Gender again. Sorry!

[monkers]

BK is in segregation because they themselves would be unsafe amongst the women prisoners? Yet BK is being moved because the prison officers are scared of BK? Doesn't make sense. Perhaps BK will finally get access to some psychiatric intervention in the new unit.

It doesn't make sense, unless the prison officers were saying that they were afraid of what she might do to herself given these long daily periods of isolation. The detriment of such isolation to mental health are well-documented. BK is obviously a very difficult prisoner for the service to manage. I will otherwise guess that they used 'the officers are scared' as justifiable concern to seek the move.

 

[AuroraSaab]

So did I say that Robert Winston is wrong to say that people can not wholly change their biological sex?

You have found no evidence. You've just posted whataboutery. I never said it. You lied.

In response to this, trans people who use hormone replacement therapy in order to change the balance of their hormonal sex. This being the case we can not say that sex in binary and immutable.

I'm not making this up, you've provided the evidence that you think is the case today. You went on a ranty episode of whataboutery in regard to use of hormones with irreversible changes.

So if the changes induced by hormone replacement therapy produce secondary characteristics of the acquired sex / gender and are irreversible, can we say that biological sex is immutable? Obviously we can't, and if we can change some (but not all) elements of biological sex such that some people have some secondary sex characteristics that are residual from a male puberty but have also some 'irreversible' sex characteristics from a second female puberty, then we can not claim that biological sex is an absolute binary, or that it is immutable.

It really isn't a debate when you claim that biological sex is an absolute binary and immutable, and then also say that doctors are helping people to actually make changes to their biological sex.

Happy to let people read your own words for themselves.

You seem to think changing secondary characteristics counts as changing sex. Winston dismisses surgical changes as cosmetic. They are. So are body changes due to chemicals. We don't think women who suffer hair loss due to hormone changes as they get old are gradually becoming men ffs. We don't think men who lose their penis through accident or disease are now women.

The fact that you can force one body of one type to mimic the cosmetic appearance of another type of body by introducing huge amounts of chemicals that would never be there naturally does not mean sex is not binary and not immutable.

 

[monkers]

@icowden

I think this is perhaps the article I had seen, it has a feel of familiarity. To be clear I'm not endorsing the organisation hosting it, promoting the writer, or even saying that I know it to be accurate - not everything on the internet is.

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updat...re given a new,a newly created medical record.

 

[AuroraSaab]

It doesn't make sense, unless the prison officers were saying that they were afraid of what she might do to herself given these long daily periods of isolation. The detriment of such isolation to mental health are well-documented. BK is obviously a very difficult prisoner for the service to manage. I will otherwise guess that they used 'the officers are scared' as justifiable concern to seek the move.

Might be for the best if the new placement is a secure mental health unit. I would imagine Ireland has such a small population, spread out quite a bit, that the health service is perhaps ill equipped with appropriate facilities for such patients.

 

[monkers]

Happy to let people read your own words for themselves.

You seem to think changing secondary characteristics counts as changing sex. Winston dismisses surgical changes as cosmetic. They are. So are body changes due to chemicals. We don't think women who suffer hair loss due to hormone changes as they get old are gradually becoming men ffs. We don't think men who lose their penis through accident or disease are now women.

The fact that you can force one body of one type to mimic the cosmetic appearance of another type of body by introducing huge amounts of chemicals that would never be there naturally does not mean sex is not binary and not immutable.

You are such a twister. I have never said that - so how can it 'seem' so?

I think Winston is deliberately unkind in his choice of words - no wonder the trans community consider him a transphobe.

Do I need to repost my words again? My very first post here was #918. It does not say that I disagree with Winston that biological sex can not be changed. Indeed, I said I agreed, and that point is not contentious.

Do you understand the meaning of those words?

So instead of quoting me saying that I disagree with some GCs, find a quote of me saying that I disagree with Winston that biological sex can not be changed. If you fail, you'll have to recognise that I had agreed the point. In which case an apology will follow, or I will have to continue to say that you are a bad faith actor.

As usual the rest of your post is for the birds.

When you've cleared this matter up, you can then go on to show me where I have even mentioned Dawkins because that is another of your false allegations. And then we can go on to the next one, and then the next one, ad nauseum, because I'm tired of your twisted manipulations, misquotes, lies, and false allegations.

 

[multitool]

You are such a twister. I have never said that - so how can it 'seem' so?

If Aurora uses the word "seems", its her little tell for dishonest misrepresentation.

Useful tip for dealing with her

 

[AuroraSaab]

In response to this, trans people who use hormone replacement therapy in order to change the balance of their hormonal sex. This being the case we can not say that sex in binary and immutable.

