Medical researchers say that “desexing” the language can lead to serious medical errors.iStock
A letter signed by 120 researchers,including midwifery professors,senior clinicians working in women’s health and nine women’s health organisations,to peak funding body the National Health and Medical Research Council also warns that blurring the lines between biological sex and gender identity on medical forms and in research threatens to widen what’s known as the female data gap. The gap exists because most medical research has been conducted on biologically male subjects,with the erroneous assumption that medications and devices will work the same way on females.
The letter to the NHMRC came in response to a consultation paper released on the ethics of conducting medical research on pregnant women and warns that physicians are under increasing pressure to “‘desex’ language in research,policy,and public health communications” and that,as a result,“sex is not being accurately recorded in health systems and elsewhere”.
Exponents of the new approach to language say that in medical settings transgender people are often discriminated against,referred to by a gender they do not identify with or are required to reveal to doctors their birth sex or deadname,a name they no longer go by. They claim it is a “cultural safety” issue and,if not addressed,can drive gender-diverse people from seeking medical care.
Governments have made various attempts to address the language related to the medical needs of transgender people.
In Victoria,a course on transgender and gender diverse health conducted by an official training provider,Thorne Harbour Health,urges GPs to issue new admission forms for patients who emphasise gender identity and not biological sex. The Queensland Department of Health now invites “persons with a cervix” rather than “women” for cervical cancer screening in its health promotion materials.
However,Western Sydney University associate dean of research at Professor Hannah Dahlen,who is also a signatory of the letter to the NHMRC,says such terms are “frankly,demeaning” and confusing,particularly for people from non-English-speaking backgrounds.
Another of the letter’s signatories,Dr Karleen Gribble from Western Sydney University,toldThe Age’s Michael Bachelard there was a published case study of a person in labour who turned up at an emergency department whose records said they were male.
“They had a prolapsed umbilical cord,but there was a delay while doctors worked out what was going on,and by the time they found it,the baby had died,” Gribble said. In another case,a transgender man had a car accident and required intubation. The hospital mistook him for a biological man. “There are different-sized tubes between sexes and this person was intubated with an inappropriately large endotracheal tube for a long time,and ended up with serious injuries requiring multiple surgeries.”
Discourse about gender terminology has been escalating since 2021. But a spokesperson for the NHMRC said in response to the letter from the researchers that a revised version of the guidelines would be released later in 2024,and “the issue of language … is being considered”.
Debate over the most appropriate language to use is,as always,an ongoing conversation. But while we respect transgender and gender-diverse communities and understand and support their needs and rights,the move to “desex” the language of medicine as articulated by the researchers has clearly resulted in potential confusion and error,unintended consequences that need to be resolved with some urgency.
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