How I responded in a medical setting when asked about what geNdER I idEnTifY as.

It’s no secret, I live in South Carolina in the states, one of THE reddest of the red states, where abortion is ALWAYS baby murder, Jesus rules and he is staunchly capitalist, everything is deep fried and I have yet to meet a single XY that could convince me that he has ever seen a book, much less read one.

My state is one of the states wherein if I saw a male in a women’s area, no one would call me a bigot for pointing it out. At least, for now, although, that’s rapidly changing.

Anyway.

Part of what I do to make an income requires that I have a physical evaluation on occasion, today was that day. I didn’t have to fill out any physical paperwork, it was all entered into a computer by a member of staff. I am unsure if this job actually demands 2 women to be doing it, or if one woman was being trained to do the work by a more experienced woman, the woman sitting across from me and entering my information into the computer was about my age, the woman standing behind her, instructing her, was maybe mid 30s.

We were chatting amongst each other, the speech between us was very informal, when the woman at the computer very carefully and swiftly changed the dynamic to all serious right before she said this…

What gender is the gender that you most closely identify with, at this time, male or female?

Medical personnel because medicine is based on XY fee fees

When I see gender on paper, I cross it out and write in SEX, because that is what is being asked. But this is verbal, and in order to stall for time (I wanted my answer to be in protest, but I wasn’t prepared to do that verbally), I asked her to repeat the question (so that I could write it down, verbatim, to tell you about it).

I absolutely do not want to be antagonistic to women who are just doing their job (as the XY owners demand it be done), but I was not able to let this bullshit go fucking by. So I told them that I don’t understand the question.

And that’s the fucking truth.

So the woman standing attempted to reword the question, mostly by just rearranging the words, you know, AT THIS TIME, like, do I FEEL like I am more one gender than another gender?

So I asked her what my choices are.

My impression is that she was unable to answer my question, she stumbled around for a little bit on FEELING male or FEELING female.

I responded that I thought that there were thousands of genders and I asked why my only choices are “male” and female, that only 2 choices feels a little bit like transphobia, to me.

At this point, she was exasperated, and I do not blame her. Paraphrasing myself, I said that I was woefully unprepared to discuss my feelings, I can’t fathom why I would be asked about my feelings when having my blood pressure, temperature, and blood levels checked. That I couldn’t tell her or anyone else what gender I am because gender is just personality and a medical facility shouldn’t be interested in my personality, who cares. But if she wanted to know what my biological sex is, it’s kind of offensive being asked because like 99.9999999% of women, I am very obviously an adult human female, on sight.

The woman standing said that to ask about gender is ridiculous, that most, if not all of the staff thought that it was ridiculous, but the corporation that they work for (and that I also make income from) insisted that the question about gender be asked exactly in the way that they asked it.

Because of course they did because like 99% of the wealth, males own this corporation, too.

And this facility had at least 20 employees present and I only saw ONE male working amongst them.

I agreed it was peak male stupid, then I asked her what would be done if I identified as a unicorn?

She answered that she would have to put my identifying gender in my file, no matter what I say it is. (But I am betting that they would have also marked me as being female, but I didn’t ask).

So we chatted about it for a few minutes, when I said that I might actually be male, though, because I was wearing pants, but I was also carrying a purse, so maybe these canceled each other out, when the woman sitting at the computer said that she had only ever had one person wherein biological sex gender became a question, that the person sitting in front of her looked male, had many male characteristics, including a beard, claimed to be male “gendered” but whose state issued ID was marked as being female.

I asked her how she handled it, she said that she had to clarify to her, explaining to this woman who had claimed male “gender” while all her documents said that she was female, and the woman told her that while she was born female, that she is now a male. So male “gendered” was put in her file.

Males run the world on their feelings. We are all just fucking doomed.

Jayne