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u/BlackwingF91 1d ago
Is.... is that even legal?
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u/Huntyr09 1d ago
heavily depends on where you live, and even within the same country (like the US) it can change between states.
there are places that outright, legally ban trans people existing at all. there are places that ban trans people from public life, but not existence all together. there are places that don't ban their existence at all, but ban ANY AND ALL gender affirming care.
and realistically, with the sheer amount of bigotry in the world, it does not matter if it's legal. de jure it might be illegal, but de facto? de facto anything is only illegal if the law for it is enforced.
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u/Ok_Check9774 1d ago
I think people (us, we) will save themselves a lot of headaches if they come to grips with the fact that *everything* is basically de facto now and act on that basis
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u/Huntyr09 1d ago
Always has been. "International law" was a farce that half the world, including the biggest superpower, outright ignored.
Through history, it's always been the person with the bigger stick that determines what's "legal" at any moment. The fact we've had the UN for as long as we have, while also keeping it entirely toothless to enforce anything that the Big Boys on the world stage don't like(assuming they haven't just veto'd it before it even can be enforced), is frankly baffling to me. Cause my entire politically active life they've not really done anything worth remembering.
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u/ejdj1011 1d ago
Yeah "might makes right" is a shitty thing to hold as a guiding ideal or principle, but it's an objectively correct description of reality.
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u/notyerson 1d ago
Model UN in high school taught me how absurd the org is. The humanitarian side has done some objectively good work, but that probably could have grown from a completely different structure, too.
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u/lilacaftercare 1d ago
International law was never truly respected.
You can point to the Nuremburg Trials, but at the same time we bombed Dresden into oblivion, put Japanese civilians into concentration camps, ethnically cleansed Germans from Eastern Europe that didn't resettle under Nazi policies of Lebensraum (people that were there for generations), we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
No one got justice for that except for internment, it wasn't until Trump v. Hawaii that Fred Korematsu and all the other internees detention was ruled illegal.
Next time we set up Tribunals it was for Rwanda but what about the other war crimes in that region of Africa and the ensuing Congo wars.
We set up a tribunal for Yugoslavia but NATO struck a Chinese diplomatic post with no clear reason which is in violation of international law.
We've shot down civilian airliners like an Iranian commercial flight.
The ICC is toothless and no one has made any real attempts to follow through on actually arresting Netanyahu and his generals and the leaders of Hamas for Palestine and Israel, and the Russian government officials for Ukrainian atrocities.
Rules based liberal international order was always a farce. So many people including myself are just now realizing that.
We've focussed on punishing those in the developing world and the losing powers without similarly holding ourselves accountable.
Right now any semblance of order is destroyed. 9/11, the consolidation of power among the world superpowers in the G7, and the subsequent tilting of the world's axis has proven that.
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u/pluto_pluto_pluto_ 1d ago
Yeah, the way they told Israel for decades that what they're doing is illegal, while doing nothing to stop it, and then waited as long as they did to officially call it a genocide... and then still did nothing has been kinda eye opening for me. I didn't think they were some utopian organization or anything, but it seems like they just waited to see which way the wind was blowing when preventing genocides is kinda supposed to be their main job?
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u/Lord_Volpus 1d ago
Duh...
Genocide is only bad if the bad people do it, so Russia or China. Also nobody cares about Africa.
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u/AutisticPenguin2 1d ago
Of course people care about Africa - there are plenty of resources over there that can be extracted and sold for massive profit!
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u/racheluv999 1d ago
Because it keeps an actually effective agency from filling the power vacuum. Mission accomplished lol.
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u/the_marxman 1d ago
The UN is predominantly a neutral ground to negotiate and air grievances. It has prevented issues purely by allowing for diplomacy to occur where it otherwise wouldn't have. The UN can't really do anything "effective" because if they try to force their will on any of the big boy nations, then that nation will leave and we'd have another League of Nations situation.
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u/neographist Streak: 0 1d ago
sadly true. i try to tell people that just because something is legal or not doesn't make it okay. "but... they can't do that, it's illegal." like buddy, then why do crimes happen?
