Sex is ‘not limited’ to being male or female, the World Health Organization (WHO) will say in new guidance.
The WHO, an international authority on all things health, said it was ‘going beyond’ the use of binary terms to ‘recognise gender and sexual diversity’.
But experts called the move a ‘dismissal of basic biology’ and could lead to medical advice being de-sexed and over-complicated.
The change will be to gender guidance originally published in 2011 and is used by public health officials.
It is not clear exactly what the WHO’s new advice will say, but the agency explained its rationale for the change on its website.
WHO said its guidance would go ‘beyond non-binary approaches to gender and health to recognise gender and sexual diversity or the concepts that gender identity exists on a continuum and that sex is not limited to male or female’.
Professor Jenny Gamble, a midwifery expert from Coventry University, described the WHO’s change as ‘problematic’.
‘It is a dismissal of basic biology — and mistake,’ she told MailOnline. ‘Biology is a key determinant of health and illness.
‘Not being clear about basic biology opens the door to a range of problems, including very poor health communication but also distorted data.’
Dr Karleen Gribble, an expert in nursing and midwifery from Western Sydney University, told MailOnline the WHO’s announcement was unscientific.
‘The wording regarding there being more than male and female sexes is concerning,’ she said.
‘The website says that the handbook is being updated “in light of new scientific evidence and conceptual progress on gender, health and development”.
‘However, there is no new scientific evidence suggesting there are more than two sexes.
‘Rather, the idea that there are more than two sexes, is a postmodern, unscientific understanding that should not be supported by the WHO.’
The NHS is currently caught up in controversy about de-sexing health advice after a series of revelations by MailOnline.
This website found the health service had removed the terms ‘woman’ and ‘women’ from its womb cancer, ovarian cancer and menopause pages as well as replacing the term ‘breastfeeding’ with ‘chestfeeding’ in advice for trans parents.
There have also been concerns about women losing access to single-sex spaces like bathrooms and hospital wards as a result of blurring the definition of a woman.
This is an excerpt from Daily Mail.
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