The NHS want to know what genitalia I have

[Annaissleeping]

I just had to ask for a home testing STI kit as recently I slept with someone and he took the condom off and pretended he hadn't realised that had happened.

I rang them to confirm some details and they said they needed to know my gender assigned at birth and my current gender. I said I was female and honestly quite flustered, added, I didn't have a gender.

Oh I'm sorry, the woman said, it's just we need to know what genitalia you have to send the right kit.

Not that women's feelings matter, but it felt intrustive - it's not so fun having to go through this process and being asked anything other than 'are you male or female.' But that is from someone whose 'genitalia' suffered an injury in a different assault and who has quite a lot of difficulties getting up the courage to access any medical care and discuss any aspect of my body/physical health. How many people in the UK actually know what assigned gender or genitalia actually means, outside of the gender bubble given the national reading age is about 10/11?!

Thank goodness for a health care service system in evidence-based medicine and objective science, right? 🙄

(I just needed to vent, I know people are aware this is happening)

Yes hotdog. That comment IS the truly upsetting part of this incident.
🙄

FFS

I don't think you're really getting it. Do you think that everything TRA's complain about is reasonable and necessary? When women complain about penises in their changing rooms and saunas, and they are the ones told they are violent transphobes, is that reasonable and necessary? When TRA's sue female beuticians because they refused to was their "lady penises" was that reasonable or necessary?

WAX

I'm pretty new to all these issues, it's actually been through this forum that I've started hearing and seeing a lot of this stuff, after the seeing stuff in the mainstream media that's piqued my interest (and pissed me off). I don't think I AM getting it, no, but I'm starting to see it's way, way way more complicated than my simplistic view here...

OP: I am very sorry you have had unhappy experiences. I can understand why you found the phone call distressing. I hope your test results show nothing extra to worry about. Your second post explains things very clearly.

Do you feel up to giving feedback to the test providers? They need to know how the choice of words used by their call handlers can affect callers.

Knowledge of your experience, combined with advice from some of the comments on this thread, could enable them to improve things both for people phoning up for test kits, and for their staff. Get information from the internet about high-ups in the organisation, email them and write the script for them!

Very best wishes.

But all they needed to ask was what the OP's sex was. All the rest was because they won't ask this simple, easy to understand, accessible, medically relevant question because they are politcally motivated. They put OP through this simply because they are politically captured not because having an STI test invloves more than buying a coffee.

And I thought your coffee remark was knowingly patronising and deliberately insensitive. You owe the OP an apology frankly.

I'm sure a transperson can be mature enough and take responsibility for their own health, and just give the medical professional the facts they need to do their job, including disclosing this without being asked explicitly.

I think this is part of the problem the need to maintain the delusion that you can actually change sex if why the medical profession has come up with these silly phrase like chest feeding and so on.

And in case any one has forgotten, this need not to acknowledge that your birth sex never changes can have tragic consequences. There was a trans man who went to hospital complaining of pain, and based on what was said the nurse took actions based on thinking she was dealing with an obese man. In fact the trans man was pregnant and eventually had a still birth.

So even if the nurse failed in the initial assessment, what would possess anyone to continue to cover up their actual sex?

(Sorry OP I wasn't going to join in the general discussion, as your personal story is so shocking. Hope you are doing okay!)

I'm so sorry this happened to you, op. 💐

And all the woman needed to ask was what sex you were.