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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

NHS bans transwomen from female space

474 replies

LadyHelenaThistle · 15/10/2026 14:07

New guidelines out: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/10/15/nhs-bans-trans-women-female-spaces-supreme-court-ruling/

OP posts:
Thread gallery
22
bigboykitty · 15/10/2026 17:37

Christ knows why it took so long. I will await another 'our LGBTQIA colleagues are hurting right now and we've made arrangements for them to be supported' email. No mention of women, of course.

WerewolfOfLoudon · 15/10/2026 17:35

SirChenjins · 15/10/2026 17:04

In all of this, can I please highlight that this is only in England - it's not the whole of the UK. I'm delighted for everyone in England and really hoping that this is rolled out more widely, but while we have the idiotic SNP in power up here, who knows. It means women like Sandie Peggie and many others are still not afforded the safety, privacy and dignity they deserve.

Edited

Hopefully the loathesome Swinney will have to apply the Supreme Court ruling across the NHS too. He had to back down on prisons. Schools are getting there, at least some are being forced to comply with the law and are being taken to court when they won't.

We can only live in hope. The greens here will no doubt fight against any single sex spaces that excludes the trans identified of the opposite sex.

St0rmF0rce · 15/10/2026 17:34

He's just being ridiculous now...

NHS bans transwomen from female space
Kirschcherries · 15/10/2026 17:34

JT1999 · 15/10/2026 16:24

Whats the consensus on here about transwomen who have gone all the way and had a full reassignment surgery? Do you think this should still apply? Should they be put in a men's prison too?

Not trying to provoke an argument btw. I don't think someone with a penis should be allowed in women's spaces unless they're a very young kid with their mum, women's safety should be the priority. But transwomen get raped and sexually assaulted by men (and presumably other transwomen) too.

Edited

FWS 3 was clear under no circumstances does a transwoman belong in a women’s prison. However, it may not be reasonable to put a transwoman in with the male prison population so alternative, not a women’s prison, should be found e.g a separate wing or long term a transwomen’s prison.

TwoLoonsAndASprout · 15/10/2026 17:32

ChimpanzeeThatMonkeyNews · 15/10/2026 17:25

Will this be the case for every Trust, though?

Technically all English trusts need to follow this guidance, however, most trusts have their own individual policies (and many have woven their trans-accommodation related guidelines into multiple different policies) so all of that will need digging out…

dizzydizzydizzy · 15/10/2026 17:32

LadyHelenaThistle · 15/10/2026 14:26

Waiting to see how and when the BBC, Guardian, and others cover this change - if they do!

It is on the Radio 4 news right now.

AngleofRepose · 15/10/2026 17:31

ok, from the third document, it's only 4 pages, a header specifically for managers and other senior bods), which references the other two documents:

[bold all mine]

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/privacy-dignity-and-safety-in-hospital-accommodation

from page 3:

These are complex issues that require careful judgement. Organisations should draw on the right expertise, including lived experience, to support decision-making and to help frontline. teams navigate challenging situations...
^^
Our shared responsibility is to
ensure that organisations continue to uphold the values of the NHS, maintain dignity, privacy, safety and respect for all patients, staff and visitors, and comply with the law.

That's it.

In conjunction with the other two very short docs posted by @LadyHelenaThistle

IS THAT IT?? THAT TOOK 18 MONTHS?

NHS England » Privacy, dignity and safety in hospital accommodation

NHS England » Privacy, dignity and safety in hospital accommodation

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/privacy-dignity-and-safety-in-hospital-accommodation

ChimpanzeeThatMonkeyNews · 15/10/2026 17:25

Will this be the case for every Trust, though?

savehannah · 15/10/2026 17:23

And now they need to fix the mess with data. Far too many NHS forms have or still do ask for gender rather than sex.

My GP practice online consultation form states something like 'it is important so you get the correct medical care that we record your sex at birth'.

This should be obvious but loads of data has been incorrectly recorded or confused through this ridiculous identity agenda.

LadyHelenaThistle · 15/10/2026 17:22

SirChenjins · 15/10/2026 16:47

Sorry, quoted the wrong post.

That should have been in reply to @LadyHelenaThistle post from 16:38

A few years ago, I would have said, “Well of course they’ll rush to get on board with this unimpeachably reasonable guidance!”

OP posts:
AngleofRepose · 15/10/2026 17:22

LadyHelenaThistle · 15/10/2026 17:17

The most recent document to which I linked refers to both the other documents as “guidance,” so maybe that’s good.

