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!

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

I agree. They can think of themselves however they like but to force the rest of the world to invent a new language to acknowledge their "not like other girls" claim is ridiculous.

I can hardly believe midwives are indulging the "assigned at birth" bollocks. I can't wait until someone tries to sue one of them for incorrectly "assigning" them at birth.

And I

I understand the NHS wants to be inclusive, but I had to make a complaint a couple months ago when I was admitted to gynaecology and needed an internal exam, I disclosed I had suffered sexual abuse as a child and requested a female to perform the exam, when the staff came in to perform the exam I asked “will it be a female doing the exam?” And the woman who was going to perform the exam said “yes those are my pronouns” again I understand inclusivity but who was being included in this situation? I wasn’t. The head sister nurse told me they’d take my name off and use this complaint in training, as they’d previously been told to use pronouns and stuff in training. If someone is biologically female and does not identify as such, they can make a note of this, it’s not fair to drag every single pregnant woman into this and make them declare that they identify as a woman. It’s a shame a minority is so catered to that patient care has been changed for everyone to accommodate them.

I'd have done the same and been annoyed I'd felt compelled to afterwards.

Sometimes getting the service with minimal fuss and focused on what you need it to be is just more urgent a concern.

Though if they do ask for feedback or after pg you feel more able to give it - I'd consider complaining.

Pregnant people? Fuck that bullshit. Anyone who is pregnant is a woman.
If someone is so mentally ill that they have disconnected from their own sex and body to this extent how is having a baby going to affect them and the baby?
Identifying as trans in these instances should flag up a huge need for psychiatric help, for the sake of all involved.

Being asked if I identify as the gender I was assigned at birth, my gender identity and my pronouns wouldn’t ruin my appointment, you’re right but constantly having this gender stuff shoved down my throat has really gotten to me, it may be the hormones. I suggest pregnant women who identify as men or other special genders may need to also “Grow up” as you said, mummy identifying as a man is much more immature/nonsensical than me not wanting to declare myself a woman, when filling out an antenatal form.

I understand you wanting to avoid complaints, so this is not to «pick» on you at all.

But surely, surely, when a woman is pregnant she cannot be male.
I know there have been pregnant transmen. And they are pregnant because they are women! Only women can be transmen!

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.

The fault is that managers take these nonsense complaints seriously, they should reject them outright.
Tell the clowns to get a grip!

I don’t believe in gender, I think it’s a social construct. I think that nobody with a penis is a woman, and should not be in women’s prisons, sports, getting female awards, should not be in toilets, etc. of course I believe in biological reality as a midwife….no man gets pregnant. But as a midwife I have to be professional and put that aside, I would treat anyone and everyone the same and respect their pronouns, etc.

of course women can refuse to answer if they wish, nobody is forcing them to.

Of course, but that pregnant woman can believe she’s a man and may want to be called him, be called Bob. It’s not my job to deal with that. It’s my job to deal with the pregnancy and not upset anyone while doing so.

I have argued (successfully) against our leaflets being changed to pregnant person, etc. though not sure how long that will last for. 🤷‍♀️. I suspect they will be changed soon to “woman and pregnant person” but there are a number of us arguing that women should not be erased.

Well, that's all fine, Quintana, but can women refuse to answer? Multiple times recently I've gone through forms - some from government agencies - and there is no way to register one's refusal or decline to answer. If a body is serious about respecting 'gender identity' then it also should be incumbent on them to recognise and respect gender agnosticism, atheism, or refusal.

As a midwife, you will be very aware that only women can get pregnant. Most people dont hold gender ideological beliefs. I assume the form will also ask which religion a person believes in (or none), but wont ask them further questions based on their religious beliefs.
A simple - are you transgender - question is all thats needed. The rest is just waffle.

Don’t be silly. I’m not saying and have not said that I believe a man can be pregnant. But if I refused to abide with someone’s choice of pronouns they could probably report me to the nmc and I’d be up before a panel for being unprofessional. It’s not about rejecting biological reality it’s a being kind. I don’t make the rules.

and for those asking, of course there’s no “assigned sex at birth”. As a midwife I’ve never come across that term being used. Only seen idiots on twitter rabbiting on about it.

