AP Headline: “A pregnant man’s tragedy tests gender notions”
The AP has an article titled Blurred lines: A pregnant man’s tragedy tests gender notions:
When the man arrived at the hospital with severe abdominal pains, a nurse didn’t consider it an emergency, noting that he was obese and had stopped taking blood pressure medicines. In reality, he was pregnant — a transgender man in labor that was about to end in a stillbirth.
The tragic case, described in Wednesday’s New England Journal of Medicine, points to larger issues about assigning labels or making assumptions in a society increasingly confronting gender variations in sports, entertainment and government. In medicine, there’s a similar danger of missing diseases such as sickle cell and cystic fibrosis that largely affect specific racial groups, the authors write.
“The point is not what’s happened to this particular individual but this is an example of what happens to transgender people interacting with the health care system,” said the lead author, Dr. Daphna Stroumsa of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
“He was rightly classified as a man” in the medical records and appears masculine, Stroumsa said. “But that classification threw us off from considering his actual medical needs.”
Does it make sense to say the patient “was rightly classified as a man,” given what happened?
It’s likely that classification of this patient as a woman would have provided a better chance for the baby’s survival:
The 32-year-old patient told the nurse he was transgender when he arrived at the emergency room and his electronic medical record listed him as male. He hadn’t had a period in several years and had been taking testosterone, a hormone that has masculinizing effects and can decrease ovulation and menstruation. But he quit taking the hormone and blood pressure medication after he lost insurance.
A home pregnancy test was positive and he said he had “peed himself” — a possible sign of ruptured membranes and labor. A nurse ordered a pregnancy test but considered him stable and his problems non-urgent.
Several hours later, a doctor evaluated him and the hospital test confirmed pregnancy. An ultrasound showed unclear signs of fetal heart activity, and an exam revealed that part of the umbilical cord had slipped into the birth canal. Doctors prepared to do an emergency cesarean delivery, but in the operating room no fetal heartbeat was heard. Moments later, the man delivered a stillborn baby.
A woman showing up with similar symptoms “would almost surely have been triaged and evaluated more urgently for pregnancy-related problems,” the authors wrote.
But the patient was a woman, at least for purposes of medical professionals trying to assess what to do. It was the “proper” classification of the patient as a man that increased the chance of this tragic outcome.
I’m not here to mock or deride anyone who believes that they were born the wrong gender. I can understand why people like that want to be called by their preferred gender. However, as Ben Shapiro likes to say, facts don’t care about your feelings — and biology doesn’t care what you choose to call yourself. Medical professionals have to have a better way to deal with such situations than shrugging their collective shoulders and doing the same thing.
[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]
Like I tell my students, “Data don’t care about your opinions.”
Such a tragedy, and an illustration of the difference between the spirit and the body.
The more we begin to act all Stalinish about terminology and jargon and identity, the more this sort of thing will happen.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:22 am1. And you can bet your sweet hind end that the SJWs will start crowing about the injustice of the medical system, ergo continuing this vicious cycle.
Gryph (08c844) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:32 amSo, I guess all men complaining of stomach pains should be tested for pregnancy? I’m having trouble understanding what the goal is here, treating patients or reforming society.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:48 am3. That “dude” wasn’t a man. Dig deep enough and you’ll find two X chromosomes.
Gryph (08c844) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:49 amOr, maybe medical records should contain information about biological sex as well as “gender” which could be “treefrog” these days.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:50 am“He was rightly classified as a man”
No, he wasn’t. Perhaps his sex should have required an asterisk and an explanation.
Sammy Finkelman (3fda43) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:51 amAs I wrote on my little no account personal blog:
Marci (405d43) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:52 amSex is biological, gender is whatever. Both should be listed and the information applied as appropriate.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:56 am“facts don’t care about your feelings”
But Twitter does.
Munroe (c94699) — 5/17/2019 @ 8:56 amhttps://dailycaller.com/2019/05/17/twitter-suspends-transgenderism/
I call Fake News.
Or, at least, where was this? Bangladesh?
It’s ok that the patient was not identified, but as I know medical protocols, in Chicago hospitals, it is the doctor who diagnoses the patient’s sex as part of the H&P (history and physical examination, no matter what the patient may claim.
(Race/ethnicity, yes, there it is whatever the patient says.)
nk (dbc370) — 5/17/2019 @ 9:21 amWhat am I missing? Dude shows up, says to the triage nurse that:
• I’m transgender
• I’m off my hormone meds
• I’ve got abdominal pain
• I’ve “wet” myself
• I did a home pregnancy test and it was positive
In response the nurse orders a proper pregnancy test, but because the patient seemed stable did not elevate the priority over other emergency cases coming in, which in hindsight was a mistake.
Although the NEJM author and AP author both claim that if the mother had not been presenting as a man, the ultrasound/treatment would have occurred much earlier, they present no evidence at all that this is the case, as far as I can see in any of the ungated reports.
Where’s the evidence that the mother-presenting-as-male made any difference in the type, time, or quality of care? I see only conjecture.
DOuglas2/Unknown (4be40b) — 5/17/2019 @ 9:34 amMy question is, why is a man that was born female and has obviously been far enough into the process of switching sides to become a man is still having sex with another man?
Amy (524263) — 5/17/2019 @ 9:41 amThere’s a lesson here somewhere…..but of course many will provide incorrect answers.
harkin (1aa46f) — 5/17/2019 @ 11:14 amIf this patient didn’t know she was pregnant long before showing up at the ER, then it’s almost certain she wasn’t getting proper prenatal care for her baby. Maybe that contributed to the stillbirth.
I had the same question. Maybe this is a gay transgendered man?
Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71) — 5/17/2019 @ 11:52 amI hope you at least have the common decency to give them a trigger warning before dropping this on them…
Dave (ccbfa9) — 5/17/2019 @ 12:07 pmBack in 2003, townhall.com ran this humor piece about a guy who discovered he was ‘a lesbian trapped in a man’s body’ and was relieved when his future wife confided that she was a gay man trapped in a woman’s body.
At the time, I thought it was a brilliant, if absurd, piece of satire.
Today I have no doubt there are real couples like that…
Dave (ccbfa9) — 5/17/2019 @ 12:36 pmIt’s no wonder that this “man” wasn’t referred for a psych exam… but that would be politically incorrect.
“I am what I say I am.”
Today that’s my first car… a Corvair.
Betty Lane (97c12d) — 5/17/2019 @ 4:29 pmCan anyone get me parts?
#10
Of course you do…
Bellman (c5f2e6) — 5/17/2019 @ 7:24 pm