Noah Knudsen was shocked when a majority in the Region of Southern Denmark’s executive committee scrapped a draft of an LGBTQ+ handbook for healthcare staff.

“It’s a shame because it affects many people.”

The handbook was intended to provide advice on conversations and explain the words patients use about themselves.

“It affects both LGBTQ+ people who encounter a healthcare system that could be better equipped to help them, and healthcare staff who don’t feel properly equipped to meet the target group,” he says.

© Ritzau Scanpix

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What does LGBTQ+ stand for?

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LGBT+ is a kind of umbrella term for all people with identities that break with the norms of gender and sexuality.

L: Lesbian

G: Gay

B: Bisexual

T: Transgender

+: All other sexual and romantic orientations and gender identities

In the Region of Southern Denmark’s draft of the handbook, they also use a Q, which stands for Queer. They define LGBT+ as follows: “Queer can be an approach to gender and sexuality that defines itself in opposition to society's still binary understanding of gender, and that questions gender roles and the entire notion of two binary genders.”

Source: LGBT+ Denmark (https://lgbt.dk/faq-om-lgbt/)

Noah Knudsen is himself a transgender man and spokesperson for Odense Pride, and he has participated in several meetings with the region about precisely LGBTQ+ policy and the handbook.

He has experienced confusion, reluctance, and insecurity in his encounters with healthcare staff.

For example, when he has called to book an appointment for a smear test or been to a preliminary examination of his uterus.

“I feel like a nuisance and out of place, and generally I lose a bit of trust in the healthcare professional, which is a shame because I can tell they want to meet me where I am. They just don’t know how.”

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> You shouldn’t have to cross your fingers that the doctor or nurse

> you see has the right tools

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But a conservative majority in the executive committee voted no to the first draft following a proposal from Venstre. (https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/lgbtq-haandbog-til-afvist-der-er-kun-koen)

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'You are either a girl or a boy'

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Venstre believes that there are only two genders. The party also wants expressions like the gender-neutral pronoun ‘hen’ removed from the book, because they believe it is ‘woke ideological’ language.

That is explained by Pernelle Jensen, group chair for Venstre’s regional council group.

“It says that staff should practise saying ‘hen’ and ‘it’ and avoid saying 'he' and 'she' in sentences, and we don’t think we should encourage staff to do that.”

‘Hen’ is used, among others, by non-binary people, who identify as neither man nor woman.

You can read an excerpt from the draft of the handbook below, or see the whole thing here. (https://dagsordener-referater.regionsyddanmark.dk/vis/pdf/bilag/90ef1c0f-6cdd-4781-adad-4b4ee039bb61/?redirectDirectlyToPdf=false)

* One page from the rejected handbook (© Region of Southern Denmark)

* One page from the rejected handbook.

* One page from the rejected handbook.

* One page from the rejected handbook

1 / 4 One page from the rejected handbook (© Region of Southern Denmark) 1 / 4 One page from the rejected handbook. 2 / 4 One page from the rejected handbook. 3 / 4 One page from the rejected handbook 4 / 4

Pernelle Jensen does not believe the regional council should be the sender of the handbook because it ‘imposes an ideology’ on the staff.

“For example, it says that you are assigned a gender at birth, and we don’t believe that. You are either a girl or a boy, and that is what we want to make clear with our amendment proposal,” she says.

Healthcare staff and LGBTQ+ people are concerned that it might cause people to withdraw from the healthcare system. Are you afraid of that?

“People are free to make individual arrangements with patients. We think they should be met with respect and decency, but it is a different matter to approve a document politically and tell staff how they should speak to patients,” she says.

Pernelle Jensen and Venstre proposed several amendments to the handbook. Now the debate will be taken up in the regional council. (Photo: © Hanne Høier, DR)

The handbook was developed because employees in the region had requested concrete tools and greater confidence in language when meeting LGBTQ+ people.

Venstre’s statement has therefore prompted other parties in the regional council to demand that the handbook be discussed again, and that is what will happen on Monday.

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Could have made the encounter easier

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If the amendment proposal is adopted on Monday, the book could still be published. But that is not enough for Noah Knudsen.

Isn’t it fine if the book is published just without the gender-neutral pronouns and the section on non-binary people?

“No, because non-binary people exist. We can discuss whether there are only two genders, but that doesn’t change the fact that non-binary people exist.”

“It makes no sense to delete them from the book, because we can’t delete that they exist,” he says.

Noah Knudsen has himself experienced feeling like a nuisance when booking appointments for examinations because he is a transgender man. (© Private photo)

Noah Knudsen believes the original draft could have made a difference for both healthcare workers and patients.

“You shouldn’t have to cross your fingers that the doctor or nurse you see has the right tools,” he says.

Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.