Dr Debbie Hayton interview

"Being one's true self" is an entirely subjective experience. Being a transwoman does not make you female. Sex based provisions and protections exist for a reason. The reason has not changed, and so long as we live on the earth in a human body it most likely never will.

So if I only want to employ a female carer for my frail elderly mother with dementia, can I trust the DBS certificate?

Does this strengthen or weaken safeguarding?

As was demonstrated in the Judicial Review successfully brought by Fairplay For Women against ONS in respect of the census question about sex, government issued primary identification documents such as passport and driving licence can have the sex marker changed by self-identification.
Employers of male nurses, carers, doctors, social workers or teachers who have opted to change their passport sex marker and hold a DBS certificate stating 'female' would find it very difficult to respect female patient /service users/pupils' right and need for same sex personal/intimate care and space.

December 31, 2017 iNews:
'NHS trust apologises to woman after ‘nurse with stubble and deep voice’ tried to take smear test'
(extract)
"The NHS has apologised to a woman who was left “embarrassed and distressed” after a nurse with stubble and a deep voice was going to carry out her cervical smear test at hospital.

The woman requested a female NHS nurse to perform the intimate procedure but was dismayed when a staff member with “an obviously male appearance” greeted her.

When the patient pointed out the mistake, the nurse replied: “My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.”

The woman declined to go ahead with the examination – given to women aged 25 to 49 every three years and every five years for women aged 50 to 64 – and complained about her treatment. She stressed her complaint was not about the nurse’s appearance or gender status." (continues)

“[It was] weird where somebody says to you: ‘My gender is not male’ and you think: ‘Well, what does that even mean? You are clearly a man’, the woman told the Sunday Times. “[The nurse] had an obviously male appearance . . . close-cropped hair, a male facial appearance and voice, large number of tattoos and facial stubble.”

The patient said it was “bad enough for a fortysomething mother”, but the effect of such an incident on her 17-year-old daughter would have been much worse." (continues)
inews.co.uk/news/health/nhs-woman-transgender-nurse-smear-test-114009

One would hope that even newly qualified lawyers were able to accurately recognise the legal implications of a male HCP/carer carrying out an intimate procedure on a woman without her informed consent.

I would just like to say that I have never in all my time on here seen R0wan behave in a remotely uncivil manner to anyone. A lot of the time she doesn't even engage with individual posters, instead contributing factual, archived material that is already in the public domain.

Oh, and for the record, only 7 deletions (most of them factual posts by R0*
hmm) on a thread of 400 posts, in case anyone is wondering...*

R0’s factual posts are always a mine of useful information.

What is the purpose of a DBS form? Why do all those involved in working with children and vulnerable people have to give evidence of every name change, address history etc? Show passport, driving licence, documents, proof of identity etc to a safeguarding officer? A name used briefly decades ago? Evidence of a failed marriage? Still on there.

Because of Ian Huntley and the Soham murders.
Because the existing CRB forms and checks didn't give the joined up approach that was necessary to stop him being employed as a school caretaker.
Because we decided that honesty and openness and a degree of rigour about the process was in the interest of Safeguarding.

So much so that, even though the DBS system was initially designed to run across organisations, each organisation in practice wanted their own copy ab initio. So those of us in teaching and youth work and supporting vulnerable adults often ended up with multiple DBS forms again.

And we carry on with the forms and the safeguarding training and open our past up and promise to keep no secrets because we know what the safeguarding risks are.

Being male massively increases them.

Yet one group gets a special concession.

www.ddc.uk.net/question/dbs-process-transgender-applicants/

"If the individual does not have a Gender Recognition Certificate, they should still contact the DBS’s Sensitive Applications Team. If the DBS check is going to reveal information in a previous gender/name the DBS will initiate contact before it is issued. If the individual has no criminal information then the DBS can remove previous names / gender so that they do not appear on a certificate".

So if I only want to employ a female carer for my frail elderly mother with dementia, can I trust the DBS certificate?

