“biological sex” does jack shit at telling a doctor what a trans person’s biological characteristics are. It’s a dogwhistle used to imply that trans women have the same violent sexual tendencies as many cis men.
Comment on Why do we need legal genders at all?
Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
Medical issues.
Men and women have different anatomy and needs. Kmowing your biological sex for medical reasons is kinda important.
Witchfire@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
- you’re trans
- you’re involved in an accident
- you’re unconscious
- EMTs administer medication at levels that a woman can handle depending on body fat composition and hormonal fluctuations
- being a genetic male, you die because you lack the increased body fats and estrogen that was assumed in dosage
I get your point, but it’s important to have your gender somewhere on a trustworthy source that everybody has.
Witchfire@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’ve been on HRT for 12+ years. My body fat and hormones are literally nowhere near “genetic male”. I’d also love to see what emergency meds you’re talking about that care more about hormones and where on your body your fat is than something like body weight.
ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Cisgender women have a naturally higher percentage of body fat than cisgender men, so lipophilic drugs have a larger volume of distribution in women. They sink into the fat tissue, stay in the body longer, and take much more time to clear out. Overlooking sex-based variations in volume of distribution can be dangerous in an emergency situation, it absolutely can result in adverse drug reactions.
That kind of information is important in an emergency medicine situation, it’s not worth pretending that it’s not the case.
peacepath@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The blood group is very important too, for medical issues, but I don’t think it is common to make it a legal marker (such as on passport).
Also, some people are born not matching exactly the classical genders, and labeling them legaly male or female can be misleading for medical things…
Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Lol imagine going to a doctor and they can’t figure out your gender if it’s not on you legal documents.
Get another Dr. I think this one got his license from Trump university
jpreston1986@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Everyone has a different anatomy/needs. You know how many random foramen and bones people can have? Random extra shit that the body spontaneously develops on it’s own for no reason? Most of them are fine, some are not, but to say we need to know if you fit into the “male” or “female” box to treat you is incorrect. We need to know so much more. In fact, I think the mere presence of a vagina seems to tell a lot of doctors “Don’t take this persons pain seriously,” so I think if we just assume everyone is a male or a testosterone/testes-deficient male at the clinic, we might get better results.
Tradwench@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
Tbh most of the medical history men’s anatomy was treated as the default, not much far off from what you’re suggesting. Therefore now medical doctors still have no idea wtf is going on during perimenopause despure and as someone going through it I can tell you
jpreston1986@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This also I think could be fixed by taking a more human-centric holistic approach. Don’t need to know you’re a woman, just that you’re experiencing drastic hormone changes. BAM, we gotta help regulate those hormones. Men love finding out they’re low on testosterone, so they can start taking a bunch. Women should be able to get their hormones just as easily.
Trans people should go to the doctor and be like, I appear to be missing a bunch of estrogen and progesterone! and the doctor should be like “no shit, that sucks, here’s a prescription for them.”
Tradwench@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
This assumes that men and women have the same medical needs. They don’t. Our average hormonal balances are completely different so for a doctor to be able asses doses, they need to know what is the average hormonal balance is for women.
dingus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Weird as fuck how heavily this gets downvoted.
Yes, it does matter in a medical context. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fucking ridiculous and not understanding the nature of reality.
I agree that it doesn’t matter in too many other places. But pretending it doesn’t matter in a medical context is quite frankly ridiculous.
neidu4@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Does it need to be tied to the legal system, though?
Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
Only in-so-far as medical regulation would require. Like if the hospital failed to check this crucial information and made a mistake because of it they should be held liable. Having it on your ID might also be important if you list yourself as an organ donor; not sure if that would matter but it might.
neidu4@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I can think of a handful of ways of confirming someone’s biology without checking official documentation. After all, hospitals still check blood types and tissue types
Lumisal@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That takes time. You don’t want to get the wrong dose of fentanyl, but you’ll definitely want fentanyl if you’ve been hit by a car and broke some ribs.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
I think the same for the donor marker in general. Can’t the hospital system keep that info? Why does it need to be on my ID?
loomi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Crime investigation purposes. The information on state ID was used s as a resource for crime fighting. Once DNA analysis became a thing, knowing male vs female was even more important.