As part of an inclusivity drive, patients in the UK are required to complete a form stating their preferred name and pronouns and whether or not they are pregnant before undergoing an X-ray scan.

In the UK, National Health Service X-ray operators have been instructed to ask men if they are pregnant before conducting X-rays, writes the Norwegian Document news portal, citing the British The Telegraph. Radiographers have been told that all patients aged 12 to 55, regardless of their sex, must be asked if they are pregnant, as part of the inclusivity guidance.

The guidance was issued after a biological woman who was unknowingly pregnant had a CT scan. The woman identified herself as a man, but was found to be expecting. The radiation from X-ray, CT and MRI scans, as well as cancer treatments, can be dangerous to unborn babies.

Hospital staff are now being asked to be inclusive and avoid making assumptions about a patient’s gender identity. Patients are required to fill in a form stating their sex at birth, preferred name and pronouns, and are asked about the possibility of pregnancy. Patients can also read stories about people who identify as a different gender than at birth.

The forms, however, have provoked so much fury that employees sometimes fear that their physical safety is threatened. Staff have reported that men often storm out of appointments, and some women break into tears when asked why they don not have children.

Women who have undergone terrible miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies are reminded of their traumas. Instead of just asking if there is any chance that they are pregnant, they have to give detailed answers such as ‘I have had two ectopic pregnancies and had to have my ovaries removed’, healthcare staff say.

Patients with a „differentiated” cultural background are offended or embarrassed when it is suggested that their gender is not obvious. Moreover, many people believe that asking patients to state their preferred pronoun and name has an indoctrinating effect on children and draws parents’ ire.

Opponents of the practice simply consider such a procedure humiliating and urge the healthcare system to „return to common sense”.