Karleen Gribble, adjunct professor at Western Sydney University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery, has revealed there have been 167 penis amputations recorded in “women” in Australia.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data recorded 167 procedures in women, compared with 174 in men and 28 where sex was not reported over the past decade.

Professor Gribble warned that replacing words such as “women” and “mothers” with terms like “pregnant people”, “gestators” and “cervix owners” does not improve healthcare. It makes communication more confusing and can dehumanise the very people health services are supposed to help.

“These language changes go against the bucketloads of research that we’ve got that show that plain language is really important in health communication,” she said.

Public health campaigns should be clear, accurate and easy to understand. Instead, women are increasingly confronted with awkward constructions such as “if you’re aged 25 to 74 and have a cervix” in cervical screening messages.

Professor Gribble asked the question that should guide every public health campaign: “The first thing you should say if you’re trying to communicate about something is, ‘Who is this message for?’”

The answer should not require a patient to decode ideological language before understanding important health advice.

This is not simply a debate about words.

Professor Gribble outlined serious examples of patient harm associated with inaccurate sex records, including missed cervical screening, delayed prostate cancer diagnosis, inappropriate medical equipment sizing and errors involving kidney function assessment and blood transfusions.

She described a particularly tragic case published in the New England Journal of Medicine, in which a pregnant female patient recorded as male presented with pre-eclampsia. The pregnancy was not recognised in time, and the baby died following umbilical cord prolapse.

These examples demonstrate why biological sex matters in medicine. Male and female bodies have important differences that affect screening, diagnosis, treatment and clinical decision-making.

Professor Gribble also criticised the ability to change sex details in Medicare records without preserving reliable information about biological sex.

“In Medicare, you now can just fill out the form and change your sex in your Medicare record,” she said. “You could probably change it every day if you wanted to.”

She traced many of these policy changes to the Australian Government’s 2013 guidelines on the recognition of sex and gender.

Accurate data is essential for identifying health risks, evaluating treatments and protecting patients. When biological sex is obscured, researchers and clinicians lose information they need to make sound decisions.

As Professor Gribble warned: “This is a serious health issue for people who identify as transgender in Australia.”

Healthcare must be guided by evidence, not ideology. Clear language and accurate sex-based data are not discrimination. They are essential safeguards for patients.

It is utterly absurd to legislate lies and incredibly dangerous to compromise patient health and outcomes for the sake of gender ideology.