Does this strengthen or weaken safeguarding?

Oh, and for the record, only 7 deletions (most of them factual posts by R0 ) on a thread of 400 posts, in case anyone is wondering...

And, once again in my view, there is little difference between suggesting exclusion of trans people from the spaces relevant to their identification, and the exclusions previous applied to gay people and people of different races.

What do you mean by 'spaces relevant to their identification'? Do you mean male people who 'identify as' women being excluded from female only spaces? Why should male people be included in female only spaces?

To quote from that excellent Jane Clare Jones piece which was linked to earlier:

The denial that there is any meaningful difference between male people who identify as women and female people then leads to the demand that all services for female people be open to male born people who identify as women. The current form of trans rights activism considers identification rather than transition to be the criteria that determines whether someone is a trans woman, and the current consultation on the Gender Recognition Act is about whether self-declared identification rather than transition should be the basis for someone’s birth sex being reassigned. In practice this will make all women and girl’s single-sex spaces and services open to any male person who claims they are a woman. That this is wide-open for abuse by predatory men and paedophiles should be evident to anyone who has not pickled their brain in an enormous vat of trans ideology.

Robin, since you support this idea that the only difference between men and women is how they 'identify', please explain how you will prevent abuse by predatory men and paedophiles who claim to have a 'female gender identity'.

If the DBS system is flawed, it is no more flawed for trans people than for anyone else.

Well, it is, because they can conceal their actual sex. Which means that men are treated as women. Can you not see the problem here?

Men can get clearance to work with vulnerable girls and women in posts which only women should hold.

It's not trans people who are the problem, it's men.

I find it very hard to believe that young people just entering the legal profession will get through their entire lives thinking absolutely everything should be mixed sex, no matter what. Once they see how the world actually works, I’m sure they’ll see that the “gender critical” position is not some position of extremism that certain people might be telling them.

And luckily legislation is passed by Parliament and its members, who also know how the world works and are beholden to their electorate, so these young people entering the law profession only have to practise the law as written, and won’t be changing it to fit their current ideology.

Any answer on what to do for those who don’t self-declare their past for DBS checks? Or is this another example of how questions go unanswered by Robin?

A trans person is checked just as effectively as anyone else, the only difference being that part of that check is concealed from the employer to preserve previous gender identity.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'preserve' here, but are you saying that the person's actual sex, as observed at birth, is concealed from the employer? That is what concerns us.

So a man who 'identifies as' a woman can conceal the fact that he is male from his employer. Is this how a transwoman in Scotland came to be manager of a rape crisis centre, a post which was only supposed to go to a person born female?

So, Robin Moira, I ask you again - how do we square this circle?

You need to be included into female single sex spaces because inclusion matters. I need to not have male people in my single sex spaces, regardless of how they identify, because some male people seek to harm female people, and three women a week are murdered by male people.

If you get what you need, I don't get what I need. If you don't get what you need you might feel distressed, if I don't get what I need then I might be murdered.

What is the solution?

"I am priviledged to spend time with those entering the legal profession, now 30 plus years younger than me, and they regard the gender critical position as odd and out-dated. And they are the future."

Actually the children being experimented now are the future and they are going to be very, very angry when they realise that those entering the legal profession now did not protect them.

And, once again in my view, there is little difference between suggesting exclusion of trans people from the spaces relevant to their identification, and the exclusions previous applied to gay people and people of different races.

Male people commit 98% of all sex offences and around 90% of all violent offences, Robin. Not gay people. Not people of certain races. It's male people.

Hence sex segregation. Not sexual orientation segregation or race segregation, or gender segregation.

It's based on straight forward statistical risk assessment.

Not 'hate'.

The 'hate' and the 'rants' come thick and fast on these threads and keep Mumsnet moderators busy in removing them.