So if the changes induced by hormone replacement therapy produce secondary characteristics of the acquired sex / gender and are irreversible, can we say that biological sex is immutable? Obviously we can't, and if we can change some (but not all) elements of biological sex such that some people have some secondary sex characteristics that are residual from a male puberty but have also some 'irreversible' sex characteristics from a second female puberty, then we can not claim that biological sex is an absolute binary, or that it is immutable.

What is the bold bit if it's not saying that changing secondary sex characteristics is changing sex? Injections of a high dose of testosterone that results in women developing a deep voice and baldness doesn't undermine the sex binary. You haven't changed any of the elements of biological sex; you've artificially induced changes that would never normally occur.

A man doesn't become 'more woman' by taking hrt anymore than a woman becomes 'less woman' by losing eostrogen at the menopause. We're in 'a little bit pregnant' territory here. This is just wishful thinking.

 

[classic33]

If it's not a medical condition, mental or otherwise, and there's no means of diagnosis, then it should require no medicines or surgeries. We don't routinely give nhs nose jobs to people who feel uncomfortable with having a big nose, nor diet pills to anorexics who need to weigh 6 stone to feel their true selves. Which other condition that can't be diagnosed do we medicate with drugs with irreversible effects?

If gender identity is innate, it wouldn't change over the course of a lifetime. We know it does in some people so how can it be dismissed as not a matter of mental health?

The man who popularised lobotomies won the Nobel Prize. They were also cheered on by the medical establishment as the best treatment. Not everyone agrees with the WHO decision, though of course those who make their living referring kids to hospitals and the surgeons who do maestectomies on young women have no doubt given it their approval.

The current US market for gender reassignment surgery alone is about $2 billion a year. This doesn't include the market for meds like puberty blockers. Estimated to grow at 10% a year.

No wonder some in the medical establishment are happy to see body dysphoria depathologised. No more pesky gatekeeping for those lucrative surgeries and expensive drugs that leave you infertile and without sexual function. It's just elective surgery now. What could possibly go wrong?

Don't feel obliged to answer these questions. They are rhetorical and intended to indicate the level of ideological capture within the scientific community and the success of specific interest groups in influencing policy. We saw exactly the same in sport - ideological capture then eventually common sense prevailed and the regs were altered - and we've seen the same reversals re puberty blockers in the UK and some scandi countries.

Walter Freeman never won a Nobel Prize for his work.
However the man, António Egas Moniz, who pioneered the procedure of the frontal lobotomy did.

 

[newfhouse]

Brains aren't sexed.

Is this true? I’m prepared to believe that it may be hard to look at an individual brain in isolation and say if it is from a male or female, but from what I read there are differences at a population level, just as there are with height or physical strength.

 

[monkers]

The bottom line is, gender critical people love the question; define what a woman is. Yet these questioners can not provide an definition that works in a practical way.

Make it about external genitalia and there are holes (oh heck!) in the argument.

Make it about gametes; well we don't all have them.

Make it about chromosomes; too many of us don't fit.

Make it about breast size; err nope.

Make it about vocal range? nope too much variation.

Hormones? That doesn't work either. Some women have more testosterone that some men. Some men have more oestrogen than women. And apart from that human variation, so many people using HRT for other medical purposes. The hormone levels in women's bodies change with the time of the month and with age. Not only that, but hormones are found in food and our bodies process those, and there we absorb chemical that mimic human sex hormones in the body. Just too complex.

Birth certificates? Problems here too. Some birth certificates record not 'sex', but 'gender'. So you'll here argument about that, And of course we can not rely on a UK only model system. I'm sure voices from the intersex community will heard too.

So in practical terms, when it comes to policing people and checks - to be clear something that as a woman I will resist - who is going to do it, where are they going to do it, and what are they going to be checking for? Or are we heading for a system of pink triangle armbands?

'Lady brains' I heard you hollering today. I don't really think we need to go there. How will you check for that at the toilet door? Vulcan mind melds anyone?

 

[icowden]

She provided the documents, which they accepted. Then she was given the explanation, that her NHS number had been recoded - she hadn't been aware, so was not be request. She was then told that not only were the X-rays missing but her entire electronic medical history had been wiped. The explanation for this was that her NHS number had been recoded as 'not a UK citizen'.

This is what is known in the trade as arse-covering bollocks. It really is utter tripe.
1) An NHS number cannot be recoded as "not a UK citizen".
2) Your referral gets coded as to whether you are an overseas visitor (and therefore should pay for treatment for non emergency care).

I'd be interested to know which Trust it was. It sounds like they completely screwed up their electronic patient record. It's exceptionally unlikely that the data would have been wiped as most software doesn't support that properly - if at all. Even overseas visitor data is kept, it doesn't take much space.

