These questions asked by MDs leave sanity behind

How do you feel about your doctor, or other medical professional, asking about your gender, your gender identity, how many sexual partners you have had, and the genders of each — not restricted to male and female?

Actually, I don’t mind, but I was curious after getting a questionnaire during a recent visit to Jefferson Health Hospital. Curiosity is a tattoo you will find on most successful journalists. 

You can see a portion of the questionnaire at the top of this column. 

What piqued my curiosity was the listing of excruciatingly detailed gender selections: Male, Female, Transgender Female/Male-to-Female, Transgender Male/Female-to-Male, Transexual, Gender non-conforming, Genderqueer, Intersex, Other, Not provided.

Genderqueer? It sounds like double-dipping. Is that New Wave Queer? 

Why were these intrusive questions being asked? If it is a government mandate, which branch of government? If the hospital’s idea — why? And can it define those terms?

I’ll get back to Jefferson in a second, but first —

Whenever you think the whirlwind of insanity has passed, there’s another Woke breakthrough.

Like the New Jersey hospitals asking parents about the gender identity of their newborn babies, with choices including straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual.

You read that right — asking the gender identity of babies who have yet to push a tooth through their gums. Here is the 6abc report. 

It’s the result of a 2022 New Jersey state law requiring hospitals to collect more demographic data about patients in order to better serve them, according to 6abc. No one requested the demographic data request to traipse into the twilight zone.

Yes, information about family health is relevant. If doctors know that your ancestors suffered from asthma, or high blood pressure, or diabetes, they know what to look for in you. Family health histories are important. But the questions about a newborn baby seem more like gypsy fortune telling, or a trick to test the parents’ gullibility.

Why stop with gender identity? Why not ask if the baby is an astronaut, a flutist with the philharmonic, a Formula One driver, a soccer goalie,  a ballet dancer? Family histories deal with facts in the past. The new questions ask parents to guess the future. It is profoundly stupid.

Once word of the Woke insanity got out, the state health department quickly and rightfully discarded the rule. 

Back to the heart of darkness at Jefferson, one of Philadelphia’s leading health institutions, which has a detailed patient’s rights policy. 

One portion of which says I have a right to “receive information in a way that you understand.”

I did not understand the gender portion of the questionnaire. 

When I made a request for the information I mentioned above, it was both as a journalist and as a patient. Where did those survey questions originate? Who gets the dubious “credit”?

I called Jeff’s media relations department Monday, March 24 around 11:20 a.m. and left a polite, detailed message.

I called back 24 hours later and repeated the request, and followed up with a polite email.

No response. Another 24 hours later I called the office of Jefferson CEO Dr. Joseph Cacchione, wondering if he knew he had a nonfunctioning media relations department.

I explained the situation, and the information I was seeking, to Kimberly, who was very polite. She said I would be hearing from Grace, executive assistant to Cacchione.

Nothing that day, or Thursday. I called Cacchione’s office again Friday morning, got voicemail, and left a message explaining my disappointment at the lack of courtesy and professionalism, adding that a nonresponse would not stop me from writing. At the very least, all they had to do was say “no comment.” It wouldn’t be an answer, but at least it would be polite. 

In the meantime, I called a doctor I know at Jeff, and asked his opinion about the stonewalling. 

“DEI has infiltrated everywhere,” he said, mournfully.

We talked for a few minutes and I understood he believes the Jeff flacks and CEO are hiding under their desks out of fear, or embarrassment.

Does shame still exist as a concept?

While being stiff-armed by Jeff, I did some online research and discovered that such questions did not come from the government, according to the reliable FactCheck. 

That was confirmed by the Jeff MD, and my personal physician, and the American Health Information Management Association.

All agreed it is not the government — this is Jeff’s doing. And if you thought that Jeff would explain and defend its policies, you would be wrong.

Since Jeff’s useless media relations department, and cowardly CEO Cacchione, won’t explain, I am free to guess.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Cacchione did not tell me, “but don’t blame me. I didn’t get here until 2022.”

The time he references was the racial unrest that swept the nation after the murder of George Floyd. 

What started as so-called “racial reckoning” spurred by Black Lives Matter, soon burgeoned into sex, alongside #MeToo, and then into trans issues under the banner of equity, or diversity, I’m not sure which.

In reality, DEI actually began in the ‘60s, under policies then known as equal opportunity. It quietly went about its business, until everything went haywire as sectors of the American population went crazy.

Now, across the country, dozens of America’s largest companies that had rushed to embrace DEI are bailing. Why?

Like in the reported cases here, it just got too crazy.