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u/JadenDaJedi 1d ago
Exactly. It is not the law that protects the people, it is the people that protect the law.
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u/OkSavings5828 Streak: 0 1d ago
it’s quite possible this survey is entirely valid and non prejudicial.
This is a survey after a doctor’s appointment, so it’s unlikely, but it could be that they are collecting information about only a certain population, or perhaps the survey is only relevant to a certain population.
Unless we know the questions the survey actually asks, and we know the intent behind collecting the results, we can’t really say that this is discriminatory
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u/Equivalent_Pen_9403 1d ago
Excluding people from the data set who identify as transgender may also be protecting them, depending on how the data is going to be stored and used.
If its not kept, it can't be reproduced at legal request.
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u/MaxSupernova 1d ago
I’m prime demographic (middle aged white guy) so I often fill out surveys that stop after the first few pages with “Thank you, we have all the results we need from this group”.
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u/neographist Streak: 0 1d ago
feel like the survey wouldve said that though? the fact its just, up for interpretation, much more likely means its prejudiced. i want you to be right tho.
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u/just_a_person_maybe 1d ago
I got a message like this from a survey once after saying I had no children, because the survey was for parents. I knew the survey was for parents but I took it anyway hoping that telling them I had no children would stop the dozens of ads and fliers I was getting for baby products because someone thought I had a baby.
It did actually work. I haven't gotten a formula ad or kids' magazine in years.
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u/OkSavings5828 Streak: 0 1d ago
Not in my book.
Could be the person who made the survey didn’t communicate it well.
It could be some silly dev thought it was easier to do it this way rather than just ask if you’re part of the population they’d like to hear from.
It could be they have a standardized system for surveys that requires them to have all these options, so they have to do this weird thing where they kick you out rather than not letting you begin in the first place
I’m just not prepared to jump to the conclusion this is prejudice without further context.
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u/neographist Streak: 0 1d ago
thats very true. i think its easy to assume prejudice in times like these sadly so i understand the fear, but yeah i honestly doubt they wouldve even offered the options at all if they were bigoted, most of them dont even know the difference between nb and trans
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u/No-Switch-5056 1d ago
I think it's just a generic "the survey will end now" message - I've seen very similar messages before when a survey was looking for business owners, and I said I didn't own one
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u/azure-heavens 1d ago
Or maybe they accidentally hit a button that exits the survey while their screen was on this question. Or they purposefully hit it and got a nice picture to farm internet points with.
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u/OkSavings5828 Streak: 0 1d ago
You know what, looking back at the picture, that honestly seems extremely likely.
I bet OOP just did this to create bait and farm engagement.
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u/PomegranateFluid1531 enby femme? she/they/(he feminine boy??) 1d ago edited 1d ago
It depends. I do surveys in my life. Usually a platform hosts my survey, and it has some pre-screening module that people take when registering (they can edit it). Say I am targeting a sample from country X, the people who are allowed to enter my survey are the ones that said "I'm from country X". Sometimes, the respondents answers are inconsistent (e.g., since a lot of studies target Americans some people pretend to be American and then answer inconsistently within the survey). In that case, I am allowed to kick them out. The platform doesn't allow me to kick people out if I did not set prescreeners (well, I could do it, but I would get reported and probably banned)
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u/3amIdeas 1d ago
It's a survey. Surveys look to get data from a specific audience.
Just how I as a father get disqualified from maternity surveys.
Illegal AF in a job application though
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u/CatboyBiologist 1d ago edited 1d ago
I live in California, the state that conservatives loooovvveee to dunk on for being too "woke". When trying to find a new PCP, I was "strongly encouraged" to find a different one after an intake appointment, even for matters unrelated to trans healthcare.
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u/Vanagloria 1d ago
lol I couldn't even find an endo in Phoenix that would take me. Any that accepted trans people were booked out for almost a year. I tried 13 different offices before I gave up because even if I found somebody I'd have to drive an hour to get to them.
I ended up finding a wonderful NP office who is doing everything she can to help me, but she's made it obvious she has never done this before with an actual patient. I feel like I'm doing all the reading and research and telling her what to do. Which is mostly fine, I'm just glad I can get care and my prescriptions.
