The de-sexing of medical language is perpetuating anti-women bias in research and putting transgender patients’ safety at greater risk, a group of clinicians and researchers have told the NHMRC.

The 120-strong group, led by Dr Karleen Gribble (PhD) from the Western Sydney University School of Nursing and Midwifery, was responding to two NHMRC draft statements on gender and sex data in research.

The first draft suggested that the term “people with ovarian cancer” was preferable to “women with ovarian cancer” when recruiting for studies to maximise inclusivity.

It also suggested collecting data on sex at the time of the study rather than at birth, if appropriate to address knowledge gaps due to the historical under-representation of variations of sex characteristics and sexual orientation in research.