Sometimes, even the most committed ideologues hit the point where they have to acknowledge reality.
Some of those realities are a matter of biology, a topic of which I have some knowledge. Some of those realities include the fact that mammals — humans are mammals — have bipolar sexes, determined at conception by genetics. There are some very rare genetic abnormalities, normally involving trisomy of one or both of the sex chromosomes, but those are very rare; at conception, an embryo is male or it is female.
These are facts.
Now, Britain's National Health Service is acknowledging these facts.
The NHS is to declare that sex is a matter of biology in a landmark shift against gender ideology.
Changes to the health service’s written constitution proposed by ministers will for the first time ban trans women from women-only wards, and give women the right to request a female doctor for intimate care.
The NHS constitution, a document that aims to set out the principles and values of the health service and legal rights for patients and staff, was last updated in 2015. It has to be updated at least every 10 years by the Secretary of State.
To which we can only add: About time.
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It's more than just the definition. The new constitution has some specifics about the treatment of women in hospitals.
The new constitution will state: “We are defining sex as biological sex.”
The clarification means that the right to a single-sex ward means patients would “not have to share sleeping accommodation with patients of the opposite biological sex”.
Until now, no commitment was made to biological sex, meaning some female patients complained that they were forced to share sleeping space with trans women – those who are born male but identify as female.
Now, yes, "biological sex" is a redundancy. There is no sex aside from biological sex; sex is not only an aspect of biology, it is arguably the aspect of biology, as one of the primary definitions of life itself is that life is self-replicating. But we must also acknowledge the rhetorical framework in which the NHS is forced to act, so we can give them a pass on that term.
There's a good chance that this return to some degree of sanity was prompted by the famous Cass Report.
The changes to the constitution are a further indication of a change in attitudes after the Cass review into the NHS’s gender identity services found evidence that allowing children to change gender was built on weak foundations.
Dr Hilary Cass, a paediatrician, said allowing “social transitioning” for young people – when they are treated as the opposite gender – could “change their trajectory” and lead to them pursuing a potentially damaging medical pathway in later life.
There's a catch, though (isn't there always a catch?) The NHS is still providing "gender-affirming care" at the expense of the British taxpayers, which tells us there is still a way to go. But now, at least, British women, while they (like all Brits) have limited options for healthcare thanks to their socialized system, can at least be placed in a ward with only other women, and have the right to request a woman doctor for what the NHS deems "intimate care."
At the core of this is an acknowledgment of reality: Sex is biological; if, at conception, an embryo receives two X chromosomes, that embryo will be a girl; if it receives an X and a Y, that embryo will be a boy. These are facts. It's good that the NHS seems to have figured this out.
There's another reason this is important: Delivery of medical care, especially emergency care, differs in men and women. A man coming into an emergency room presenting with abdominal pain won't be checked for, say, an ectopic pregnancy, but women must be. Death could result from something as silly as not recognizing a patient's sex — not "gender," but sex. Our daughter, who has worked in emergency medicine for over 15 years, has been known to tell patients, "I don't care what you identify as. I need to know what parts you have."
This new NHS policy is at least one or two steps in the right direction. Maybe the United States healthcare system should take some notes.
