Region orders new draft of LGBTQ+ health handbook

The regional council in the Region of Southern Denmark has voted to draw up a new version of its LGBTQ+ handbook for healthcare staff after a heated debate, DR reports.

The handbook is intended to support staff when they meet LGBTQ+ people. It includes examples of gender-neutral pronouns such as “hen” and “they/them”.

A right-wing majority backed the new draft. Venstre politician Pernelle Jensen, who proposed the change, argued that the handbook in its current form required staff to use specific terminology. “You cannot be assigned a gender at birth, as the handbook says. Either you are a girl or a boy,” she said.

Mette With Hagensen, a Social Democrat and deputy chair of the council, opposed changing the handbook. “I need to digest the view of humanity expressed there,” she said. She argued that healthcare should make room for differences and meet people’s actual needs.

The matter came back to the council after a majority of right-wing parties on the region’s executive committee rejected the first draft. Left-wing members used their right to require the full council to consider it.

During the debate, Enhedslisten council member Martin Schmidt Konradsen said work to make patients feel safe was giving way to arguments about “woke” and “identity politics”. Danmarksdemokraterne member Carsten Sørensen argued that there were only two sexes, saying: “Either you can become pregnant, or you cannot.”

Trans man Theo Kruse, who helped prepare the handbook, asked what medical or scientific evidence the executive committee had relied on in concluding that there were only two sexes. Council chair Bo Libergreen of Venstre replied that, to his knowledge, the committee had based its view on biology textbooks and the education its members had received.