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:

A more suitable way of phrasing the question would be “sex recorded at birth”. This is inoffensive to all but doesn’t overtly pander to the minuscule number of transgender people responding and doesn’t undermine the supposedly scientific nature of the survey.

I imagine it was someone’s bright idea of “how to be inclusive”.

Interesting. I wrote to them in the end of March. Maybe they stopped responding after that. 🙄

I would suggest that people copy in the research ethics committee that approved this. If the project management team can’t give a coherent answer, the approving ethics committee have the power to request them to review and change it, if the research information or wording on recruitment material isn’t suitable for potential participants. Which, judging by the number of women saying that they now won’t take part, is a barrier to recruitment in this project.

I also withdrew due to this question.

I complained and received poorly written replies that didn't make sense.

It wasn't straightforward to leave and they kept emailing so I blocked them.

’Sex recorded at birth’ is a good idea. They were stupid to put something so openly biased that it would baffle some people and annoy most of the others.

I’m not sure about ‘sex recorded at birth’ any more, it feels like it’s still going along with the admin error nonsense. Sex is not recorded at birth and then made erroneous because of gender identity feelings later.

I mean, sex might be superseded by a GRC later, but that’s not what they’re asking.
Why not just ask: ‘What is your sex? F/M. We will ask you if you have a gender identity later’. Or, ‘What is your biological sex? F/M’

This feels like a classic Invisible Women problem.

Our Future Health have a Diversity and Inclusion committee. And excluding women is a clear D&I fail even if they have not understood that for some reason.
https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk/about-us/how-were-governed/

They also have an ethical approval issued to them by the East of England – Cambridge East Research Ethics Committee, which in turn is overseen by the Health Research Authority.
https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk/news/our-future-health-road-tests-access-process-for-researchers/

This is the response they sent:
"
We use the language ‘sex assigned at birth’ as sex is generally assigned based on the observation of external anatomical features. This language is both accurate and sensitive to everyone, including the small percentage of people who are born intersex, and those whose current gender identity does not correspond to their sex at birth.

It is helpful for researchers to know both the sex assigned at birth and gender identity (someone’s internal sense of gender), which may be different for some volunteers. If your gender identity is the same as your sex assigned at birth, then we suggest responding with the same gender as your sex at birth.
Although this information is helpful for researchers, you can select ‘prefer not to answer’ and move on to the next question if you wish."

So they think sex does not exist in utero? What about in wildlife? Does sex not exist because no one assigns it?

Very interested to read this thread, I also withdrew from the study due to this question. As others have already mentioned, when I wrote and told them why I would not take part, I got a very weak response which waffled on about inclusivety etc! I'm actually quite disappointed that I felt I had no option other than to withdraw as I would have liked to have participated.

If that’s what they think then they obviously don’t understand what assigned means

UKRI is funded by government. All government institutions are in thrall to big pharmaceutical companies.

It’s political this ideology.

When this project was announced on the news, DH said "Oh, should we sign up?" So I quoted some bits from the previous thread about this, and gently inquired whether we should trust our most personal medical information to an outfit that apparently can't distinguish between an arse and an elbow.

Reader, we didn't sign up.

What is the purpose of the study?

If so many GC people withdraw will that not mean the results will not be representative and will perpetuate inaccuracies that we see enough of already? It's making me think of the 'studies' of improvement in mental health following transition where there were 50% drop out rates in the follow ups.

I'd not heard about the study but wonder if GC middle aged women's struggle to access healthcare will be missed. I wonder if there is information about mental health stability and how that may differ between GC and non GC thinkers etc.

I'm completely ignorant on this maybe I should have looked it up before commenting but are we not cutting our nose off to spite our face if we refuse to participate in research? The wording is indeed offensive in absolutely not saying we shouldn't be offended and raise issues with the language used.

To be of any worth, the survey needs to know which of the only two human sexes the participants are, since sex has enormous implications for health

But participants can choose "intersex" (a term which is medically unsound as well as unacceptable to many) or "prefer not to answer". The responses from any who choose these options are valueless and need to be disregarded. (So why give those options in the first place?)

If their responses are included, the survey results themselves will be valueless.

Would it though? What if the results show significant differences in health experiences for the intersex category? Are they more likely to suffer long waits compared to females? Are there differences in mental health between those 'assigned' female at birth but who's gender is male (or visa versa) and those who's gender identity matches their birth sex.

I really do think there can be answers found in such research if we all participate. And we need to have these offensive questions in order to get the correct information from trans individuals. Eg they may admit to being born a 'different' sec to their gender but if only asked birth sex they will select their chosen gender and invalidate the results