Asked gender and pronouns on antenatal form

[bbypinkluffie]

So I’m 7 weeks today with my first, and yesterday I got given a midwife, and my first antenatal appointment was booked, and was told I had to fill this form out before the appointment, it had an entire section where the questions were “is the gender you were assigned at birth the gender you identify as now?” And “what gender do you identify as?” And “what are your pronouns?” I didn’t want to participate in their questions, as I don’t agree with gender ideology, I don’t want to have to “declare” myself a woman, I am one. I don’t want to “identify” as a woman, I am one. I’m pregnant for heavens sake! But regardless I filled out the entire gender section, saying yes I identify with my assigned gender at birth, I identify as female and my pronouns I chose as she/her. I only did this to avoid being asked during the appointment as it’s my first appointment and my first pregnancy and I don’t want it being ruined by being asked about pronouns. I only pray now I’ve jumped through their hoops I won’t be called a “pregnant person” or “birthing person” or “chest feeder” now. For heavens sake!

But some pregnant people who are biologically female will identify as male. The forms are there so staff don’t upset them by referring to them as she/her if that’s not what they want. You can disagree with someone who identifies as a man being pregnant all you want but the nhs provides holistic, patient centred care and if they get it wrong there will be complaints

im a midwife and believe me I’ve seen the sort of complaints along these lines.

But surely people have the right to refuse to answer?
Surely if you do identify differently the onus is on you to make people aware? Not part of a form!

Well I'd have written "Sex = woman, obviously" in letters as large as possible all over that section.

And @QuintanaRoo you can expect far more complaints from women who recognise biological reality and object to gender wankery.

When asked my gender I usually leave it blank if the form allows it. If it's a mandatory question, I would answer "other" or "not specified" or similar, because I don't have a gender (or if I do, I don't know what it is).
I know I'm a woman though, and was born female.

I'm one of the people causing the ONS a headache by not answering the gender related questions in the census in the expected way because they were stupid questions

Gender is meaningless, other than for a minute number of mothers who want to be called men or they pronouns.

However ‘sex’ is also meaningless as mothers are always female.

The ‘assigned at birth’ is irritating as it should be ‘observed’. And the identity stuff.

There should just be a pronouns question. Nothing else is needed.

Much better to potentially upset the 99.99999999999% of women who know they're women than risk upsetting the 0.00000000000% who have rejected material reality

The issue I have with this is - the "people who are pregnant but identify as male" are surely the most tiny tiny minority of all the patients any midwife would see?!
By putting these stupid questions on an antenatal form we risk upsetting the majority of people in order to pacify the (rather noisy) minority

Personally I would of left that whole section blank.

Well, surely that's the whole point of the form - so you now won't be spoken of as a pregnant person or chest feeder etc. And those people who do want to be spoken of that way will be. Everyone gets spoken to in the way they want. I don't get how this is a bad thing.

I think you are being over dramatic. How on earth would something as mundane as someone asking a simple question going to ruin your appointment? Grow up, you are going to be a parent.

Have you seen the thread in the NFP Surveys board?

Personally I think anyone who is pregnant can't be all that serious about 'not identifying as a woman'.

"But some pregnant people who are biologically female will identify as male"

There are only pregnant women. Ffs.

OP, you may need to breathe through instances of this stupid bullshit. Stay well.

If they must ask why not
Do you have a gender identity ?yes/no
If yes what?
You already know the pregnant woman is female so don't need to ask sex

So as a midwife maybe you can answer? Who exactly does the assigning at birth? Is it you or the doctors? Are sonographers just making things up by claiming to know the sex before the baby is born? How does the assigning work? Is there a quota or do you just get to choose?

My grumpy self would have put a line through it.

I had a few forms during pregnancy that asked for gender and I crossed it out and wrote ‘sex’ instead.nobody commented but one older lady smiled and laughed approvingly. I felt vindicated!

Where to start with this?!?!

The bit that really made me laugh was ‘the nhs provides holistic, patient centred care’.

Well I'm also a midwife and I have never encountered a pregnant man.
Nor have I met a transman who wanted all the forms to be changed to accommodate her.

So it's fine to upset OP, in order to not upset these vanishingly rare, one might even say hypothetical, pregnant 'men'?

Why do OP's feelings not matter?

How is it simple? What is my gender identity, and how do I know?

The forms are there so staff don’t upset them by referring to them as she/her if that’s not what they want.

Ive never understood this. You are pregnant but get upset at being referred to as she or her when you’re not around. I mean the pregnancy reinforces the femaleness more than a pronoun for goodness sake!

So as a midwife maybe you can answer? Who exactly does the assigning at birth? Is it you or the doctors? Are sonographers just making things up by claiming to know the sex before the baby is born? How does the assigning work? Is there a quota or do you just get to choose?

I too would very much like to see answers to these questions.

So in that case, why use it? I assume you’d be telling females with a trans identity to grow up and deal with the fact they are doing the very female act of being pregnant so a mundane question won’t ruin their appointment, or is it only women who should “grow up”?

The question could be asked in a way that doesn't annoy the vast majority of women. Just make it an additional question /statement along the lines of 'is there anything else you need to advise us?' I can't think of any other way to phrase it but surely someone can?

This is really not complicated. The form asks medically relevant questions in clear English, and there is a box at the bottom with something like if you have a gender identity that requires staff to address you in a specific way please specify.

I always cross out gender and put "my sex is female" on such forms. I mean, you're pregnant, it's pretty obvious 😏

You are a midwife? Seriously?
Midwifery training must have changed even more than I realised. What happened to anatomy, physiology, sexual reproduction, genetics?