To think that women should be able to request a female doctor or nurse?

[Betti935]

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/the-female-nhs-nurse-i-asked-for-came-with-stubble-83rq9p0gg

Summary: A woman requested a female nurse to carry out her cervical smear test. When she arrived the nurse was clearly male (stubble, deep voice etc). When she questioned this, the nurse insisted that they were a woman because they were trans. The patient says she was made to feel like a bigot and in the end decided not to go ahead with the smear test.

Now in this case, the NHS Trust has apologised and said that the nurse did not handle the situation appropriately. However the government are planning to introduce into law the recommendations of the Women and Equalities Committee which include, not only allowing men to 'self-identify' as women without any medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, but also to get rid of the exemptions currently in place.

Currently, while biological males can legally 'become' women (following a diagnosis of gender dysphoria - there is already no requirement to have any hormone treatment or surgery), there are some limited exemptions in law:

“If a service provider provides single or separate sex services for women and men, or provides services differently to women and men, they should treat transsexual people according to the gender role in which they present. However, the Act does permit the service provider to provide a different service or exclude a person from the service, who is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or who has undergone, gender reassignment. This will only be lawful where the exclusion is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.” For example, it is currently legal for a group counselling session for female rape victims to exclude biological males if female clients would be not feel able to attend and participate in the group if they were present.

If this new legislation is passed and there are no exemptions allowing for transwomen (biological males) to be treated differently from biological women, there will be no way to protect vulnerable women who don't feel able to access rape services or medical services if they can't be sure of a female-only service.

This won't be like other rights conflicts (e.g. on sexual orientation versus religion) where test cases go to court and judgements are made because women won't exist as a separate protected group from transwomen.

Wow Blink is talking a lot of nonsense.

If a woman doesn't want a man touching their vagina without their consent then that is absolutely fine. That's how sexual assault laws work.

Telling someone they would not be seen, not have treatment they need or discharged because they don't want a man to touch their vagina is coercive sexual assault.

Its just so ridiculous. I don't personally mind if a male or female does my smear tests, infact from personal experience, male people cause less pain than female ones do but I appreciate that comes down to the individual HCP not their sex. But no way would I want women who do specifically request one sex to have that choice taken away from them. Thats bonkers.

And now Hampstead women's' pond.

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/row-erupts-after-hampstead-heath-womens-pool-allows-transgender-bathers-a3729056.html

The Hampstesd thing is sort of a teensy bit funny though. Hampstead used to be my stomping ground. Folk up there are so achingly liberal they can hardly bring themselves to turn right at the lights. They would be first in the queue to flag wave for trans stuff because they're sooooo right on yah.

Oh but um...we didn't think you'd actually want to swim in our pool...with your willies and everything...yuk!

Not at all - I realise you never are addressing the points raised.

1. I have never stated in a standard medical setting that anyone is allowed to touch a patients body without their consent. That doesn't necessarily extend into the right to choose the option of having a different professional. Please answer whether refusing a white doctor would be valid and you'd expect to be able to choose to only have a doctor with asian skin characteristics?

1. Both men and women are capable of trading patients with dignity, kindness, compassion, courtesy, respect, understanding and honesty. Do you believe this not to be the case?

I assume your happy if many people refuse to have female anaesthetist that we simply don't allow them to enter the profession as there is no demand?

CosmicCanary

Yes, you are choosing not based on the qualifications of the individual but based on their sex. What else would you call it?

CatchMyName

No - if anyone (male or female) touched you without consent it would be sexual assault. But if you refuse a qualified professional then your simply irrational and do not believe in equality.

Would you say the same if your DD could not get work because employers clients didn't want a qualified female because of personal preferences? Wasn't this exactly the situation 70 years ago?

Blink66 doesn't appear to have any understanding of how equality legislation works.

Any provider of NHS screening services must comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty, under which they must actively consider the effects of their policies, and the way they deliver their services, on people with each of the protected characteristics in the Equality Act. They have a duty to look for unintended consequences and ensure they have addressed any barriers for any particular group to have equal access to the service and any ways in which they are disadvantaged by the way the service is delivered.

If it were found for example, that women from certain religious communities were no longer accessing the screening programme because the provider refused to permit their request for a female HCP then the service provider would be in breach of the PSED and could be taken to court.

