risk to the bonuses of the people that dreamt this poppycock up, it would be serious. But, heigh ho, no chance of that

You do know that it is possible for some 60-65 year old women to not be completely menopausal. Yep, it’s very rare, but there are cases of women in that age group conceiving naturally.
I don’t see that there is anything wrong , and it’s a sensible precaution, to ask women up to age of 70 if they can be pregnant? Yep, they could ask if they’re completely menopausal but some women may not even know that.

all these stories of women over 70 being asked about pregnancy - don’t see an issue really, it’s a simple quick question that most women can answer readily a “god, no, at my age?” “ no” or a “I don’t know “. Gets to heart of risk issue immediately.

what I did I find intrusive when in my 40s I was forced to take a pregnancy test because they didn’t believe me that I couldn’t be pregnant because I couldn’t recall when last period was. I had unreliable periods, but was with my abusive ex and we’d stopped having sex for a few years by then. They wouldn’t take my word as true even when I said I wasn’t having sex and hadn’t had sex in a long time. Completely batshit as I could have just invented a date for my last period and they’d have apparently believed me. Male doctor would not believe me when I said I wasn’t haven’t sex. Just why? I was upset and belittled because they didn’t believe me.

And it’s a pretty dumb question given it’s not unknown for some women to still have breakthrough bleeds like periods in early pregnancy. It’s like they don’t trust women to know that they’re pregnant or tell the truth about pregnancy which is the same old dumb misogyny of silly women don’t understand medicine.

However I do agree if someone has a medical record recording sex as male it is a pretty stupid thing to do. But given the rising pandemic levels of trans men in younger fertile population, it may be a sensible precaution for now. Hopefully the sex vs gender shit, particularly on medical records, will be clearly sorted to ensure men can be identified form their sex and not be perceived in a risk category .

A friends sister - 27 - died of an ectopic pregnancy after being fobbed off 3 times from A&E with "constipation". At no point was she ever asked if might be - or thought she might be - pregnant. What with only being a female and all that.

I respectfully suggest the medical profession sorts itself out. And quickly. Because damned if I feel quite the same about supporting a bunch of people happy to ignore science as I do about supporting underpaid professionals.

I am a women who has had a hysterectomy. Women who have had a hysterectomy can not get pregnant. I would tick no.
Men can not get pregnant. Tick no.

They did the same with a filopian tube twist due to a gigantic ovarian cyst, they left the cyst in there many years, wouldn't test and instead made MH and slimming world referrals.

There is a reason to ask a female, your hysterectomy will hardly have been known to them.
A man will never, really not ever have been in a position where pregnancy was a possibility.

There is a reason to ask a female, your hysterectomy will hardly have been known to them.

Perhaps we need a wristband or tattoo or something ?

If this man went their with the goal of giving blood, he could have done so by ticking no. If he had wanted to give blood he would have ticked no.
He wanted to cause a fuss. To highlight the idiocy of the paperwork.
Did anyone at the blood donation site have the ability to change the paperwork? No. If he wanted ot he could have donated blood, and written a stern letter.
Instead he chose to get on his high horse, cause issues for the blood donation team, get a little publicity for himself and his point of view, and not do the thing he supposedly wanted to do. Donate blood. Which would have benefitted others.

Get publicity, fail to achieve your purported goal, not help others and create a media mini frenzy about nothing, or donate blood and raise your concerns about gender/sex lunacy in another way. It was an interesting choice.