For epidemiological reasons
In a public post in a public Facebook group, a discussion of what to tell contact tracers.
Layperson looking for feedback. So I am in training to be a contact tracer, I have a trans family member so I escalated the way we were initially asking these questions. For epidemiological reasons we are required to ask for the following information:
Sex at birth
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
I have now been asked to create the verbatim myself that will go out to all the trainers for current and future training. The reason for this post is I am hoping to hear what would be prefered in terms of the verbiage for how a tracer would ask for that info.
Preferred meaning what? The goal here is getting accurate information. The goal is not flattering the feelings of people who think they have bespoke genders. This is a pandemic, people, not a meeting of the Self-obsessed Society.
But sure enough – the third reply proudly announces a policy of not telling the truth.
Speaking as a layperson, quite frankly regardless of the method used, if someone came to me asking me these questions, I’m going to give you answers to those that Will probably make those data points irrelevant. I would flat out refuse to answer any questions about my sexual orientation, and I’m going to match my sex at birth to my gender identity Because there’s no way I’m outing myself to you. It’s nothing personal to the contract [sic] tracer, but I don’t know them, and I don’t know what’s being done with this *public* data on the back end, and I don’t want anything to come around and bite me later with someone who might decide to misgender me in the current political climate. I despise the idea that some researcher somewhere will decide to use my sex and birth information to make decisions about what data set I belong in which may or may not be actually medically accurate depending which transition steps I may or may not have done. As a contract [sic] tracer, you’re not my doctor; I have no personal relationship with you. Thus, I have no vested interest in giving you accurate answers to these questions.
16 likes and loves; no dissents.
We’re doomed.
If I understand this part correctly, a transgender person believes that whether or not they’re on hormones or have had various surgeries is going to change their biological reaction to a virus. I suppose this could, in theory, be a bit true. I don’t know. So then, in the name of accuracy, they’re going to give answers which ensure that any changes their immune system has undergone due to massive amounts of testosterone or what have you will be ignored. They’re in charge of being inaccurate, thank you very much.
Every little aspect of this response is silly.
This quote is from behind a paywall at the Toronto Star, September 1st, 2020:
“Alex Abramovich, a scientist at CAMH’s Institute for Mental Health Policy Research and lead author of the study, said his research on trans health is the largest of its kind in Canada. This is partly because it’s difficult to identify trans patients, as primary health-care providers like family doctors and hospitals do not collect specific data on them and instead classify patients by the gender listed on their health card.
“Trans people are often left out and are made invisible in most of the research,” Abramovich said, adding this has contributed to limited information about transgender health, and as a result, a failure to address health concerns unique to trans individuals.” (Emphasis added.)
Transpeople seem to want to make themselves invisible.
And then blame transphobia for their invisibility.
Well if TWAW, then the goal, it would seem to me, is that they are just women, thus making themselves no longer trans. The genderfeelz word-salad magic is just supposed to be that strong, physical reality be damned. That, and the surgeries, hormones, the wardrobe, and the performance. Self ID allows those who really believe in mind over matter to dispense with all of that if they want to.
YNnB, maybe that’s part of it. Being a woman often entails being invisible, so to be a woman, they must become invisible.
As a Biologist, I cannot say enough how extremely dangerous this attitude can be. Right now the trans community is small enough they won’t likely make a huge difference in the overall database, but if there is something about being on hormones characteristic of the opposite sex that makes you higher risk, that will be missed. Meaning they are doing more harm to the trans community than to the rest of us. If the numbers of people refusing to cooperate on questions of their sex, it could become harmful to the rest of us, as well.
The problem is that there are two major subsets of trans people.
Old-school transsexuals largely want to blend in with their “assumed” sex as a means to mitigate the dysphoria associated with gender identity disorder. That’s kind of the point of all the effort put into transition, right? So this subset only wants visibility insofar as is necessary to guarantee fair treatment.
The new, umbrella transgender types are different. They don’t like the “transmedicalists” and “truscum”. For this group, blending in is not the goal, because they’re not trying to mitigate psychological suffering. They’re trying to get off. For some, this is a literal paraphilia. For others, it’s purely social, and being “trans” is a ticket to being special. Invisibility is antithetical to both, so this subset wants to maximize visibility and thus specialness.