Health experts are ordering doctors to stop listing your child’s actual sex as part of the child’s health record.
Last week, a father went ballistic in a TikTok video after his young son’s doctor asked the boy whether he identifies as a girl.
@jotojavin Wrong on So many levels. In the words of Pink Floyd “leave them kids alone” #doctor #sons #boys #physical #girls ? original sound – JoToJaVin
Similar scenes are being played out around the country as doctors conform to the new guidelines.
Health records typically include a child’s DOB, health history, allergies, medications, immunizations, diagnostic tests – and whether the child is a girl or a boy.
A child’s sex is important because males and females receive medical care based on their physical characteristics. For example, a female urinary catheter is shorter than a male catheter by 10 inches.
However, health experts warn that doctors must conform to the sex patients say they are — to avoid causing “harms.”
In documenting your child’s sex, doctors must “avoid medically irrelevant” terms such as “male” or “female” and “girl” or “boy.”
In a lengthy study documenting the experiences of transgender people in The Journal of General Internal Medicine online, 30 transgender adults aged 20 to 67 years complained that they were harmed by clinicians using the wrong name, pronoun, or gender marker.
“Transgender people may be particularly vulnerable to the harms of medical documentation given the pervasiveness of stigma, blaming, discrimination, and microaggressions in their clinical encounters,” according to the report.
The report continues: “Transgender people experience harm via various aspects of EHR documentation, suggesting that changes must be made to improve patient-clinician relationships and reduce ill-effects for patients.”
12 doctors who contributed to the report issued new guidelines for doctors to follow.
Doctors must ask children for their “preferred gender”. Doctors are no longer allowed to list a child’s actual sex alongside their “preferred” gender or use the phrase “identifies as.”
Doctors are required to:
