A woman who asked for her NHS breast-screening to be carried out by a female-born clinician was pilloried as a transphobe by a hospital trust

My understanding of harassment under the Equality Act is that any female could now sue BSUH for harassment.

Thanks pencils as always.
I will be Writing A Letter.

When I went for my mammogram the letter specifically said it was an all woman team in there. I did warn DH that there might be a disturbance that afternoon...

Well this is appalling. Given that there seems to have been negligence in properly protecting patient information re confidentiality, can some sort of case be filed against that NHS trust? Cause honestly, I'd rather not be in a situation where we have to fight the genderists tit for tat but that does rather appear to be where things are. Let them deal with some consequences for their blithe disregard for the law for once.

NHS trusts are subject to the public sector equality duty.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/149

I reckon BSUH have failed their duty. This needs to go to court.

Yeah Michelle was youth hostels. You had to tell them that you had been sexually abused 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Absolutely infuriating that women are no longer able to ask for a female HCP.
Why are the feelings of males consistently considered more important than the well-being and comfort of females?
These organisations have to be sued for breaching the law. It's the only way they will learn that women will not tolerate being treated as subhuman.

Lawyers will be queuing up at this caee... absolutely disgusting.

That’s what happens when you let the state provide all the healthcare. Schools will be next.

I do wonder how many people are being, or will be, dissuaded from using the NHS and state education by all this shit. Which works out great for the government, of course - the more, the better.I am actually terrified at the thought of ever having to go to hospital as it is now clear that my needs will not be respected. If I had a school-age child, I’d be extremely concerned about sending them to a state school.

Midcentury the Youth Hostel Association (I believe it was, please someone correct me if wrong) did for a while state that the only way female people would be permitted to opt out of mixed sex dormitories was if they personally disclosed their abuse to someone working at the hostel.

They withdrew that bit after said female people pointed out how appalling this was. Whoever advised them - as whoever is advising this trust - does not see female people as fully human. Or deserving of any kind of equality of care, compassion or consideration.

Michelle - good post

Yes Errol, Clare was asking them to use a specific EA exception.

The reason that exception is there is to provide a way for service providers to not harass women. Harassment is unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that violates someone's dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/26

Harassment is prohibited conduct, whether it's deliberate or not, and even if the unwanted conduct was done with the best of intentions.

If you treat someone badly because they have done something in relation to the Equality Act - such as request that a single sex exception is used - then you have victimised that person.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/27

BSUH have victimised Clare by including those letters in their publicly available guidance as examples of 'unacceptable' and 'highly discriminatory' correspondence.

Through their statement and their shitty non-apology they have victimised her again by once again implying she is a bigot.

I hope she sues and will be very happy to chip in.

Not sure if anyone asked this earlier, here or on the other thread. But it kind of seems to me that the only way you'd be able to request - and it be considered - to have a biological woman perform an intimate female-related medical procedure is by being a victim of sexual abuse. That's the focus of the article - that the situation shouldn't have been allowed because of the patient having been abused.
Do women (vulnerable or not) wanting a biological woman to treat them have to PRETEND to have been abused? To not be called transphobic?

It needs to go to court.

It needs to be clearly stated, that if a female patient does not want to be intimately touched by someone they perceive as male, their right to say no is trumped by the male person's requirement that their personal choice of subjective identity be respected over and above reality and fact.

And that their feelings and protected characteristic be respected while they have no reciprocal responsibility for the feelings or any protected characteristic of the female involved.

That it is acceptable to withhold health care to punish a citizen who fails to conform with a political belief they do not hold, where the limit of their 'behaviour' is refusing consent to be intimately touched by someone of the opposite sex.

That it is professionally acceptable to compel a patient to prioritise the emotional needs of their health care professional over their own emotional needs and best interests, against the hcp's duty of care. And this is in keeping with general standards required of professionals in providing care.

I sincerely hope Spero has time to tweet from court that day, it should be fascinating to watch.

I read this earlier, absolutely outrageous

That’s what happens when you let the state provide all the healthcare. Schools will be next.

I hope this is limited to Brighton. I worked for 36 years in the NHS in Scotland, and when we had these sort of requests we swapped staff around to get an all female team in theatre wherever possible. I’ve done this myself for fundamentalist Muslims and rape victims. I think it’s beyond despicable that the Trust in Brighton are so inconsiderate, arrogant and woke that they would treat this poor patient so badly.

That would be sued not used!

Years ago a black HCP used their hospital trust over an incident where a patient had refused to be treated by them and demanded a white hcp.

I wonder if some trusts are nervous about a similar law suit from a trans hcp?

It's a ridiculous argument, it's not even worth engaging with.

This is about creating a hierarchy of protected characteristics, which boils straight down to the top of the hierarchy being males and the bottom being females.

Your feelings/needs/inclusion based on your race, age, sex, colour, faith, disability etc will definitely be respected by the NHS....

unless they happen to upset a male. In which case your requirements as a patient must in all cases be subordinate to the male health care provider's, and you may be shamed, warned, excluded from health care and your information used in training to humiliate you if as a female you do not obey this.

This is what it boils down to. Take off all the window dressing and this is what is boils down to. It's appalling.

I wonder which races/ ethnicities the NHS believe are responsible for the vast majority of violence and sexual assault towards which other races/ethnicities? If it's supposedly a directly equivalent situation?

Oh thats just dreadful

So my husband would be encouraged not to come in...but some random would be allowed to do what they please

Fucking ridiculous

I've put this on another thread relating to this issue, but I think it bears repeating.

This case - a woman who is a rape survivor - seems directly analogous to one of the examples of 'exceptions' relating to employment given in the EA.

See section 789
A counsellor working with victims of rape might have to be a woman and not a transsexual person, even if she has a Gender Recognition Certificate, in order to avoid causing them further distress.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes

This weekend the trust defended its stance. “It is not possible to guarantee to any patient that they will only be treated by a clinician assigned to a specific gender at birth and, as an organisation that prides itself on our commitment to diversity and inclusion, nor would we wish to do so,” it said.

In a statement, the trust stressed the importance of patients seeing the clinician with the most relevant skills, adding: “We have a duty to apply the same principles here as we would if a patient requested clinicians from particular backgrounds/ethnicities or any of the nine characteristics protected by law.”

This statement is fucking outrageous!

Here is what the NHS website says:

Breast screening involves having an X-ray (mammogram) at a special clinic or mobile breast screening unit. This is done by a female health practitioner called a mammographer.

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/breast-cancer-screening/what-happens/

This is repeated in the breast screening service's info leaflet:

Mammograms are carried out by women called mammographers.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/breast-screening-helping-women-decide

This is disturbing on so many levels!