New Jersey: Several hospitals ask parents to define gender or sexual orientation of babies

Parents have to fill out a form on which they have to put whether their newborns are "transgender," "homosexual" or "gender queer."

Published by

Alejandro Baños

1 days ago

2 minutes read

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Several New Jersey hospitals are asking parents via a form for the gender and pronouns by which they identify their newborns, in addition to their sexual orientation.

Through social media, state Senator Holly Schepisi (Republican Party) revealed the clinical document, where you can see different questions regarding the gender and sexual orientation of babies to be answered by parents.

"What sex was assigned to your baby at birth?" can be read on the form. The question has three different answers: "male," "female" and "prefer not to answer."

In the next one, parents have to put the gender by which they identify their child. The answers are "Female," "Male," "Transgender Female/Trans Woman/Male to Female," "Transgender Male/Trans Man/Female to Male," "GenderQueer, neither exclusively male nor female" and "Additional gender category/ Self-described."

Finally, parents have to answer with "Lesbian or gay," "Straight or heterosexual," "Bisexual," "Questioning/ Unsure" or "Self-describes [sic]" to the question about the newborn's sexual orientation.

According to a report by The New York Post, this form was developed by Inspira Health, a nonprofit organization operating in four hospitals, two cancer centers and eight health centers.

Criticism was not slow in coming. Schepisi says the form "lacks common sense": "As a mom myself, I know you’re exhausted after giving birth, you’ve got a crying newborn and you’re trying to figure out how to feed it. To be handed that sort of form in the midst of all that has no medical value, it makes no sense."

Different patients also weighed in. For example, Carsen Rodgers, a pregnant woman from New Jersey, said it's "insane" that these kinds of questions are being asked. So did Sandy Anello, who is also close to giving birth: "That form is completely crazy, and anyone who would dictate a baby’s sexual orientation probably has an agenda. If I was told to fill this out, I’d rip it up in front of them."

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