If a patient requests same sex care and a doctor lies to them and performs intimate care, that should be a sex crime

Treatment without informed consent can be an assault or battery already. Clearly it depends on circumstances, you can’t obtain informed consent from an unconscious person.

However, if a patient has stated that they only want same sex care then they haven’t consented to a person of the opposite sex treating them no matter how they identify.

I feel really strongly about this. I asked for an all female team for a very graphic gyne operation. They agreed and I met the female surgeon before and the team.

When I was wheeled in I saw a man setting up and felt uncomfortable. He did half the surgery in the end and years later found out it was a male friend I had known as a student who I certainly would not have wanted up in there.

I feel he may have got in on that operation for the wrong reasons, gave me ptsd.

I think you should have the option but it's not always possible. I don't think we have a male GP or male nurse in our health centre so DH would be out of luck there.

Were I in the medical profession I'd find nothing wrong with being asked for a same sex doctor or nurse though it may mean a delay in treatment. Similarly you should be able to ask for a same sex consultant.

Not sure if their enough male nurses to have same sex nursing for males.

Absolutely. Those populations, often with no spoken English, would also not have had any idea what was going on.

Patronising and missing the point there

I've had very invasive gynae surgery which included inserting instruments into my vagina and cutting it open, and into my rectum and bladder. I have no idea who was in the operating theatre or who touched me while I was under anesthetic.

I get that this is normal, but I find it really upsetting looking back. I don't know how many men have touched that part of my body. I didn't know beforehand that I would feel this way afterwards.

I think it’s very worrying that a doctor cannot see the difference between their trans status and someone who is born female. In my view this shows an extreme lack of insight and I would question their competency to work in any field of medicine, even gender care, where they will no doubt be treating young people with autism who also lack insight, making them doubly vulnerable.

A male medic who pretends to be a woman at work and claims that this allows them to override patient consent is not patient focused.

I once had a colleague who had worked as a hospital porter. An anaesthetist once took him into a theatre so that he could watch a C section. This story upset and enraged me so much, the idea that two men were watching, talking about, a helpless female patient in a vulnerable position. Without any concern for her right to dignity and privacy.

I voted YABU because people are looking at the case in point all wrong. The doctor is allowed to identify as female, therefore the doctor is providing same sex care. The problem isn't really the doctor, the problem is the system that allows a man to become a woman and a woman to become a man.

I have said this before and will keep saying it. As a society we need to decide once and for all whether someone can change gender. It's a straightforward "yes/no" decision. Let's have a referendum.

If a man can become a woman, they should be treated as a woman in all circumstances - they can compete in women's sports, go to women's prisons, and in the OP's example provide same sex care.

If a man can't become a woman, they must be treated as a man in all circumstances regardless of what they claim to be and what they believe themselves to be.

The problems we have at the moment is because there is a middle ground. A man can become a woman sometimes and in some circumstances. A lot of people say "I don't care how a man dresses or what pronouns they use, but they shouldn't be in our changing rooms." Fine - but ultimately you're saying a man can't become a woman. If they can't become a woman, them dressing in female clothes and calling themselves she/her is nonsensical and offensive, the same as someone blacking up and casually referring to friends as the n-word.

Let's have a referendum and settle it once and for all. (Or at least once and for a few decades.)

I had a lump in my breast many years ago. The sex of the surgeon was of no interest - and at the time most surgeons were male anyway - but the point being made here is that Dr Upton is deceiving patients that he is female (I don't know if he 'passes' I have only seen one photo, which may be airbrushed and does not show how tall he is etc.). That's deception if the patients think he is female when he is not. He is using patients - and nurses - as props for his fantasy, a fantasy that may have sexual elements to it. And that is the problem we are looking at.

But surely you agree that if someone asks for the option and is told, "yes, that's fine we can accommodate your request" and you consent on that basis, then it's not ok if someone of the opposite sex actually comes to treat you.

Absolutely fine if they say, "sorry we don't have any female (male - delete as appropriate) staff today. How do you wish to proceed?"

Not ok if they prioritise the transperson's right to privacy above the patient's right to give fully informed consent to treatment.

How do people feel about the idea of a transman performing intimate examinations or procedures on them?

I imagine it could be quite triggering for some women to have a male-presenting woman attend to them (and imo, women are generally better at performing/approximating maleness than men are at approximating femaleness). The clinician would therefore still be biologically female, but male presenting. It feels like a can of worms.

He doesn't pass.

If he did, SP wouldn't have clocked him as male.

This is about a medical professional lying to a patient about their sex, not about same sex care being available.

I think/hope this is why the voting looks so bad, because people are missing the actual question

I also don’t want to be treated by a doctor acting out their sexual and other fantasies at work.

Naomi Cunningham is a doing a great job in shining a massive beacon on this while staying within the court regulations.

Yes, obviously I'd much rather have a woman than a man examine me if I'd I asked for same sex care.

It's the thin end of the wedge, because in the Upton case this is a clinician who doesn't just want colleagues to accept his biological assertions without question, he wants/expects everyone (patients included) to accept without question.

Mammographers have to be female. And thank goodness, because the examination involves a lot of intimate scooping and handling. The idea of a man doing this is just awful, I just wouldn't attend breast screening if I was obliged to accept a man performing the examination.

@CheekySnake "Why would you have to establish that there was a sexual element to a male doc inserting his fingers into your vagina/rectum/touching your breasts when you had specifically said you wanted a female medic in order for it to be assault?
*
And how can you prove that there wasn't a sexual element?*"

Because the legal definition of various sexual offences includes not only a lack of consent (or no reasonable belief that they consent) and that the act itself is of a sexual nature. Medical examinations are not of a sexual nature, even if they are intimate, unless other facts apply that make it so. A male doctor performing an intimate medical procedure is not sexual just because he is male, and the patient is female.

In the UK the prosecution has to prove the criminal element

I've had very invasive gynae surgery which included inserting instruments into my vagina and cutting it open, and into my rectum and bladder. I have no idea who was in the operating theatre or who touched me while I was under anesthetic.

I get that this is normal, but I find it really upsetting looking back. I don't know how many men have touched that part of my body. I didn't know beforehand that I would feel this way afterwards.

I had knee surgery and it was an all male team. It wasn't until afterwards that it hit me that I had been unconscious while a group of men touched me.

That was just my knees, I can't imagine how you feel.