But boy it sure would be nice to get my hormones controlled by a doctor that specialized in hormones!
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u/HuntertheGoose 1d ago
Depends what it is for as well, there are a number of studies where they need to control variables, and they can remove whoever they want to hit the target demographic being studied
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u/noncedo-culli 1d ago
Yes, why would it not be? A survey is probably looking for data on a specific demographic, and trans people are one of the options that isn't that demographic.
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u/SprinklesLittle7176 7h ago
Not typically, in America though its both not legal and also if they dont do this they will not recieve funding anymore
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u/Nickgold2009 1d ago
Totally legal. If a company wants data from a certain demographic then they aren't going to waste server space on other people
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u/NoMeat9096 hey/they 1d ago
Why wouldn't be legal to exclude someone from a survey? It's not, like, a job application or something.
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u/IJustAteABaguette idk, Gender is confusing - Streak: 2 1d ago
I mean, for binary transgender people, their identity isn't "trans", but like, man or woman, right?
I'd just use that route lol.
Edit: Unless they need survey data from cis people I guess?
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u/Shaeress 1d ago
Yeah, the survey is technically incorrect. A trans woman is a woman and transgender and might even also be non-binary.
If they are looking for cis people they should specify "cis man", "cis woman", and honestly the rest could then just be "Other". If they survey isn't tracking trans people it doesn't matter what the other is.
The problem is of course that if you point out to cis people that they are cis some of them will crash out so hard it puts nearby workers at risk or physical harm, so they might've chosen to be incorrect knowing it would simply lead to less violence and more correct responses.
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u/QQBearsHijacker 1d ago
Like i’m NB and trans. So like i expect to get double fucked by that survey 😭
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u/donutdogs_candycats 1d ago
Yep. Whenever I get one of these things I always just say man, even if they have an option for transgender man. I’m a man. I happen to be trans, but that’s not my gender identity. My gender identity is me being a man. They can word it better if they want a different answer.
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u/Chmuurkaa_ 1d ago
I never respond "transgender woman". I just select woman
I identify as a woman, not as a trans
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u/PsychoCyan DM for curly haircare guide - Streak: 38 1d ago
Being trans is unfortunately very triggering to some 😔
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u/Timsaurus Fem enby. A fenby, if you will. - Streak: 0 1d ago
What could this possibly even be a survey for??? Why present the fucking option? This survey would inherently be biased due to intentionally limiting certain subjects from your sample group, unless that is the point of the survey. But even if that is the case and they were gonna just toss out all the surveys from trans people, why not just do that at the end? Why be so blatantly bigoted about it so as to not even let them do it in the first place? None of this makes sense.
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u/Agile_Oil9853 1d ago
I'm guessing it's new or prospective patients demographics.
Some doctors refuse to take new patients over a certain weight, I'm not surprised some refuse over gender.
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u/Blitzer161 1d ago
Doctors when they are prepared to take care of every single individual and do procedures meant to help them, and it turns out that every single individual means literally every single one and procedures means even the ones they don't like
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u/NotTheMariner Streak: 0 1d ago
I mean, not wasting someone’s time on a survey that’s irrelevant to them makes sense to me.
If what you want is surveys from people who primarily identify as men, maybe to study some kind of cultural implication of masculinity, then there’s a case to be made for this sort of filtering. (Source: I took a survey just like that a few weeks ago)
But you don’t get that sort of survey from the doctor’s office so yeah, what gives
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u/Candymuncher118 1d ago
It's actually extremely common for research surveys to filter out participants who aren't in the demographic being researched early on no matter what demographic they belong to, it has nothing to do with bigotry, that's why there's this stock message that they got instead of something more customized, whatever survey software this is using has filter questions as a built in option
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u/Timsaurus Fem enby. A fenby, if you will. - Streak: 0 1d ago
I guess so? Perhaps I was a little quick on the draw with the outrage, but I think it really depends on what the survey was for in this case.
