IN-DEPTH: Transgender Policies Put Doctors and Patients at Risk, Says Medical Group

For doctors to be oblivious to—or ignore—basic human biology, such as the differences between male and female, already has caused great harm, including death, said Dr. Jeffrey Barrows, senior vice president of bioethics and public policy for the Christian Medical and Dental Associations (CMDA). “Fortunately, those very tragic cases are rare; but they’re likely to become more common,” Dr. Barrows said. “So it gets to the point that we in the health care profession must keep track of the true biologic sex of the patient.”
But if in the process of trying to assess and provide life-saving care, a doctor notes the biological sex of a patient—on a chart, for example—he or she can be at risk of being fired, Dr. Barrows said.
In 2019, the New England Journal of Medicine described the case of a woman who had undergone procedures to look like a man. She lost her baby because doctors failed to diagnose her as pregnant.

That’s just one example that illustrates how knowing and acknowledging a patient’s biological sex matters.