Political correctness is one thing, but what happens when a woman requests another female to perform a personal and sensitive examination at a doctor’s office, and the attending nurse is a transgender person with male physical attributes?
This is something lawmakers haven’t taken into consideration while states are systematically making it legal to choose one’s “gender” on birth certificates. What about the rights of the non-transgender? Is it discriminatory now to request a nurse or doctor of the same gender to perform such private procedures?
Not Hypothetical
A woman in the United Kingdom recently experienced such a situation. The patient made an appointment for a cervical screening test at a clinic run by the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust and requested a female nurse. However, the nurse who attended her had facial hair and a deep voice.
The patient told the nurse she had expressly asked for a female and was informed: “My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.”
The woman decided not to go through with the exam and said the experience was “weird where somebody says to you: ‘My gender is not male’ and you think: ‘Well, what does that even mean? You are clearly a man.’ ”
According to The Times:
The nurse “had an obviously male appearance . . . close-cropped hair, a male facial appearance and voice, large number of tattoos and facial stubble,” the patient said.
There’s no denying that an element of discrimination in the workplace for transgender people, just as there is for females, minorities and a host of other groups. But we have gone from a nation that protects the “majority” to a society that puts the few above the many. To put this into perspective, here are a few statistics to consider:
- A November report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said 90% of transgender people “reported transphobic discrimination in the workplace.”
- The Pew Research Center said 42% of women reported discrimination in the workplace. Keep in mind, it states “reported;” how many cases that were not reported is unknown.
- According to the Williams Institute: “An estimated 0.6% of adults, about 1.4 million, identify as transgender in the United States.”
- According to Country Meters, a live population clock, there are 166,044,009 women in the U.S. at the time of this article.
Select your doctor/nurse: M/F/X
“People who are not comfortable about this are presented as bigots and this is…kind of how I was made to feel about it,” the female patient said of her experience.The non-transgender people, who make up the majority of the population, are forced to alter their lives, including the way we communicate, in order to be PC.
Transgender individuals can use the restrooms of the gender they identify with even though they have the opposite anatomy – despite how uncomfortable it may make the majority. People can legally change their birth certificates to identify as “X” instead of male or female. If we can select which gender we identify with, then why can’t we choose a specific gender of a professional, such as nurses, to perform private and personal procedures?
While the NHS issued an apology to the female patient, citing a clerical error, this problem will only continue to grow. James Caspian, a psychotherapist specializing in transgender issues, said:
“Politicians have not thought through all the implications of allowing self-certification.” He suggested that if “self-certification went ahead” it would lead to more issues.
Businesses are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. To avoid being sued or condemned as a racist or bigot, they have to adhere to society’s PC policies. In a doctor’s office, for example, if a woman requests a female nurse to perform an examination, will the office get into trouble choosing a female over a transgender who identifies as a female? And what about the rights of the patient, or have we lost the right to choose who performs such intimate procedures on our bodies?
This is a question we will eventually have to ask: Are Transgender rights higher on the PC scale than women’s rights?