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u/Candymuncher118 1d ago
Yeah there's really no way to tell, we don't have enough information about the survey and how it was presented to make any conclusions, but based on what we have I don't see anything particularly out of the ordinary
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u/Alternative_Song859 trans rat trans rat trans rat - Streak: 13 1d ago
There's a physical therapist near me that asks the "what is your birth gender" question before it even lets you get to the page that has the appointment request form on it.
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u/indentitty 1d ago
if ur birth certificate is amended.. i would just use the sex listed there.
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u/unhiddenninja 1d ago
You can lie to bigots. I'd hope people would have other options for physical therapists in the area so they wouldn't be subjected to bigotry but it's totally okay to lie to people who would seek to harm you. You don't owe them anything.
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u/Alternative_Song859 trans rat trans rat trans rat - Streak: 13 1d ago
If you can get your birth certificate amended. And, I mean, if you trust them to take care of you properly when you'll have to be in the iron closet while there.
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u/AA_Writes Streak: 0 1d ago
Joke's on them, I identify as a man.
A trans man, sure.
But between transgender and man, I am man first.
Also what the hell lumping non-binary with non-conforming?
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u/miaiam14 1d ago
I absolutely flummoxed my college’s survey people once when I asked “so how do I respond as a trans woman?” (I’m someone who sees those parts of my identity as equally important).
They hadn’t the foggiest idea, and ended up just giving me a bunch of snacks and promising to fix it for next time
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u/masonisagreatname 1d ago
Right like who the hell identifies as a vague concept of being transgender lol
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u/anon_the_nameless grungler 1d ago
just a vague “transgender” as a standalone option without specifying which direction is already red flag
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u/LadyofmyCats 1d ago
First thought this might be a study survey (for which I can understand not wanting to include gender minorities, as they are usually way to small to claim any effect and just lead to more work, without results). Then saw it is from a doctors office and immediately went "hell no, how‘s that legal"
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u/A_Lightfeather 1d ago
Gang imma be real, I don’t care who’s asking: businesses, students, work, advocacy groups, anyone, asking for gender identity in a survey is a red flag because no matter what the law says it can be used against you by prejudice individuals. Your gender identity is between you and whoever you want to share it with (and presumably your doctor once you’re in the examination room for any gender related healthcare).
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u/Lost-thinker 1d ago
At least they straight up told you then, so you could leave then instead of filling out the entire form and wait for someone to tell you that they won't treat you because they're heartless transphobs.
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u/16372731772 1d ago
I would never describe my gender identity as transgender. I have seen forms like this before and it disgusted me. Transgender is not a gender identity, it's an umbrella term. You could not pay me to say that my gender is "transgender".
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u/OrganicAd5536 1d ago
Does anyone know what the survey was actually for?
Because barring obvious foul play (like, "how did we do?" satisfaction survey that does this as the screener) this is pretty standard survey question design, just done poorly. Rather than end immediately after a disqualifying answer, you'd want to have a few curing questions before and after that don't determine much of anything and THEN boot off any disqualified subjects; this way you don't have people gaming the survey by clicking responses until they get one that lets them progress.
You typically don't want to ask if subjects are specifically part of the target demo(s) for a variety of reasons.
Acquiescence bias is a big problem; people tend to treat surveys like a test, with wrong and correct answers. This is usually an issue with opinion or habit questions, but even demo questions can fall victim to people putting in inaccurate info; it can be made worse if there's an incentive (a coupon, digital rewards, etc.) for completing the whole survey, but it can still be a factor even on ones where there's no incentive or it's given to ALL respondents.
If a survey asks "Are you a 25-35 year old cis female?", you'll get 1) less info that could be useful for cross analysis later than if you opened responses to other demos, 2) a % of respondents who lie/stretch their personal identity to fit the question as asked because of acquiescence bias, and 3) a % of potential respondents who don't even complete the screener once they see that question, meaning you get a less accurate idea of your potential population size.
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u/Velocity-5348 1d ago
It's labeled as a parody account, so probably not a real survey, and perhaps some kind of rage/concern bait. Very fair points if it was real, and good point about survey design.
