Been asked my gender on a FIT form - how to challenge?

[FatLarrysBanned]

I have to send off a sample and the form inside the pack for the lab asks for the usual details but also my gender m/f? There is an option to give feedback on the process which I would like to do. How does the following sound?

"The form inside the pack for the GP to complete should refer to sex not gender. This is particularly important when dealing with medical matters. However a person chooses to identify regarding their gender preference has no impact on their biological make up and should accurately reflect their sex at birth. Sex and gender should not be conflated, they are 2 separate and distinct identities. One is a medical fact and the other is a social construct."

I've never really put my head over the parapet before so I'd really appreciate some reassurance that my comment makes sense. Why would my gender be needed for the testing of a poo sample?

Your response is perfect Op. Thanks for making the effort.
Why on earth do they want to gender a piece of poo, unless they wants to dress it up and make a cartoon out of it?
It's too surreal.

Well done OP. It's good to challenge gender woo woo. Every example shows there's another medic / medical service displaying profound ignorance of facts and science and pandering to those trying to replace them with fantasies and delusions

Challenge this nonsense every. single. time

Yes, good response OP.
Years ago gender was just a polite, (or prudish) way of referring to sex. These days gender and sex are understood to mean different things, and in light of this the normalisation of gender identity being relevant or even overriding sex in medical areas should be highlighted and questioned.

Well, you might think. Years ago you might roll your eyes and assume they meant sex but were being prudish. Nowadays, after all the faradiddle in recent years where we’re being told a gender identity is more importsnt than sex, we can’t assume that. It’s nowhere more important to be clear on this in a medical context and it’s galling when the very people who should know better start pandering to this silly nonsense.

No but you can choose which gender you identify as, male or female.

I think it is true that the ninth digit of the Community Health Index number (used in Scotland only) is even for females and odd for males. However , I don't think it's true that the NHS number in England and Wales or the Health & Care number in Northern Ireland show your sex.

My NHS number ends in a 9. Does this mean I have to start identifying as a man?

I filled in an online form for my local Co op store (customer satisfaction survey) recently. It asked for my "identity" thus:
Do you identify as Male?
Do you identify as Female?
Do you identify as Non Binary?
Do you identify as Other?
I had to tick one in order to progress, I think I ticked other. There was space towards the end of the form for other comments. I wrote that I found the form exclusionary, as I didn't "identify" as anything because "I JUST AM", being female and therefore not needing to declare an "identity". Where was the space for people who don't want, need or expect to have to "identify"? It's the notion that JUST BEING is no longer accepted that enraged me. FWIW, I don't think my comment was unreasonable...

North west actually Queen, I guess it is a software surgeries can buy into if not a blanket thing?

Either way, how we went from it all being a simple accepted statement of fact to health services apologising for even making people have to give it any thought is beyond me.

I had to fill something in the other day that asked for my gender identity and gave a list of man (including transmen), woman (including transwomen), other, prefer not to say. It then went on to ask if my gender identity matched my sex assigned at birth.
I had to put prefer not to say for both as I don't have a gender identity and I don't believe that gender identities 'match' sexes.

It would be interesting to compare the number of 'prefer not to say' responses before and after changing sex to gender identity. Are they really getting the information they want with these questions? It was for equality monitoring I believe.

No. This is part of the reason we now have males in female sports and male rapists in female prisons. We need to push back.

So why not ask for sex? They have asked for gender.

I'm sure if you to survey the general population the majority would understand sex and gender to mean the same and are interchangeable.

I'm sure we could monitor the thread here for "gendered clothing" and say don't you mean "sexed clothing"?

Only recently have people focused on this split, and a lot are conflating gender with gender identity.

If there are only two options "male and female" then they don't believe in gender ideology, but if there are more than two options they do.

No but you can choose which gender you identify as, male or female.

I don't identify as anything.

We're also told there are hundreds of genders you only list two.

Bollocks - male and female are not gender identities they are the two (and the only two) different sexes that apply to the human species, you are either one or the other identification doesn't come into it.

I always cross out gender and write sex. If it’s an electronic form and I can’t alter it, I try and find a box where I can point out that biological sex is not gender.

Which brings it back to the original comment I asked the first question on…. There are two genders two sexes so what does it matter if it says gender or sex or the form?

@Health47 Uh no, gender is NOT the same as sex.

Wow, I thought there were at least 200+ genders. I'm pretty sure that's the accepted view (possibly more) now. Lots of non-binary gender identities. The days of 'gender' being a polite way to say 'sex' are over.

" There are many different gender identities, including male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these." https://teentalk.ca/learn-about/gender-identity/#:~:text=However%2C%20gender%20isn't%20about,or%20a%20combination%20of%20these.

Lots and lots of websites say the same. Of course only sex matters in medical terms, so perhaps they should just say sex rather than having a much, much bigger form. The other problem with using 'gender' these days is that people will be confused about what it means. Not so with sex.

I feel gender is an irrelevant question on a medical form. They may as well ask what your favourite colour is.

Completely understand there are lots of genders but on a medical form wether it says sex or gender people will know (yes they might not agree with the term gender but obviously some forms have that) but when it comes down to it people will know they mean male or female at birth.

Completely understand there are lots of genders but on a medical form wether it says sex or gender people will know (yes they might not agree with the term gender but obviously some forms have that) but when it comes down to it people will know they mean male or female at birth.

You think?

Why then has a prominent TW declared themself as female and done so in a hospital when they are in fact born male?

Surely if more women get positive tests for prostrate cancer there’s a bit of an issue though…

You could direct the organisation to the recently updated guidance for the Public Sector Equality Duty which states:

”Someone has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if they are proposing to undergo, are undergoing or have undergone a process or part of a process to reassign their sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex. Authorities should take care to undertake their assessment by reference to the protected characteristics set out in the act. They should not use concepts such as gender or gender identity, which are not encoded in the act and can be understood in different ways.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-sector-equality-duty-guidance-for-public-authorities/public-sector-equality-duty-guidance-for-public-authorities#background

Right, so they need to be clear whether they're asking about sex (set at conception, can never change) or gender (which not everyone has and may change between filling in the form and pressing the send button).