Wednesday, December 22, 2021

On Being a Trans Abortion Provider

Medpage Today has this essay that appears to be satire, but is not:
On Being a Trans Abortion Provider

"I'm so glad it's all women in here."

As a family doctor and abortion provider, I hear this all the time. I know how important it is for many of the patients I care for to be seen by someone who shares their experiences. But I am not a woman.

I am trans. Getting dressed for every shift, I put on my they/them and he/him pronoun pins. Like many trans folx, I use multiple pronouns. Often these go unseen. People assume my gender based on what they've been taught about which bodies look like a woman and which bodies look like a man. ...

But what I cannot make space for is being misgendered by my colleagues. It is a daily occurrence. Sometimes followed by over-apologizing, asking me to excuse the mistake to assuage their discomfort at my own expense. It happens despite the pronoun pins and Zoom name. Despite me talking about how weird it is to give myself testosterone injections. Despite the they/he in my email signature on that email I sent months ago announcing my pronouns and asking for some basic inclusion. ...

There has been a concerted effort by some in the reproductive rights movement to make abortion more gender inclusive. Some clinics ask patients for their pronouns and some of those staff members will use them. Some organizations use "pregnant people" in their communications. The key phrase being "some." ...

Quinn Jackson, MD, (they/he) is a family medicine physician in Kansas and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health.

So when Jackson was a girl, did she say that she wanted to do this when she grew up?

Here is some dubious sex-related research:

The notion that men are more variable than women has become embedded into scientific thinking. ... However, evidence for greater male variability is limited to morphological traits, and there is little information regarding sex differences in personality-like behaviours for non-human animals. ... In sum, we find no evidence for widespread sex differences in variability in non-human animal personality.
Their press release said:
The ANU team reviewed more than 10,000 biological studies and analysed behavioural traits of males and females in more than 200 animal species, from insects to dolphins. ...

"But our research in over 200 animal species shows variation in male and female behaviour is very similar. Therefore, there is no reason to invoke this argument based on biology to explain why more men than women are Nobel laureates, for example, which we associate with high IQ."

So they studies papers about insect and dolphin personalities, did not see much difference, and concluded that male Nobel prize winners are not any smarter than women. This is what statistician call a null result. Research looks for something, and does not find it.

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