”To support NHS organisations in the provision of single-sex services in line with the relevant legislation and statutory guidance, NHS England has published:

NHS organisations should now consider these documents alongside the EHRC’s code of practice for services, public functions and associations and review local policies, practices and environments as necessary. In doing so, boards must ensure that local decisions on facilities for patients and staff are lawful, proportionate, evidence-based and clearly documented, while maintaining privacy, dignity, safety and respect for all. The Privacy, dignity and safety in hospital accommodation guidance reaffirms the NHS Constitution’s commitment to single-sex accommodation and sets out how providers should meet their responsibilities to all patients. To maintain hospital accommodation as single sex under the Equality Act 2010, trans people and others with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment should be accommodated in line with their biological sex. The new staff facilities guidance recommends that organisations review provision for toilets and changing, washing and shower facilities, as well as staff accommodation with shared (not single-sex) facilities and consider arrangements for the provision of lockable single-occupancy facilities. Organisations must continue to ensure that all staff have access to facilities to protect their privacy, dignity and safety and that decisions are taken ensuring that no one is left without suitable and sufficient provision.”

Oh FGS. They couldn't just publish one document on their "News" page, could they? Masters of deception and confusion, the NHS. Or sheer incompetence.

Off to read again...

TwoLoonsAndASprout · 15/10/2026 17:20

LadyHelenaThistle · 15/10/2026 17:17

The most recent document to which I linked refers to both the other documents as “guidance,” so maybe that’s good.

”To support NHS organisations in the provision of single-sex services in line with the relevant legislation and statutory guidance, NHS England has published:

NHS organisations should now consider these documents alongside the EHRC’s code of practice for services, public functions and associations and review local policies, practices and environments as necessary. In doing so, boards must ensure that local decisions on facilities for patients and staff are lawful, proportionate, evidence-based and clearly documented, while maintaining privacy, dignity, safety and respect for all. The Privacy, dignity and safety in hospital accommodation guidance reaffirms the NHS Constitution’s commitment to single-sex accommodation and sets out how providers should meet their responsibilities to all patients. To maintain hospital accommodation as single sex under the Equality Act 2010, trans people and others with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment should be accommodated in line with their biological sex. The new staff facilities guidance recommends that organisations review provision for toilets and changing, washing and shower facilities, as well as staff accommodation with shared (not single-sex) facilities and consider arrangements for the provision of lockable single-occupancy facilities. Organisations must continue to ensure that all staff have access to facilities to protect their privacy, dignity and safety and that decisions are taken ensuring that no one is left without suitable and sufficient provision.”

It does seem like a hodgepodge. Given the webs we had to untangle to find most of the policies on local trust websites, I think that’s perhaps par for the course for the NHs.

The question will now be, how will the individual trusts respond…

LadyHelenaThistle · 15/10/2026 17:17

TwoLoonsAndASprout · 15/10/2026 17:07

Peculiar. It’s not been published where it should be, but it does seem like it could be.

Concerning that it’s a “long read” rather than “guidance”…

The most recent document to which I linked refers to both the other documents as “guidance,” so maybe that’s good.

”To support NHS organisations in the provision of single-sex services in line with the relevant legislation and statutory guidance, NHS England has published:

NHS organisations should now consider these documents alongside the EHRC’s code of practice for services, public functions and associations and review local policies, practices and environments as necessary. In doing so, boards must ensure that local decisions on facilities for patients and staff are lawful, proportionate, evidence-based and clearly documented, while maintaining privacy, dignity, safety and respect for all. The Privacy, dignity and safety in hospital accommodation guidance reaffirms the NHS Constitution’s commitment to single-sex accommodation and sets out how providers should meet their responsibilities to all patients. To maintain hospital accommodation as single sex under the Equality Act 2010, trans people and others with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment should be accommodated in line with their biological sex. The new staff facilities guidance recommends that organisations review provision for toilets and changing, washing and shower facilities, as well as staff accommodation with shared (not single-sex) facilities and consider arrangements for the provision of lockable single-occupancy facilities. Organisations must continue to ensure that all staff have access to facilities to protect their privacy, dignity and safety and that decisions are taken ensuring that no one is left without suitable and sufficient provision.”

NHS England » Privacy, dignity and safety in hospital accommodation

NHS England » Privacy, dignity and safety in hospital accommodation

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/privacy-dignity-and-safety-in-hospital-accommodation

OP posts:
Helleofabore · 15/10/2026 17:17

I am very much looking forward to reading this thread tomorrow morning. I am sure it is going to end up a wild ride over night. Or maybe it will just be quiet and peaceful with just women celebrating.

AngleofRepose · 15/10/2026 17:17

TwoLoonsAndASprout · 15/10/2026 17:07

Peculiar. It’s not been published where it should be, but it does seem like it could be.

Concerning that it’s a “long read” rather than “guidance”…

It does have today's date on it, and some of the text that has been quoted in the media.

