What is official position on NHS recording of gender and sex?

[TiredOldHen]

I had to complete an electronic consent form for DC (flu vaccine) today and was asked DCs gender not sex. Having been severely peaked here, I now only regard gender as irrelevant, ethereal fluff, totally divorced from factual sex and I was a bit flummoxed. I selected ‘other’ as the field was mandatory (on a paper form I would have scribbled it out) and after submitting the form, without an option to comment, I decided I would contact them to point out the error in the form. However, I don’t know if it is still official NHS policy and therefore not an error, does anyone know? Whenever I think we are winning, I randomly get a reminder of how embedded this nonsence is.

What were the options? Were 'Male' and 'Female' not on there? Would either of those have been applicable?

But male and female are sexes, not genders or gender identities. If they need to know what sex you are to administer a correct dose of something, they need to ask for your sex. Thats the point.

If it said gender male or female then I'd assume they meant sex. Gender used to mean sex (probably to stop people writing 'yes please!' on forms.) they are meant to be collecting info on sex and, if relevant, gender identity. This was in Alice Sullivan's recent report.

Are the NHS acting on the Sullivan report though, that’s my question. If their policy as an org is to collect gender and not sex, me querying their form would be pointless.

The problem asking gender is that for me that no longer means sex, it means “identity as” and I feel in a medical document it’s as relevant as asking if I feel someone feels musical.I don’t get the point of the question. I think if they want to know your biological sex because it is medically relavent they should say sex, otherwise they get incorrect and potentially dangerous info. If they want to know if you identify as a trans or binary for totally legitimate reasons they should ask that. For this question both a woman and trans woman would give the same answer so medically what is the point of asking it

The Sullivan review was aimed at the wrong target. Clinical teams may need to know sex or gender according to problem and being sensitive to the patient. (NB: OR logically allows for both)

Sullivan wrote a diatribe about administrative data derived from clinical data which was written up as if it were the clinical notes being considered and in which it was obvious that no-one in her team actually used such data. If they did use this data they would know that you can find males receiving treatment for gynaecological diseases and females for prostate diseases and that this can be found in various data sets for at least 3 decades,

For research and reporting purposes, the numbers of such occurrences are miniscule and one cannot produce meaningful statistical estimates for these groups. They also do not make a material difference to any other statistical estimates.

I confidently predict it will have the following effect on statistical reports produced and population research undertaken that uses administrative data collected by the NHS:

I’m in Scotland and my 14 year old daughter told me that all the girls and boys at her school were being asked it they were pregnant before they had their flu vaccines administered. All the kids thought it was ridiculous according to her.

Honestly there aren’t enough eye rolls for all this stupidity that they are foisting on our young people.

This issue is still muddled. There are two main electronic record systems in use in the NHS. The one I'm familiar with records both sex and gender. Except loads of staff don't understand the difference.

I've had to trawl through years worth of notes to work out the actual birth sex of a child because the organs that they actually have were relevant!

In addition, I've dealt with a complaint because one of our team asked a transidentified girl to do a pregnancy test (this is routine in our institution and is inline with RCPCH guidance). The complaint was made as apparently doing so was stigmatising and didn't respect her chosen gender. The request for a urine sample would have been done discreetly - most teenagers die a million deaths when this topic gets raised. The nurses are used to it!

Meanwhile the anecdotal risk of friends working around the world reporting near misses due to disguised sex so clinical teams not appreciating what the actual diagnosis is and missed pregnancies grows - torted ovary vs. appendicitis, ectopic pregnancy vs appendicitis

www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Guidance.pdf

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/trans-man-found-five-months-142132320.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALcCLrr243JQW2CKE4oKsb_UIwve3okuz9fS7WydcCufC6AedlEPpxDyhCvz6z4P_J__HPlom1QFdfRyNM1_DIeYAnKsMldFAwX_4E_UpM9GiBbx2t-DsULDTZvQ21TOzu4HGWzbuXvgqkVwVBdyI0NeUzXYpqQ7OdUj7kwQtZ3O

https://assets.ctfassets.net/p9eb47dy7bbi/3nM32mBm7XJeM5lfP0CFiE/0ef3e76d5d4de7d63348d79b336d9b45/2025-03-11-incoherent-unsafe-WRN-SiH-CAN-SG-report.pdf

WRN/SEEN in health/CAN-SG report on NHS systems recording of gender and legal sex instead of actual sex - it's an absolute mess and no one's actual sex is being reliably recorded.

I was recently required to state my gender identity to access an NHS service. It was an automated bot that did not allow me not to have a gender identity.

I refused to use the automated service and sent an email to the service so that they could gather correct data.