Our Future Health asks for sex assigned at birth

[escapingthecity]

Going through the process to register for Our Future Health, a huge UKRI funded health research programme. First question:

I signed up for this after seeing a story on the BBC News website last October, went to the questionnaire, and the first question indeed used the wording "sex assigned at birth".

So I went to the "withdraw" page and clicked "fully withdraw". To do that you have to phone a number. I did that, and the agent at the other end said my withdrawal would be noted and I would receive a confirmation email. She then asked why. I told her that my sex was observed at birth, no-one assigned it to me, and that a health study that didn't recognise that fact was not based on biology and was therefore not worth taking part in.

Apart from confirmation of my full withdrawal, I have heard nothing since. If the wording is still the same, evidently my comments, and those of others in a similar vein, have been ignored.

And "prefer not to answer"?!!! I mean, given that biological sex has major implications in so many areas of health, what the hell is the point of gathering information on people whose sex you don't know? Spoiler: there is none, the whole exercise is pointless.

Any organisation that thinks sex is assigned at birth (or pretends to) does research not worth the paper it's written on - might as well have presented a roll of Andrex.

I hate the phrasing but I do wonder if it could be deliberate after all some trans people will claim that they were the opposite sex and always have been so I could see them stating woman when it should be man. Saying assigned at birth gets around that.

Sex is “assigned” by the sperm at conception, isn’t it? Do these people really think midwives and obstetricians randomly allocate which sex each newborn shall be?

Could they not get round this by putting "birth sex"?

‘Intersex’ isn’t a thing either.

I saw this as well. I wrote to them about it and got a non-answer about being inclusive and that these are the widely-accepted terminology. Stopped doing the survey right away as they have lost all credibility in my eyes.

This is the email address in case you want to write to them too, OP. [email protected]

1: they were never the opposite sex.
2: any survey gathering medical information or about health, needs to be based on scientific fact surely? How can the results be trusted if information is incorrect?

I also pulled out of it - like the OP I won't waste any time on medics who don't understand facts and biology. It makes them dangerous and the data irrelevant.

I joined up but did email about this. Got this back, 'At the moment I can continue to forward your comments regarding expanding options regarding gender to our team that is designing the questionnaire. At this moment it won't be changed straight away, but that is not to say that those changes are not happening as we endeavour to caption an accurate picture of the UK's health.' I obviously hadn't asked them to expand options around gender 🙄

I do t know anything about them but that’s so bad

What happened to plain English

This gender ideology is mangling our language and making it inaccessible

I don't identify as having had a sex assigned at birth so it's not 'prefer not to answer', it's just an unanswerable question for me. One wonder why they don't care about inclusion for all (except there is no need to wonder, it's because women don't matter).

My GP's form had the options Male and female, and perhaps other, and an explanation that further categories weren't Available because to get accurate health information knowing 'sex at birth' was essential.

I was pleased.

I also withdrew from this after reading the first question. I told them it indicated that the Investigators and Trustees either hold that biological sex is assigned and reassignable, or have confused it with social gender.

And that I couldn't have confidence in a project that professes such fundamentally unscientific beliefs.

Gosh, lots of us who pulled out because of the wording. Interesting, I wonder if there’s enough to bias the results
At risk of derailing, does anyone know how the cash-strapped NHS is affording this (and numerous other long-term health studies which have recently started) - do we know how it’s being funded?

Details of funding here
https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk/about-us/how-we-are-funded/

Thank you Chersfrozenface 😊

Another one who withdrew because of the wording.

Also withdrew from 'zoe' covid project, which started sensible on 'sex' but then went into some kind of mad gender spiral, rendering all data on sex based differences nonsensical

I also emailed and noted this in a survey. No response. I haven't withdrawn, but not have a continued.

Thank you everyone - I've emailed and won't fill in anything further until I get a response.

I'm impressed that you and others got some sort of answer - I just got instructions on how to withdraw. This was mid-April, maybe they started responding later?

I don't think sex assigned at birth is "widely-accepted". But even if it were, the phrase itself seems to say 'we don't think for ourselves'.

'Widely accepted' sounds rather like the census question on gender identity, which apparently was 'tested extensively' - with LGBTQ+ groups. Hence the subsequent doubts about the census results on gender identity nationally.

I’m really disappointed. The amount of money going into this massive project so that good useful research can come out.
Assigned at birth?! That’s their level of scientific understanding?
And literally nobody is assigned ‘intersex’ at birth. What absolute ignorant offensive idiots. There will be women and people with DSDs feeling they can’t volunteer for this now due to this stupid, un-inclusive wording.

I was just about to sign up for this as I had a letter through the post. Won't be doing that now. Health research based on gender woo is meaningless.