I can't see what's taken 18 months to clarify, however..,

AngleofRepose · 15/10/2026 17:15

from Section 6:

7. On what basis should single-bed rooms be offered to trans patients?
Trans patients should be offered single-bed rooms on the basis of maintaining privacy, dignity and safety for all patients. These offers should be based on an assessment of the specific circumstances in each instance, taking into account wider clinical requirements for single rooms. No patients have a legal right to be accommodated in single rooms.
[bold, mine]

AngleofRepose · 15/10/2026 17:14

From Section 6:

2. If a patient needs to be admitted to a bed on a ward in the middle of the night,
and the only option is to put them in a bay with patients of a different sex, would this be a breach?
Yes, this is a breach and should be reported. However, clinical need is always the primary consideration, so you must admit patients, including transfers, even if you can’t provide a bed in a single-sex ward. If a patient is accommodated in mixed-sex accommodation on more
than one ward during their stay, each instance should be reported.

OP posts:
AngleofRepose · 15/10/2026 17:09

from Section 4:

The EHRC code of practice says that in the case of services that are “necessary for
everybody… it is very unlikely to be proportionate to put a trans person in a position where there is no service that they are allowed to use.”. Therefore, where clinical needs and same-sex accommodation requirements cannot both be met, clinical needs are the priority.
^^
In these rare circumstances, staff should take extra care to protect the privacy, dignity and safety of all patients. The reasons for the placement decision should be clearly recorded and
reported nationally as breaches of this guidance.

[bold, mine: this is encouraging. Will it happen?]

AngleofRepose · 15/10/2026 17:08

SirChenjins · 15/10/2026 17:04

In all of this, can I please highlight that this is only in England - it's not the whole of the UK. I'm delighted for everyone in England and really hoping that this is rolled out more widely, but while we have the idiotic SNP in power up here, who knows. It means women like Sandie Peggie and many others are still not afforded the safety, privacy and dignity they deserve.

Edited

Yes, I'm in Wales, and can only hope beyond hope that done of this will "filter across" once people in England get used to (once again) what used to be normal practice.

RareGoalsVerge · 15/10/2026 17:07

JT1999 · 15/10/2026 16:24

Whats the consensus on here about transwomen who have gone all the way and had a full reassignment surgery? Do you think this should still apply? Should they be put in a men's prison too?

Not trying to provoke an argument btw. I don't think someone with a penis should be allowed in women's spaces unless they're a very young kid with their mum, women's safety should be the priority. But transwomen get raped and sexually assaulted by men (and presumably other transwomen) too.

Edited

Do you actually think that a woman's prison is "a place for potential rape victims, regardless of sex"?

Women are real people. We aren't a secondary category of sub-human that exists for the benefit of men.

There is no surgical procedure that can make a man into a woman. A eunuch is a eunuch. An artifical blind fistula is not a vagina. There is no such thing as "full reassignment surgery" except within a brainspace that says that a woman is any body that is configured to be used as a thing for a man to ejaculate into which is a horrifically sexist and patriarchal idea of womanhood which we reject totally.

A man who has had his genitals removed is just as much still a man as a man who has had an arm or leg removed, which is still just as much a man as a man who is fully intact. The idea that losing that little bit of flesh stops someone being a man is part of toxic masculinity that belongs to last century.

Male prisons should have proper safeguarding in place so that all vulnerable prisoners, which will include transwomen and plenty of other men who have other reasons for being vulnerable, are protected.

"Not being raped with a penis" is far too low a bar for women to accept. A man without a penis is still an invasion of dignity, a source of threat, of feeling used as a prop for someone else's fettish without consent, potentially a dominating physical presence, with muscular strength still likely to be greater than the average woman, and entirely socialised to dominate women and put their own needs first above women's needs. A very large proportion of trans-identifying male prisoners are sex offenders and it is well known that rapists often do it for the power and domination, rather than for the direct sexual stimulation, and will commit the penetration with other objects if they can't use their penis (e.g. if they can't get an erection on-demand) so having had their penis removed is not going to stop an abuser from being abusive.

TwoLoonsAndASprout · 15/10/2026 17:07

LadyHelenaThistle · 15/10/2026 16:58

Peculiar. It’s not been published where it should be, but it does seem like it could be.

Concerning that it’s a “long read” rather than “guidance”…

SirChenjins · 15/10/2026 17:04

In all of this, can I please highlight that this is only in England - it's not the whole of the UK. I'm delighted for everyone in England and really hoping that this is rolled out more widely, but while we have the idiotic SNP in power up here, who knows. It means women like Sandie Peggie and many others are still not afforded the safety, privacy and dignity they deserve.

AngleofRepose · 15/10/2026 17:04

LadyHelenaThistle · 15/10/2026 16:58

Looks like this may be it, thanks!

AngleofRepose · 15/10/2026 17:02

LadyHelenaThistle · 15/10/2026 16:58

Possibly, but not showing up in most recent list of NHS England publications.

It would be helpful if they put a date on this one (actually in the text).

Will have a read.

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