And, once again in my view, there is little difference between suggesting exclusion of trans people from the spaces relevant to their identification, and the exclusions previous applied to gay people and people of different races. The only real difference is the 25 years' journey into the future that will mean that understanding and acceptance of trans people for who they are will be commonplace. I am priviledged to spend time with those entering the legal profession, now 30 plus years younger than me, and they regard the gender critical position as odd and out-dated. And they are the future.

I am tired beyond belief of the nasty, nasty suggestions that trans people as a class are a threat to others. We arent. I am old enough to remember exactly that being said about gay people 25 years ago.

Please stop calling us nasty Robin, it really isn't warranted. We have said many many times, it isn't trans people as such that are a threat, it is male people. Giving male people access to female single sex spaces on their own declaration introduces risk to women's safety and excludes some women from their own spaces.

We are not 'hating' anyone or 'ranting', we are trying to protect our legally defined single sex spaces, provisions and sports.

I am also old enough to remember that our wish to protect female single sex spaces is not the same as homophobia.

A trans person is checked just as effectively as anyone else, the only difference being that part of that check is concealed from the employer to preserve previous gender identity. An unexplained peiod would result in a qualified clearance (i.e. a failure) just as for anyone else.

If the DBS system is flawed, it is no more flawed for trans people than for anyone else.

I am tired beyond belief of the nasty, nasty suggestions that trans people as a class are a threat to others. We arent. I am old enough to remember exactly that being said about gay people 25 years ago.

Time to move on from finding reasons to hate.

Thank you R0wantrees, it seems that Robin is over-optimistic in thinking that sensible thought processes that prioritise safeguarding have taken place when formulating this policy.

I must admit I too used to assume that the people in charge had rigorous and robust processes for eliminating weak points in their policies in general.

Sadly I have since been disabused of that notion.

Most people, most male people will not be predators but allowing any group of people to disregard rules such as respecting single sex spaces or proper DBS checks increases the risk of a problem. Allowing a group of people exemptions based on self declaration is a reckless approach.

The DBS 'sensitive' process is for those adults who 'self identify' as transgender:
www.gov.uk/guidance/transgender-applications

Any DBS certificate issued where an applicant has availed themselves of this option would show female or male as per self-identified gender identity as opposed to sex (legal or biological).
The employer/ potential employer is not advised that the applicant has used this process or of those previous names which indicate sex.

You can buy a letter from Gendergp to change sex marker and name on passport, and driving licence follows and the passport office and the DVLA don’t hold info on who has done this.

I’m glad you follow the rules Robin, many won’t.

We know that unfortunately there are male teachers who are sexual predators.

If a male teacher is allowed to take a girls pe teacher role, or or to use the ladies staff toilets or to lead a girl’s field trip on the basis that they identify as female that will potentially cause a safeguarding issue.

We also need to consider teachers moving jobs. Your thinking seems to assume a teacher already in post but there is quite a lot of movement between jobs. Allowing a teacher to circumvent checks will leave the system open to abuse.

Why would we do anything that could reduce safeguarding? The situation is sure enough for girls already - lets not make it worse.

There have been some wild comments on this thread. I’m not a teacher but I am DBS cleared and that has included using the ‘sensitive’ process declaring my previous names. There is no reason to suggest that a trans person cannot be effectively DBS checked.

I’m not sure that justifies the ridiculous name change analogy or constant references to child abuse, but yes, I see what you mean.

Thank you Anovane. Do you also see that allowing people to undermine the DBS checking system by concealing a previous identity could be a problem?

As with many safeguarding measures, this isn’t specifically a trans issue but no one can be exempt from the rules - look at the situation with Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris.

They were allowed to be exempt from normal safeguarding rules and even though there were many reports from people who knew what they were doing, they were ignored and silenced. We can’t do that again.

Most people, most male people will not be predators but allowing any group of people to disregard rules such as respecting single sex spaces or proper DBS checks increases the risk of a problem. Allowing a group of people exemptions based on self declaration is a reckless approach.

I think what's not being discussed is the potential impact on children when they are told by trusted adults in school that sex / sex-role change in teachers is not only possible but endorsed/ celebrated by all the adults around them.