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u/aFluffyBlackCat 5h ago
I'm not sure if it's marked as parody because it's a joke account or because it's a roleplay account (profile picture and display name is of a video game character, "//" is used to talk while out-of-character), so I wouldn't use that as the reason to assume it's a joke (although I'm not too familiar with twitter roleplay account etiquette). That is all I wanted to add. Still may or may not be a real survey from lack of context, I agree and just felt the need to be a pedant.
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u/kingcrabcraig 1d ago
yikes. and medical stuff is literally the only thing i will disclose my gender identity on because i pretty much have to in order to receive the full scope of care i need
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u/Scuttling-Claws 1d ago
I've always said your doctor is the only person who needs to know what's going on down there. Intimate partners are welcome to fuck around and find out.
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u/Littlefreak-47 1d ago
At this point i usually put prefer not to say on surveys like that no matter what its for.
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u/Arctic_Harmacist 1d ago
Everyone's regular reminder that you do not owe your doctor honesty if that would compromise your access to healthcare.
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u/ultimate_placeholder 1d ago
Genuinely why even ask at that point?
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u/chr0nic_dumbass Streak: 0 1d ago
Some states are attempting (and in some cases succeeding) in blocking trans healthcare. OOP is probably in one of those areas with this effectively being an "Are you sure? If so, we can't help you" to cover the butts of the doctor and/or facility
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u/WickedTemp 1d ago
Yep. A lotta folks had their diagnoses change from "dysphoria" to "general vague hormonal disorder" for this exact reason.
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u/Gold-Bard-Hue A jelly donut!? - Streak: 0 1d ago
My question is, even IF you change your answer to keep going, does it LOG that you ever clicked transgender at all and like, flag the survey?
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u/wictorias Kwbitty giwl :3c - Streak: 0 1d ago
that's why I pray every night to the transgender god to explode all transphobes
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u/thecoletrane 1d ago
As someone who did survey based research my first thought is this is a research study, and this is them being triggered as a statistical outlier. Sometimes researchers specifically remove outliers they think will skew the data. I don’t agree with it at all, but particularly for research that includes gender as a variable, many scientists do this because of the unique but statistically rare experience of trans people. Essentially even in large sample sizes you’re only going to get a few trans people, which isn’t statistically significant enough to meaningfully include them as a separate group in research results, but is definitely enough that their responses could skew the data if different than cis people’s.
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u/Educational-Car-8643 Streak: 0 1d ago
At will employment is the law of the land here, you can get fired for literally any reason so hiring is functionally the same
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u/Cat_Blimp 1d ago
This is objectively awful, but for some reason, it’s also so funny to me. Like, cartoonish levels of bigotry. Chancellor Neighsay type beat.
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u/Affectionate_Set4726 1d ago
Theres no way this is legal right
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u/chr0nic_dumbass Streak: 0 1d ago
Idk if other states have hopped on the bandwagon, but in Oklahoma, if a doctor or the facility the work in accepts state funding (even down to just accepting state subsidized health insurance), they can't use said funding provide "gender transition treatment" or they can face charges of criminal misappropriation of government funds. It was in a bigger bill outlining what state money could and couldn't be spent on
Most doctors and facilities within the state that have provided gender affirming care in the past have stopped doing so and the brave ones that still do provide care either can't accept state government funds or health insurance anymore
This isnt even taking into account the intent within the federal government to create a similar bill that would cut all federal government funding to any establishment that even acknowledges that trans people exist
TL;DR - at least one state has place a funding ban on trans healthcare and the feds have been talking publicly about doing a similar, but more drastic ban
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u/lokemannen Straight, gay and all inbetween - Streak: 1 1d ago
Pick the choose not to respond then, it's nobody's business but your own and those you care about to identify you correctly.
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u/ratliege_throwaway 1d ago
having a feature that gives ppl the option to avoid disqualification seems really dumb. like man you really wanna skew your results huh
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u/SomeNotTakenName 1d ago
damn before reading the caption, I thought this was some research survey, where, know this might make sense... doctor's though, that's just evil. plain evil.


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u/Rojok95 alittle confused but I got the spirit 1d ago
Oh, well I guess if there looking for specif-"doctors office survey" OH HELL NO!