This is from the Service Specification for NHS Cervical Screening (PDF link) which is available from this page:

Equality

The objectives of the screening programme should include:
Help reduce health inequalities through the delivery of the programme

Key deliverables:
- Screening should be delivered in a way which addresses local health inequalities, tailoring and targeting interventions when necessary
- A Health Equity Impact Assessment should be undertaken at intervals agreed with the commissioner as part of both the commissioning and review of this screening programme, including equality characteristics, socio-economic factors and local vulnerable populations
- The service should be delivered in a culturally sensitive way to meet the needs of local diverse populations
- User involvement should include representation from service users with equality characteristics reflecting the local community including those with protected characteristics
Providers should exercise high levels of diligence when considering excluding people with protected characteristics in their population from the programme and follow both equality, health inequality and screening guidance when making such decisions

The provider will be able to demonstrate what systems are in place to address health inequalities and ensure equity of access to screening, subsequent diagnostic testing and outcomes. This will include, for example, how the services are designed to ensure that there are no obstacles to access on the grounds of the nine protected characteristics as defined in the Equality Act 2010.

The provider will have procedures in place to identify and support those persons who are considered vulnerable/ hard-to-reach, including but not exclusive to, those who are not registered with a GP; homeless people and rough sleepers, asylum seekers, gypsy traveller groups and sex workers; those in prison; those with mental health conditions; those with drug or alcohol harm issues; those with learning disabilities, physical disabilities or communications difficulties. The provider will comply with safeguarding policies and good practice recommendations for such persons.

Providers are expected to meet the public sector Equality Duty which means that public bodies have to consider all individuals when carrying out their day-to-day work – in shaping policy, in delivering services and in relation to their own employees

I assume your happy if many people refuse to have female anaesthetist that we simply don't allow them to enter the profession as there is no demand?

Why should my need to have a female HCP give me an internal exam have anything to do with an anaesthetist?

The 2 roles are not the same and to pretend they are shows how far you will go to make hour mysogonistic point.

You disgust me.

Blink - as you know very well, that isn't happening is it or happening extremely rarely? People declining an anaesthetist because they're female? Or refusing a HCP because of the colour of their skin?

In those cases it's completely appropriate to say no, you cannot disciminate against a provider purely due to their sex or race.

It IS acceptable to say I do not want a man to provide intimate care or examinations to me a female, because I am a victim of abuse or because my Religious beliefs prohibit it or I just don't feel comfortable.

Also acceptable for men to request intimate care/examination from a man due to Religious beliefs or just feeling uncomfortable.

But that doesn't happen very often. When it has, in my 20 years in the NHS, it has been provided.

What else would you call it?

An exception that is enshrined in the Equality Act 2010 and in NHS policy documents.

Blink you completely lost me with the whole brain thing, I can't make sense of it. No, I don't believe in lady brains. I do absolutely believe in men being able to have male carers or health care for intimate procedures, because I have respect for other people's right to privacy and dignity particularly in situations where they are vulnerable. If you look at the comments below the article in the OP you'll notice many men stating that they are very uncomfortable about being bathed or given intimate care by other men and would request a female HCP. I recently had a male friend alarmed and uncomfortable when a male masseur stepped in to cover his usual female practitioner. Feeling sexual vulnerability has the same complexities as intimate care between men and men as it does for men and women.

wrong side of history oh hand that silly cliche back to Tony Blair and the early 90s for pete's sake. It wasn't that long ago that cutting edge liberality and forward thinking was all about frontal lobotomies, shipping inconvenient children off to Canada/Australia, removing indigenous children from their families to re educate them in the proper way of thinking (of course the parents were upset but too silly, bigoted and on the wrong side of history to understand) and stuffing inconvenient women in workhouses and magdalen laundries. Governments are still wading through the compensations and apologies and investigations for that mess. The compensations for this mess will not be long in coming, and will be largely mutilated and chemically castrated children who were treated according to political hobby horses driven by trans identified men who transitioned as adults and have no personal experience of growing up with gender dysphoria or going through the medical procedures they advocate.

Yes, you are choosing not based on the qualifications of the individual but based on their sex. What else would you call it?

I call it protecting my mental health.
You see after my rape any strange man giving me a vaginal exam will trigger flash backs/panic attacks and lead to a decline in my MH. I turn to self harm as a wah to cope. I have contemplated suicide just to end the nightmares.

But hey I am just discriminating against a HCP so their feelings come before mine.

@Blink66 "Religion is just a shared belief" so is the idea that an XY chromosomes be-penised male is a female.

You do not get to say who can and cannot have contact with people's sexual organs and don't try and dress that sort of bigotry up as equality. It is not.

No one is arguing who can drive the train or fly the plane or operate on a brain. Just who gets to perform intimate operations/procedures on people's sexual organs and private regions.

