‘Female’ nurse had stubble and deep voice

A WOMAN who requested a female nurse for an intimate examination at an NHS clinic was left ‘embarrassed and distressed’ when a pre-operative transsexual with a deep voice and chin stubble was assigned to her care.

The nurse claimed to identify as female but the patient declined to undergo the cervical smear test.

She said the nurse ‘had an obviously male appearance... close-cropped hair, a male facial appearance and voice, a large number of tattoos and facial stubble’.

The patient, who is in her 40s but does not want to be named, had requested a female nurse. When she said there had been a mistake, the nurse told her: ‘My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.’

The patient said the experience could have been even more harmful for a vulnerable person such as her 17-year-old daughter. ‘People who are not comfortable about this are presented as bigots and this is kind of how I was made to feel about it,’ she told the Sunday Times.

She made an official complaint and has now had an apology from the clinic.

James Caspian, a psychotherapist who works with transgender people, said such situations would become more common.

UK Equalities Minister Justine Greening is considering a change in the law which would let transgender people ‘self-certify’ their gender without a doctor’s oversight. It is understood that the nurse was allocated to the patient due to a clerical error. The patient said her complaint about the incident, which happened at a clinic run by the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, was not about the nurse’s appearance or gender status.

The trust said: ‘We apologised to this patient for the recording error and because the staff member accepted they didn’t handle the situation appropriately.’