this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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Montrealer vows to continue hunger strike for ‘X’ gender on Quebec health card (www.winnipegfreepress.com)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] -3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure you fully understand the issue. This isn't merely about catering to a patient's preference to be addressed in a certain way. For some, the sex / gender assigned at birth is actually wrong, and continuing to carry that information serves no purpose but to cause harm.

What is the process for assigning gender at birth anyway? People look at the baby's genitals and make a guess. For 99% of babies, that heuristic works. But it turns out that some people are trans or intersex, and that wrong guess causes nothing but trouble.

Don't think that the assigned gender at birth is medically useful information, either. There are dozens of intersex conditions, and crudely categorizing people into two or three bins is too simplistic.

In short, it's complicated. The same solution is to trust that people are whatever gender they say they are, and if they need medical services, talk to them about what they need, instead of forcing them into a life course based on a genital inspection that happened years ago.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I’m not sure you fully understand the issue. This isn’t merely about catering to a patient’s preference to be addressed in a certain way

...which is why I suggested differentiating between the way the patient would like to be addressed from their biological sex, and storing both in the health card.

What is the process for assigning gender at birth anyway? People look at the baby’s genitals and make a guess. For 99% of babies, that heuristic works. But it turns out that some people are trans or intersex, and that wrong guess causes nothing but trouble.

You appear to be conflating gender an sex. Sex is biological, while gender is a social construct. We assign sex at birth, and infer gender from that sex.

In trans people, the two do not match, which sometimes leads to disphoria. The sex assigned at birth is still accurate, but the gender that was inferred from it is not.

In intersex people, their biological sex is difficult to determine and often doesn't fit a simple binary (e.g. XXY chromosomes or androgen insensitivity).

The same solution is to trust that people are whatever gender they say they are

There is nothing to trust about their gender, we can respect their self-identity or we don't. As for their biological sex, it's a significant piece of medical information. If somebody feels uncomfortable stating it clearly on their health card, they can choose not to fill it out, but for the immense majority of us it is a non-issue.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's the crux of the issue here: someone does feel the need to not fill out the field (i.e. filling it in with an "X"), and the health authority is forcing them to use either "M" or "F". They are fighting for that right because they are intersex or trans, but an identity card with one or two fields is not the place to explain, because biology is complex. For medical information, you read their medical charts or talk to the patient.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They are fighting for that right because they are intersex or trans

Where did you get that? The article indicates that they are non-binary. That is neither intersex nor trans.

That’s the crux of the issue here: someone does feel the need to not fill out the field (i.e. filling it in with an “X”), and the health authority is forcing them to use either “M” or “F”

But the person in question is non-binary, which is a gender identity unrelated to their sex. It is perfectly possible that this person feels perfectly okay with a health card that indicates that their gender identity is non-binary while their sex is binary. In that case, separating gender from biological sex in their health card would address the issue at hand, particularly since nothing would prevent both fields to be left empty if they so choose.

As for why it makes sense to specify the biological sex in their health card, it is a medically useful piece of information that 99% of the patients would have no problem recording. Don't forget that patients are not always able to communicate at the time they are in need to health care. So, again, if it is useful and non-controversial for 99% of the patients there's no reason to remove it, just provide a way for patients to opt out of a simple M/F choice if they wish to.