Thank you for arguing that.

Part of the problem is that the people, like OP, who are going to be dealing with all of this, are of course in a vulnerable situation by definition. No woman wants to risk pissing off her HCPs while pregnant. We'll acquiesce for a quiet life.

Meanwhile, this shaping of language into forms that are often overtly anti-women can and does have impact, causes stress, and is not respectful of women unless they kowtow to the current orthodoxy. Some of it is insiduous.

I hope the NHS wises up soon.

But as a midwife I have to be professional and put that aside, I would treat anyone and everyone the same and respect their pronouns, etc.

I would expect any professional to respect pronouns as a matter of courtesy but I would not expect those same professionals to devise an admission document which indulges the fantasy of "assigned at birth" especially when that particular groups of professionals should know better than anyone it's bollocks.

A maternity form does not need a box to record sex for very obvious reasons so it could just ask whether someone has a gender identity, how they identify what the preferred pronouns are whilst making it clear that these questions are optional.

Just ask yourself OP why NHS Trusts, midwives and hcps have found the time & money to change all the forms, hospital signs, lanyards and go on all the training courses (all costing a fortune) while completely failing to provide safe maternity care for women and babies in countless NHS Trusts?

Safe medical care & respect for women comes a poor second to vacuous virtue signalling and rainbows it seems.

Meanwhile in Denmark the Women's Museum is now the Gender museum, complete with a new statue of a person with and beard, breasts and a penis breast feeding a child.

underholdning.tv2.dk/2022-02-01-kontroversiel-statue-af-ammende-mand-indviet

And I would absolutely encourage women to complain if they felt there were too many questions on it. Though I’m sure some would argue you neEd to know pronouns as well as if someone is transgender because god knows how many hundreds of genders there supposedly are now and how am I supposed to know the pronouns of each?

friend of mine works in a cathedral and recently a visitor complained because they had been misgendered 3x during their visit. This was a visitor with no pronoun badge, who obviously looked male and reckons that 3 separate people referred to him as a man. It amazes me that there were three references to their sex during the visit but that’s the sort of bat shittery we are up against.

I call everyone “service users” now. 🤷‍♀️

For the love of fuck.

I’ve had no training on this at all, not seen any signs be changed. Our forms are electronic now so can’t cost that much to change, I don’t do bookings so never have to ask anyone but on the software we use any question can be left blank.

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

I mean, this is just bananas. It makes about as much sense as a pregnant woman announcing that she identified as an elephant, or a spoon. I'm not having a go at you OP, I know you have to deal with this madness every day and stay sane and not upset anyone. It's shame on the NHS for tolerating the craziness in the first place

'Just ask yourself OP why NHS Trusts, midwives and hcps have found the time & money to change all the forms, hospital signs, lanyards and go on all the training courses (all costing a fortune) while completely failing to provide safe maternity care for women and babies in countless NHS Trusts?'

Excellent point, couldn't agree more

No I agree, the assigned at birth thing is bollocks and if I worked at that trust I’d be raising it big time.

Sorry, not OP, I meant the midwife Quintana who replied

I understand that, and I read your consequent posts also.
It is very odd that you (midwives in general) are expected to play along, though I fully understand that you need to do it and have vanishingly little say in the matter.

Which is awful in itself.

My mind just boggles at the terrible cognitive dissonance at saying to yourself you are a man, and then go on to do the ONE thing that marks our sex as different from the other.

I just continue to be flabbergasted

I agree it’s bananas. But if the form wasn’t changed then the dept would spend more time dealing with complaints than it takes to change the form! Not just from trans people but from all the woke allies.

all the complaints we’ve had (a lot) about any forms which mention breastfeeding or women have 100% being from biological women who aren’t trans in any format. But seem to be determined to fight the fight on behalf of trans people!