GUM clinic asked for gender.....

[OverlyFragrant]

Had reason to visit a GUM clinic today, the booking in form asked for my gender, nothing about sex, just gender.
So I did what I always do when asked such stupid questions and chose the 'prefer not to disclose' option and handed back in to reception.
The poor woman then asked me if I meant to select that option.
It wasnt the time or the place to announce my disbelief in gender, or gender identity, so just said quite firmly "yeah".
I'm quite obviously a woman, with problems unique to the female sex.
Why on earth isn't that more relevant than my gender at a sex clinic of all places?

What I can't figure out is why it's only supposed to be British women who should have a stiff upper lip, rather than those claiming to be the wrong sex and having epic meltdowns and claiming they will die because they have been asked for their sex.

Never said to this bunch though:
https://bsky.app/profile/sexabolition.blog/post/3lxh3tpn3n224

The absolute state of this thread is special.

You need to read it for yourselves to see the level at which far too many individuals have got to, because they havent been told to belt up and just get on with it instead of being affirmed mindlessly.

This is the consequences of years of promoting no debate and affirmative only approaches.

i think more @Howseitgoin was referring to the blue haired pronoun brigade who scream blue murder if misgendered and if no one notices their extreme specialness.

Indeed.

Women explaining why they won’t use wrong sex pronouns = “screeching hysterical banshees over pronouns of all things”

People experiencing extreme anxiety at not having their demand for pronouns met** = need to be made comfortable and protected.

(**even in medical notes which are rarely seen by patients)

They are reporting the 111 page for asking the question, so now someone has to deal with this shite.

It wastes so much NHS resources.

If it's gives so much anxiety, they need treatment for the anxiety so they can function like normal human beings in the real world.

They can't simultaneously claim it's not a mental health problem and claim they can't cope with being asked their sex for health reasons.

If there's so much ignorance about why this is important, then start a bloody awareness campaign amongst the trans community about why it's necessary to ensure the highest standards of treatment and prevent harm.

It's ridiculous and should be treated accordingly.

yes. It could be read that way.

Just like the following post can be read like a comment that the man insisting on being called ‘Mr X’ is demented.

“One of my elderly neighbours who we in our street regularly all socialise with & have known for years, expects us all to still refer to him as 'Mr' not by his first name. If that's his preference big deal.”

”It's really just first world problems & frankly demented to agonise over such minor issues.”

I mean, it could be easily interpreted multiple ways.

Yet apparently, according to this poster, JK Rowling’s words should be read to be implicitly saying something that only a person with a very malicious intention would try to twist her words to mean.

I know that previous posters has issues, and have been working with him on kindness and empathy. For today, im modelling giving others the benefit of the doubt and not jumping straight to giving their words the worst interpretation. It’s part of my #helptheafflicted work as apparently mocking them is wrong 😇

Yes Red.

As you, me, and zillion others have pointed out it is disconnected to demand society changes the way they interact with someone to become a personalised service and state it is lifesaving while declaring gender dysphoria is not a mental health issue.

What other group in society has so much being done to keep a group of people comfortable where they don’t have to acknowledge material reality, just their personal interpretation of reality?

Well, quite.

However, when someone enters a thread already showing their prejudiced views about many of the regular posting community in the very first post, I think that it was always apparent that this poster has dehumanised women who reject a group’s claim that male people can ever be female and should be treated as being female.

I wish you luck. Perhaps a lesson in not dehumanising women so those women don’t deserve empathy is just the ticket for the many activists who demand male people be treated as female people.

Yet apparently, according to this poster, JK Rowling’s words should be read to be implicitly saying something that only a person with a very malicious intention would try to twist her words to mean.

Adding to this, of course there are other reasons why someone would twist the words of JK Rowling to mean something that is clearly illogical when viewing what has been written and not even logical with context. It is not just out of malicious intent.

The Chinese students I had a few years back completely randomly applied pronouns to people they talked about, dd's Malaysian flatmate does the same, we all survived this unscathed. Hell, nobody has pronounced my name correctly in the 30+ years I've now lived in English speaking countries, and it's often misspelled (both first and last name) and I couldn't care less.

That Bluesky post is ridiculous. There is nothing inherently humiliating about being male or being female.

Mandarin has unsexed third person pronouns iirc. So for Mandarin speakers “ta” means “he” and “she”.

I agree - hospitals are usually keen to document 'preferred name' but as a doctor I'm not very good at spotting it, but I do try.

On a lighter note, it makes me think of Paddington bear & Mr Gruber - who is always 'Mr Gruber' and calls Paddington 'Mr Brown' which I love

Its the same with my Filipino colleges because Talagog doesn’t have gendered/sexed pronouns. We all cope.

Really annoys me, I was asked my “gender” by an online pharmacy when buying norethisterone to delay my period! Nothing about sex, it’s negligent actually

Are you seriously not understanding that it is necessary for medical staff to know your sex before treatment? You realise men and women differ on more than just the physical level right?

Am I the only one that thinks it’s a tad OTT to select ‘prefer not to say’ out of pettiness? This particular selection (male, female, PNTS) has been on the questionnaires since I’ve been a teenager, perhaps even longer - it is not new. What exactly has upset you about this to lead you to believe that it was a stupid question? Is it not fit for a GUM clinic to know what gender you are? Or is it as simple as using the word gender instead of sex?

Gender and sex have different meanings.
I do not have a gender identity, not do I ascribe to gender roles.
I do however have a sex, that is female.

I would expect a healthcare body to use the term sex as a) it is relevant, b) its a clinic specifically for diseases of the genitals and those that are sexually transmitted. If they can't use the word without blushing then thats on them.

In medical contexts, your "BeKind" can translate into patient safety or healthcare confusion.

Triage: "Hmm, "he" has intermittent abdominal pain, but is able to talk and is not displaying other risk factors for males. Get an x-ray booked and send "him" back to the waiting room for now.

When "he" is a female and "he" is having a miscarriage or is even in a high danger labour?

I think we mostly accept that it is a poor phrasing, and they probably did mean "sex" and still thinking that "gender" is a polite term. Five years ago I would've thought nothing of it.

But the NHS is starting to see things fall apart when asking ambiguous questions. They need to know whether people are male or female, due to the obvious differences. Trans people will have a unique biological state due to the synthetic hormones in their system.

A MtF transsexual isn't going to be checked for pregnancy, but will have a highly likelihood of breast cancer over other men due to all synthetic hormones in their system. I really expect to see some nutter think breast cancer would be gender affirming.

But why are you assuming that they’re blushing? When I was younger gender was gender, gender meant sex, whether it was technically the definition or not. What if they use the same forms they’ve used for years? Or use the word gender so that young (children) would feel comfortable answering. Not everything needs to have an agenda, I think you’re hugely overthinking this and it’s why GC people are labelled as extreme. Shouting ‘I have a sex not a gender’ at the top of your lungs gives the same energy as ‘I am them not she!’

The conversation has probably gone from this point, but they have to do this anyway!
Any medical professional should be double checking who they are speaking to, giving drugs to, and certainly operating on, whether Mavis goes by Rose or not.

Quite frankly I don't give a damn.
If they want to ask silly questions, they'll get silly answers.
No other question has a prefer not to say option, just gender, suggesting they are asking after gender, not sex. They dont have that option for age, name, address, sexual history, symptoms. Just gender.

honestly, even if they had used the word sex instead, you would still have an option to ‘prefer not to say’ and you’d be making a post about it.

So you don’t think anyone has the right to PNTS? Why? Why should people put a gender they don’t identify with on an official form?