That right, to a same sex HCP is for females and males so it is not discriminatory. Unlike your view which discriminated against women!

So many people are so keen that the next generation of young women have no safe areas away from men. They are determined that young women are so gas lighted that they will be unable to have any boundaries, never be able to say no in case they make a man sad. This is grooming.

Oh come on Blink - having the choice about whoever to touches your genitals isn't 'personal preference'. It's about bodily autonomy and consent.

Can I touch yours? No? How about if you have a medical need? Can I? Is that okay? Should you get a choice? Don't be stupid, let me touch them! FFS you either have a problem or you don't! Get your knickers off, spread your legs and let me do it you ridiculous snowflake!!

Why is it OK to damage the MH of a female who needs a smear test by insisting that they must accept a trans woman as a CUP but not OK to hurt the transwoman's MH by telling them a fact, ie that they are a biologically male?

Amazing how whenever people discuss should things change - existing legislation is brought out. The whole point of the discussion is to change those laws - as they are bad laws.

So a professional who is essentially responsible for your life and essentially can see your entire insides of you body can not be chosen (i.e. anaesthetist) - but someone performing a much simpler examination can be?

In all cases it's completely appropriate to say you cannot disciminate against a provider purely due to their sex or race.

Raising religious beliefs above other beliefs and projecting crimes onto a whole section of society is just wrong.

The current legislation is a halfway house to reduce the impact of traditional/bigoted views - and as time moves on the exceptions will be removed. Just look at the path of gay rights, the death penalty, work equality, race relations etc., it all happens in phases for a reason.

In 50 years time people will be laughing at the old fashioned views of seeing anyone being able to choose anything based on their ability to produce sperm or eggs. Time to get with the program, as you'll otherwise be very upset for a very long time.

Of course it would be fine to refuse treatment from a medical practitioner because of their skin colour. Or their sexual orientation, or their age, or their hair colour, or anything at all, because people have the right to medical treatment without coercion. Which is what saying to people they can have their treatment but only from Nurse or Dr X would be.

If medical ethics did not provide for this, we would also effectively be obliging the medical professionals involved to give treatment to a person who's made it clear that they don't want them doing it, in some cases. That is, a person who has asked for a biological female/black/whevs provider and been told it's your smear with Nurse White or nobody, and agreed whilst visibly upset. Which is hardly fair on the clinician in question.

DamnDeDoubtancelsSpartacus

Agreed. The levels of grooming and gaslighting involved in all this are extreme. And as for what is being done in schools with pressure groups being given direct access to children and teachers to promote their deluded view of the world.

I hope that every parent of a gender non conforming child who suspects that inappropriate pressure is being put on their child makes a record of every single person involved ,makes records of what is said and done to their child. They will need them when in mid 20s their child realises that a life of drugs, surgery and infertility is not the future they were promised - or actually wanted. Their child will want to sue every adult who placed inappropriate pressure on them - especially if they were below the age of consent.

DamnDeDoubt agree with you.

Why is it OK to damage the MH of a female who needs a smear test by insisting that they must accept a trans woman as a CUP but not OK to hurt the transwoman's MH by telling them a fact, ie that they are a biologically male?

Because penis people's feelings are more important than unpenised people's.

I understand where you are coming from – but cannot agree, as the consequences rapidly become ridiculous.

They didn't before, and I see no reason why they should now.

Further, the racial parallel is not a white patient refusing an Asian doctor. The parallel is a patient from an ethnic minority wanting a HCP who is from their ethnic minority, due to their previous experiences of racism and disrespect from white HCPs.

Presumably you are opposed to the NHS Choices framework, which was introduced in the time of Tony Blair, and explicitly allows you to avoid particular consultants and hospitals from the comfort of your own computer, if your GP makes a hospital referral for your condition.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nhs-choice-framework/the-nhs-choice-framework-what-choices-are-available-to-me-in-the-nhs

Time to get with the program

another fecking cliche?? No. Because I have a mind of my own, and it's wrong.

@Blink66 you keep pretending this is all about equality for women (your warped views IMHO) but I wonder if there is another reason? Do you just not like women having choice? I wonder if there is a more honest reason about it, why women should not continue to have the right to choose same sex hcp for intimate procedures?

Because we are not talking doctor in general or lawyer or dentist we are talking about smear test.

Your argument doesn't hold water, thankfully.

And if we did live in truly egalitarian society the right to choose intimate care provider would continue to be a top priority for many people.

LOL ok, I'll rephrase that

The programme is wrong. And I'll make decisions according to my own sense of right and wrong, not on fashions.