How to respond: been asked what sex I was assigned at birth

[Needapadlockonmyfridge]

I recently signed up to have blood tests privately (vitamin levels etc).

On the health questionnaire, one of the questions asked what sex I was assigned at birth.

Scientific company should surely do better than this. Not sure it is worth flagging up with them. I suppose, at least they didn't ask gender, but still.... Disappointing.

Just type or write that you have two XX chromosomes since before birth and they remained the same after birth and ever since.

That's the answer I would give, they are making a mountain out of a mole-hill.

So bad

To be fair, given the unscientific Stonewall crap that circulates around so called healthcare communication at the moment, I can believe it.

Then that's on trans people to put their sex not gender.

As there are now 896 genders how is offering two helpful?

If they want accurate data they should ask the right questions and offer correct answers.

If they want sex, ask for sex, offer male/female.
If they want gender ask for it and offer the 923 genders.

I’ve always wondered who does the assigning.

Actually, totally agree with this - ‘sex assigned in utero’ would be far more correct.

I think genetic sex would have been a bit easier to understand but it’s also not correct, as you get cases where the chromosomes don’t match the genitalia that develop…it’s so tricky when you get into it.

I mean, what clinicians really need to ask is ‘what genitals were you born with?’ so people can clearly state ‘male’, ‘female’ or ‘other’. Sex assigned at birth is a clumsy attempt to put this politely, but the euphemism isn’t helpful to anyone.

I recently had to fill in some forms for my 5yo son's ASD assessment. There was a lot of nonsense like pronouns etc. I just chose "prefer not to say" each time. The psychologist did refer to him as "they" and "them" a couple of times, until she must've realised I wasn't some special snowflake whose child's pronouns weren't accurately captured by the options available, just a believer in biological reality.

Sex isn't "assigned" in utero. It develops, naturally.

Your odd genderist language just demonstrates your adherence to that particular ideology.

As there are now 896 genders how is offering two helpful?

This.

Definitely email them. All these organisations have to feel a strong push back against this nonsense.

It's hugely offensive to midwives to pretend that they are the henchmen of oppressive gender ideology. The idea of them having the power to 'assign' a set of socially prescribed rules/ norms/ stereotypes to a newborn and then that be meaningful enough for everyone to toe the line and school the child in whichever gender norms were assigned is ridiculous. No one assigned me a sex or a gender. People have tried over the year to make me conform to their own personal ideas about what a woman should do and most of them have failed.

Surely your sex is determined at conception and confirmed at birth.

'I mean, what clinicians really need to ask is ‘what genitals were you born with?’ so people can clearly state ‘male’, ‘female’ or ‘other’. Sex assigned at birth is a clumsy attempt to put this politely, but the euphemism isn’t helpful to anyone.'

@LaughingCat how about clinicians just focus on the science and ask if you're male or female and leave it at that? How about clinicians do not assign ideology to biology? How about the fact that this ridiculous dancing around to attempt to not cause 'harm' to less than 0.2% of the population is creating an unsafe and hostile environment for women (especially those who are already vulnerable for an array of different reasons).

How about you don't worry about being polite and concern yourself with accuracy?

How many genders?
Is there a list?

Oodles.

And yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gender_identities

Clinicians can just ask 'are you male or female'.

As you note, asking about genitalia isn't going to give you any clearer answers if someone is one of the tiny percentage who have a VSD that results in variants in genitalia.

It would make as much sense to ask people what age they are but clarify to everyone that if they were born on February the 29th on a leap year they should offer the number of years they've been alive.

I would say, "Sex isn't assigned at birth or any other time. It is acquired at conception and can't be changed."

I actually agree with a lot of this, too - but I was trying to explain where the terminology comes from: part laziness and part thoughtlessness…not a conspiracy by a certain sect to impose their gender-view on society. They shout loudly, mostly on Twitter/X, but they’re just not that well organised.

I definitely don’t think it’s the right phrase and when I first came across it at work, I questioned it…it’s awkward, clumsy, confusing and biologically incorrect. But it’s better than not having a question on there at all, to catch those who would otherwise answer incorrectly if asked ‘are you male or female’. (No, I don’t think people should die if they don’t understand the difference between gender and sex).

That’s all I was saying…the phrase is here, it’s understood by most people to mean ‘what bits were you born with?’ and it’s better than nothing.

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t lobby for better.

But that means writing to NHS England, lobbying DHSC, talking to the associations dedicated to healthcare comms professionals…they are the people to say, ‘hey, erm…this phrase is weird and incorrect…can we please work together to change it to something that is actually medically accurate but still understandable to the lay person?’. Heck, I’d spearhead that effort (as long as it didn’t stray into the culture war that everyone seems so convinced you have to pick a single side to be on).

I don’t think that this phrase will be around forever…I’ve managed to get several horribly misogynistic old indicators removed/changed in emergency care diagnosis codes so I know change can happen. But it takes time, and healthcare terminology is a behemoth. Writing something snarky to a company that is just aligning with the accepted wording of the wider profession isn’t going to help.

But that means writing to NHS England, lobbying DHSC, talking to the associations dedicated to healthcare comms professionals…they are the people to say, ‘hey, erm…this phrase is weird and incorrect…can we please work together to change it to something that is actually medically accurate but still understandable to the lay person?’

Lots of women have done this, but they are ignored.

Like I said earlier - ‘genetically-assigned traits’ is a phrase that is used in genetic research. That’s one of the places where the word came from. It means something assigned to you by your genetic coding. Nobody ever meant that a human assigned it (unless we’re straying into eugenics and dear god, let’s not go there).

Why wasn't it always called "assigned female at birth" then?

So even in this view, it's assigned at the point of conception and not birth then? And 'male' means exactly the same? So no need to change language into something much harder for people for whom English is not their first language, or have learning difficulties to understand?

Other than protecting people who want to lie to their healthcare provider?

It's my understanding that this specific phrase comes not from genetics, but the opposite sense, people with DSDs where the doctor mistakenly "assigned" their sex as the wrong (genetic) sex due to their physical characteristics.

😂😂😂😂no it's "observable" on scans ...