Royal College of GPs forced into U-turn after cancelling gender-critical doctors’ conference

[IwantToRetire]

Baroness Hayter, a Labour peer, subsequently wrote to the college to warn it that gender-critical beliefs were protected under the Equality Act 2010.

She told The Telegraph: “I’m shocked and disappointed that a medical body – indeed a Royal College – which should promote evidence-based treatment tried to close down debate on an important clinical issue. This is not in patients’ interests. Open, academic discussion is essential if all patients and their carers are to be guaranteed best treatment by their GPs.

“The RCGP needs to explain why it sought to silence certain senior medical practitioners and thus deny their own members the opportunity of hearing current findings on this subject.”

Prof Mike Holmes, the chairman of the trustees for the RCGP, said: “Our initial concern… was that it was being marketed and publicised in a way that could give the impression the college was hosting, sponsoring or supporting the conference and having an active role in the content and programme.”

The college said that after CAN-GS agreed to remove the college’s name from promotional material, it “decided to honour the booking”.

Full story here https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/16/lgbtq-rcgp-conference-on-sex-and-gender-cancelled/

It doesn't seem to be behind a paywall but in case it disappears it has been archived https://archive.ph/rJjsH

Really annoying, given that gender is a purely social construct. The fact that organisations are asking for ‘gender’ instead of ‘sex’ shows how far this toxic culture has gone.

30 years ago I was an NQT. I was asked by a 9yr old the difference between sex and gender. I said one I thought one was used a lot in grammar and that perhaps one was a noun and the other a verb/activity. I was totally wrong. But it wasn’t that clear cut even then.

The implication here is that sex and gender are the same thing.

Well obviously as that was the whole point of the Act!!!!!!!

The problem was that many of us weren't really aware of this act, or had taken into account the consequences of it.

It just shows that over the years the queer agenda has been working to change language to suit end game.

And as we know, that when it was as it were staring us in the face, with the proposed changes women and same sex attracted people mounted a campaign to stop self ID.

And yes it is a real shame the GRA wasn't better scrutinised, but admittedly even those invovled thought it would only ever applly to a small group.

Not become the trojan horse to permeate society as a whole with gender queer agenda.

In fact I think it was a grammatical term. I don’t think it was a social construct at all.

It was ‘the fair sex’ not gender.
I think we just stopped liking the word sex for anything other than fornication!

The implication here is that sex and gender are the same thing.

Well obviously as that was the whole point of the Act!!!!!!!

But now, everyone's supposed to know that sex and gender are completely different. Why have an Act which insists they're the same, and then try to convince everyone that they're two completely different things? And somehow everyone is supposed to know that these two things are completely different, when even the law says they're the same.

Well obviously as that was the whole point of the Act!!!!!!!

That wasn't actually the point of the GRA.

That wasn't actually the point of the GRA.

On paper maybe not, but I think most now recognise whether unintended or intended consequences, what it allowed (legal sex) has had a huge impact in terms of what are said to be trans rights.

No one has ever asked the gender of a cat or a dog, or indeed any other fluffy animal. It is a social construct for humans. In the past it wasn’t such an issue. Harmless really. But today it is utterly misused and misunderstood - purposefully and otherwise.

Sex and Gender. The same only different.

Depending on context.

Sometimes it's really important that they're the same.

Sometimes it's really important that they're different.

It's also really important that everyone knows when they're supposed to be considered the same thing and when they're supposed to be different. And we should all know this even though it's never explained to anyone when they're supposed to be the same and when they're supposed to be different.

I think that if you stopped enough people the street to meet the requirements for a proper scientific sample of the population at large, and asked them what the difference between sex and gender is, not even one percent would know.

Or if you asked them to explain the meaning of ‘gender’ the great majority would answer that it meant whether someone is male or female.

Meanwhile even the Oxford dictionary, which defines English according to how it is being used in practice ( probably including in America), now defines homosexual as ‘same sex or gender’ attracted.

Among those relatively few who do know the difference, there are TRAs, and some politicians manipulating it in an Orwellian way. Behind the scenes of the GRA bill where there was a disgraceful, highly manipulated mish mash of the two words and the Equality Act is not clear enough either.

The point of the GRA wasn't to make sex and gender the same thing.

The point of the GRA was to allow people to legally 'change sex' or change gender. I'm not sure which because they made sex and gender the same in law. But conflating the two terms wasn't the 'point' of the GRA, it was a by-product.

But people working in the NHS are supposed to 'know' that sex and gender are not the same, even though the law says that they are.

Exciting to see that the in-person conference has sold out despite the uncertainties. (There is a waiting list.)

Livestream is still free. There is a confusing note about livestream tickets but I think this is to streamline making donations to offset the cost of the event.

I think people can't underestimate the amount of general checks that NHS staff have to do under often pressurised imperfect conditions. Having a confusing ambivalence about gender and sex is just asking for errors to occur and the NHS as a body puts patient safety at it's core so this is concerning.

There should be error reporting mechanisms in place to evaluate how many errors can be attributed to this policy to gauge it's effect.