The official guidance from the healthcare system warns staff that it’s “oppressive” to use the wrong term to refer to someone who identifies as transgender or non-binary, per Daily Mail. There are apparently some hospitals that have threatened to take disciplinary action against workers who fail to use a patient’s preferred pronouns, even threatening legal prosecution.
Other hospitals include a long list of terms not known by many people, including “ze,” “sie,” “hir,” “co,” and “ey,” which represent fringe pronouns. The report noted that some ambulance trusts are apparently telling 999 operators that they should ask callers about their pronouns rather than risk misgendering them.
This comes after a group of doctors in Melbourne killed an unborn baby as they performed a hysterectomy on a trans-identifying woman in 2021. The woman identified with ‘he’ pronouns at the time.
“No one should be expected to say or believe someone is of the opposite sex, nor should they be expected to state their own pronouns,” said Lottie Moore, head of Biology Matters at Policy Exchange.
“Compelled speech has no place within any public institution within a liberal democracy. Identity politics does not belong in healthcare.”
The Mail also acquired equality and diversity policies under the Freedom of Information Act that suggested NHS trusts recommend staff announce their pronouns when meeting patients for the first time.
Guidance issued by both University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust states: “When someone is referred to with the wrong pronoun, it can make them feel disrespected, invalidated, dismissed, devalued, triggered, alienated, or often, all of these things.”
“It is a privilege to not have to worry about which pronoun someone is going to use for you based on how they perceive your gender.”
“If you have this privilege, yet fail to respect someone else’s gender identity, it is not only disrespectful and hurtful, but also oppressive.”
