A pediatrician is sounding the alarm on the risks associated with changing one's sex on medical records, especially for young people.
The Christian Institute reported that a pediatrician who spoke under the condition of anonymity warned, "Recording if someone is male or female is vital in their medical care. Without this information, all sorts of misdiagnosis could take place."
She admitted to seeing at least six children, some as young as under 10 years old whose patient information has been changed to record gender, new names, and pronouns that do not reflect their biological sex. Under the U.K.'s National Health Service or NHS, patients are allowed to change their "gender identity" on their official registration documents or through a request to their doctor.
The pediatrician explained simply that a 15 year old who complains to a doctor about abdominal pain may be diagnosed with pregnancy-related problems. She argued, "But if that teenager is presenting as a boy, you would obviously not be thinking along those lines."
The pediatrician also warned that developmental problems may be misdiagnosed because vital measurements like weight and height are "sex-specific because girls and boys grow at different rates and times."
According to WND, the pediatrician who spoke under the condition of anonymity said that she only observed children whose records were changed with the consent of the parents. However, similar cases have also arisen among those whose sexes have been changed sans their parents' consent.
One father reported that he was unable to find his 15 year old daughter in the hospital after she overdosed because the ward admitted her as a boy. Similarly, a mother faced difficulty in making a doctor's appointment for her daughter when the surgeon could not find a record of her in the system because her daughter's name and gender was changed without the mother's consent.
A case study from NHS Scotland published in January 2020 by Murray Blackburn McKenzie posited, "If the sex marker in a health record has been changed, this is relevant clinical information...Imagine a doctor interprets the results of a blood test from a female patient under the misapprehension that the patient is biologically male (due to false data on the medical record), and on the basis of this interpretation makes a clinical judgment that ends up harming the patient."
The case study concluded, "We all rely on a collective understanding of what 'sex' means if we are to use it to make evidence-based decisions about health. Deviating from the collective understanding is misleading and will ultimately endanger patients."
The case study highlighted that despite being important, gender identity should be recorded "in addition to sex, and not instead of it." To appease the transgender movement, medical records may and should opt to include a biological sex marker and a gender identity marker for full disclosure and to ensure the patient's safety when diagnosing them.
