All trans patients should be treated in single-sex wards of their choice, say new NHS rules
...AND HERE’S WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU COMPLAIN
TRANS patients should be treated in the single-sex ward of their choice – whether or not they have had gender reassignment surgery.
New NHS guidelines also suggest that any fellow patient who complains faces being removed.
Scotland’s largest health board – NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) – said the policy is needed amid ‘extreme levels of discrimination and prejudice experienced as a result of gender reassignment’.
Included in its definition of transgender are those who ‘propose’ to reassign their sex as well as those who have not yet undergone surgery or do not plan to do so.
Scottish Government proposals to make it easier for people to ‘selfidentify’ as a different gender have split the SNP.
In October, senior party figure Joan McAlpine MSP savaged plans to allow people to legally change their gender without medical checks or intervention. She feared the new laws would not protect women-only spaces – and women would be unable to challenge the presence of ‘a male with a beard’.
NHSGGC acknowledges that many staff are concerned over the best course of action.
In an extraordinary ‘case study’, the board suggests that patients who raise concerns about a trans person should be removed – saying that their complaints are comparable to being racist or homophobic.
Susan Sinclair, a campaigner for women’s sex-based rights, said: ‘It’s important for hospitals to maintain single sex wards and for the privacy and dignity of patients to be upheld. This policy fails to do that as it states that a self-identifying trans person should be admitted into the single sex ward of their preferred gender.
‘Another concern is the way the policy has framed patients who express distress as being transphobic and compares them to racists and homophobes.’
Ms Sinclair, who tweets as @scottish_women, said: ‘This completely fails to acknowledge that wards are separated by sex, not race, not sexuality and not gender identity.
‘NHSGGC should consider reviewing their policy and remember the reasons why we have separate sex wards in the first place.’
The guidelines say ‘people have the right to live with dignity and privacy in the gender with which they identify. Where in-patient accommodation remains configured by sex (female/male only wards), patients with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment will be offered accommodation that matches the gender in which they are currently living.’
Staff are told that ‘transgender’ includes ‘transsexual people, crossdressing people, people with nonbinary gender identities (such as androgyne, third gender and polygender people) and others’.
Staff are told that gender reassignment ‘does not necessarily mean genital surgery’. However, the policy acknowledges staff concerns about inpatient accommodation for trans people on single sex wards.
It adds: ‘Often, where inpatient care is planned, ward managers opt to accommodate transgender patients in single-occupancy rooms to avoid potential difficulties. Adopting this position as a default is in itself discriminatory.’
The policy then details how to respond if a female patient expresses concern. It says: ‘It would be appropriate to reiterate that the ward is indeed female only and that there are no men present.
‘Duty of care extends to protect patients from harassment and should the woman continue to make demands about the removal of the transgender patient and be vocal on the ward it would be appropriate to remind her of this. Ultimately it may be the complainant who is required to be removed.’
Dr Nicola Williams, director of Fair Play for Women, said: ‘The whole point of a single-sex ward seems to be completely ignored. You can’t have it both ways.
‘Either privacy and dignity for women is important and that’s why they’ve tried to eliminate mixed sex wards, or it’s not important, and we don’t need mixed sex wards.
‘This confusion comes because we’re mixing up sex and gender identity.’
NHSGGC declined to comment.
‘We’re mixing up sex and gender identity’