Secondly, all electronic medical records systems should have comprehensive backups in place as well as emergency fail over and recovery procedures. I've worked with some crap software in my time but I've never seen patient data completely lost.

The reason you didn't get it in writing is that it was made up. Honestly.

 

[AuroraSaab]

Is this true? I’m prepared to believe that it may be hard to look at an individual brain in isolation and say if it is from a male or female, but from what I read there are differences at a population level, just as there are with height or physical strength.

There are differences in brain volume/size but as I understand it no conclusive proof of there being a 'male' type brain and a 'female' type brain in terms of thinking and cognition. Any discernible differences can be accounted for by socialisation and there are as many differences between any individual brains as between men and women's brains.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...ng-the-myth-of-the-gendered-brain-gina-rippon

Obviously research is made tricky by the fact that you can't really go round scanning baby and children's brains.

(Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen thinks there are M and F differences and thinks autism is a sign of an extreme male brain. Good discussion somewhere on You Tube between him and Gina Ripon).

 

[monkers]

Is this true? I’m prepared to believe that it may be hard to look at an individual brain in isolation and say if it is from a male or female, but from what I read there are differences at a population level, just as there are with height or physical strength.

It must be true, I've seen it on Doc Martin. One bloke ended up with boobs, and another became super-aggressive.

As it happens the net is quite helpful ...


The potential side effects of testosterone supplements include:

• Hair loss.
• Male breast enlargement.
• Acne.
• Testicular atrophy.
• Prostate enlargement.
• Loss of libido.
• Increased aggression.
• Infertility.

Side effects of hormone therapy in men (female sex hormones)

• Tiredness. You may feel more tired when you are taking hormone therapy. ...
• Problems getting an erection (impotence) ...
• Hot flushes and sweating. ...
• Breast tenderness (gynaecomastia) ...
• Pain from tumour flare. ...
• Weight gain. ...
• Memory problems. ...
• Mood swings and depression.

So there are documented side effects of using sex hormones including effects on mental activity.

So many strange effects from what we eat and do. Oh and we mustn't forget tight underpants, they can turn a red-blooded man gay you know.

Also do you know that the love of antiques does not in itself make you gay, but it may make you buy curios.

 

[monkers]

This is what is known in the trade as arse-covering bollocks. It really is utter tripe.
1) An NHS number cannot be recoded as "not a UK citizen".
2) Your referral gets coded as to whether you are an overseas visitor (and therefore should pay for treatment for non emergency care).

I'd be interested to know which Trust it was. It sounds like they completely screwed up their electronic patient record. It's exceptionally unlikely that the data would have been wiped as most software doesn't support that properly - if at all. Even overseas visitor data is kept, it doesn't take much space.

Secondly, all electronic medical records systems should have comprehensive backups in place as well as emergency fail over and recovery procedures. I've worked with some crap software in my time but I've never seen patient data completely lost.

The reason you didn't get it in writing is that it was made up. Honestly.

Thanks for this, there's almost some reassurance there, but if not 'wiped' but somehow still not accessible, that ain't a whole lot better.

N is at home with me now, she is saying that they said it was because her NHS number had been coded with a '4'. I'm just asking her for the invoice if she still has it.

 

[icowden]

I think this is perhaps the article I had seen, it has a feel of familiarity. To be clear I'm not endorsing the organisation hosting it, promoting the writer, or even saying that I know it to be accurate - not everything on the internet is.

Actually that's a pretty good article but it's mostly concerned with patient matching and not patient records.
It's exactly right that PDS used to require dob / gender / surname or NHS number but...

If you didn't get a match you could do an advanced search that didn't require gender. I suspect that wasn't baked into the crappy software used for Covid admin and they got away without doing full PDS certification (there are different levels of certification - at basic level you don't get advanced matching and you cannot update demographics).

I also entirely agree that the gender isn't really that important for matching. Programmatically when we do identity matching we usually want a match on at least two of DOB, Surname, Gender and Postcode. Gender helps as it eliminates about 50% of the possible matches.

Matching is just an academic exercise. What actually matters for your healthcare is your recorded Gender based on your biological phenotype. A doctor doesn't care if you are Frank or Betty, they care about what's inside you and that when they give you medicine they aren't going to overdose you or give you a medication that might kill you because you aren't the appropriate gender. Additionally it's a waste of resources to invite transwomen for cervical smears (for example).

And as I say - once you get that new record it's a lot harder than you think to populate it with the relevant details of your old record which is now closed. Your doctor(s) will no longer see it unless you point it out to them.