Emma Nicholson in the Times

Good news. Thank you to all those with inside information for explaining and highlighting the issues.

I agree. And from what's been reported, the end "no change" policy will not survive a judicial review anyway. For example the "well we HAD TO ask women's groups" kind of frankness on email. There may be more such emails.

So something will have to change as the way it's been done has been exposed already. Plus as the Baroness says - the 35 years' worth of promises!

They usually are withdrawn. Each time this is debated, more support is gained.

Each time this is debated another issue is highlighted. This time the fact that the NHS project team seems to have a bias and an activist involved is writing emails assuring a particular outcome.

At the very least that person should be removed from the project for that action. And if there is no confidence in the impartiality or the balance of the group it should be abandoned and restarted.

By the sounds, the group has been ill run since the start.

I think the amendment was withdrawn

mobile.twitter.com/Baroness_Nichol/status/1504291805541580801?cxt=HHwWgoCyvarbqOApAAAA

[quote IsitM]For those who are up, the amendment on single-sex wards is still to be heard tonight; it's a late one.

www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/e641961d-c10c-4bde-a7d6-95d18dc0ab3c[/quote]
I have it on, but the subtitles appear to not be on.

For those who are up, the amendment on single-sex wards is still to be heard tonight; it's a late one.

www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/e641961d-c10c-4bde-a7d6-95d18dc0ab3c

Men really need to learn to accept when women say no, even the sainted males with special identities.

There is zero point trying to explain this or put forward women's needs and voices. You will never, never make yourself heard.

This a position of extreme misogyny, that proudly broadcasts its derision for females while demanding unlimited service and nurture from them.

No. Mummy will not be picking you up, and my ears only hear nice words.

I'm sure the couple in question above wanted to swap their leave. Who knows whether or not the father wanted it more than the mother. We don't have that information.

The point is the NHS should not be in a position where they can rewrite their own policy to satisfy an ideology, to the detriment of the mother and baby.

15 years ago when I was breastfeeding my first born, who was 2 months old, I needed emergency surgery. I needed my son to stay with me in the NHS hospital so that I could breastfeed. His dad was present to look after him while I actually had the surgery and grandparents came to help.

There was no space available on the women's surgical ward at that time so I had to go in a side room on the men's surgical ward.

The NHS hospital emphasised that I was staying in the men's ward with my baby at my own risk. Even though I was in an entirely separate room with private bathroom arrangements.

It beggars belief that now any one of those men could simply declare to be a woman and demand to go on to a women's ward. Why does declaring oneself a woman mean that a man is no longer a risk? We know that this simply isn't true.

I don't think this is about safety of trans women either because it's not enough for them to be kept safe which could happen by having separate spaces in hospitals. It's about validating their feelings. Which is ironic given that they don't give two hoots about the valid feelings of women who are being put in the exact circumstances that they are saying they need to be removed from for their safety.

Someone who has absolutely no idea what it's like to be an actual woman...

This is true. I would add to that, someone who doesn't care what it's like to be an actual woman. Apart from their version of womanhood. Which takes all the bits they see as best, and leaving the shit bits and more for actual women.

Surely trans people will have specific healthcare issues - whether they are ‘in name’ or have had medical/surgical procedures to make changes to their bodies.

Medical wards ought to be on the basis of sex only (plus specialism where needed ie post surgery). Not how you feel/wish to be seen as. Why on earth should it be - and who decides that people can choose their ward and are allowed to do this, no questions?

Fair point.

I’m of an age that only got 6 weeks’ automatic leave, and I know people who were proud to say that they’d only taken 2. Not saying that’s a good thing.

Or are they just unpaid extras in their parents' tedious drama?

So fuck your "it never happens" because what you really mean is "I don't care who it happens to."

Exactly. It's an I don't care women are in distress. I don't care someone was caught downloading disgusting images in a woman's ward. I don't care someone else complained about being not let into the women's ward, and when they were they assaulted the women in there.

I don't care, I don't care, as long as I get what I want.

mean = man!

If someone undergoes gender reassignment surgery, they really mean it when they say they identify as the other gender and there may be a grey area for discussion.

There is no room for discussion when a mean wears a dress and claims he's a woman. He is not and he goes on a male ward and into a male prison. As far as prison is concerned, there's always the option not to commit a serious crime, anyway.

@WelcomeMarch, I'm sure it was at the couple's own request, I hope they weren't coerced in anyway. But they should not have been allowed that choice because in a civilised country it is recognised that the female body goes through massive changes in pregnancy and birth, needing time to recover. Two weeks is not enough. None of us know how we will feel, post delivery. We may recover well, we may not. This couple were all about validation, I expect, totally ignoring reality. I do worry that it might cause a precedent to be set, too.

Horrific. Women's bodies are essential as incubators. Very inconvenient and no doubt many males would prefer it if a mechanical substitute could be found, but as things stand only a woman can gestate and give birth to a child. However, once born, that child can be removed from her and handed over to the 'commissioning parents' who 'used' her as a surrogate. She can be persuaded that she doesn't want to breastfeed and her male partner can take a shedload of drugs to induce lactation, and who cares what that does to the baby. If the female parent identifies as a man and the male parent identifies as a woman, the male can appropriate the maternity leave designed to give the new mother recovery time from pregnancy and birth and once again who cares about the baby's need to be close to her mother in those first few weeks.

It's perfectly simple. Men in men's wards, women in women's wards. I don't give a shit how people "identify" You can't identify out of biology.

Women are being harmed but even if they weren't why should the feelings of trans women result in women's wards being mixed sex?

Trans women should absolutely feel safe in hospitals but so should women. It is very telling that the feelings of women who are not male don't matter to you.