To seek assurances that I’ll be put on a single sex ward?

[Thoosa]

Not single gender. Single sex.

Im due for one, maybe two, surgeries this year. I’m a DV and rape survivor.

I’m nervous.

OP, you can request all female staff. I’ve had survivors of sexual abuse do that in the past via the hospital safe guarding team. However there will a caveat in that in an emergency you will be treated by whoever is available.

but feminists don't seem to have an issue with them)

Well no, they're female.

I think it's rather worse than dull to imply that a rape survivor is bigoted or to imply that a rape survivor's thread should be deleted.

If people don't like rape survivors objecting to males, all males, being placed near them.in hospital, don't support mixed-sex wards. Then they won't have to push back on it.

You can apologise to the OP any time you like.

P.S. glad you've worked out who it is who is deeming male patients a risk to female patients, in the context of a discussion on whether women are entitled to single-sex spaces in hospital, where I have already posted links to the academic articles you wanted on the importance of single-sex wards.

@Meadmaiden @housemaus

The last ward I was on was long skinny and sort of semi open plan with single “bays” of sorts as in hard partitions buy curtained fronts, more like an old A&E, so I don’t know what to make of that. That was an emergency admission so no time to plan or think much.

Operation before that I was in a private room (no idea why) and that was the days of single sex wards.

Other than that I’ve only had three maternity ward stays. First two fine (~2000) last one (~2010) full of male visitors all night.

So I feel like this is new to me and I don’t really understand how it works

@maddy68

Trans people have as much rights as you to use the NHS. I am really sorry about what happened to you and I do understand your anxiety but you can't expect special treatment in an over stretched NHS. You're lucky to get a bed! You can ask but you can't demand. Could you pay for a private room?.

Privacy and dignity is not "special treatment".

Special treatment would be putting someone of the opposite sex in a single sex bay, at the request of said person (as opposed to being the result of overcrowding).

@NoisyPrat The tide is turning regarding men hastling women etc, we are hearing more and more about men calling men out on their poor behaviour.

This is a load of bollocks.

A lot of people are hijacking MN and every possible post with their constant anti-trans agenda and moaning.

MEN are the biggest threat to women. Just MEN plain and simple. Don't try to narrow it down by picking on a tiny, ostracised and unhappy section of society.

@Spudina

OP, you can request all female staff. I’ve had survivors of sexual abuse do that in the past via the hospital safe guarding team. However there will a caveat in that in an emergency you will be treated by whoever is available.

Thank you.

Regardless of our own experiences, we cannot marginalise one group of society because of the actions of a minority within that group. That is as true of this issue as it is of sexuality, religion or race. There are many women who have committed heinous acts, inclusive of rape. Trans people are far more likely to be the victims of violence, including sexual violence, than they are the perpetrators. Transphobia really has no place in society

Treating males as males is not "marginalising them".

At present, 1 in 5 women is subjected to attempted or completed rape during her lifetime. I imagine the stats for transmen, i.e. female transitioners, are similar.

I have seen no evidence that the statistics for male transitioners show they are far more likely to be victimised.

99% of rapists are male. 88% of those targeted are female. Of the remainder, significant numbers are male children, which is why we have paediatric wards, and do not place little boys on adult men's wards.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

I think it's rather worse than dull to imply that a rape survivor is bigoted or to imply that a rape survivor's thread should be deleted.

If people don't like rape survivors objecting to males, all males, being placed near them.in hospital, don't support mixed-sex wards. Then they won't have to push back on it.

You can apologise to the OP any time you like.

P.S. glad you've worked out who it is who is deeming male patients a risk to female patients, in the context of a discussion on whether women are entitled to single-sex spaces in hospital, where I have already posted links to the academic articles you wanted on the importance of single-sex wards.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes regardless of who started the thread, when there are transphobic comments within that thread, they should not be admissible.

Please stop saying you’ve posted links to relevant articles - you haven’t.

Regardless of our own experiences, we cannot marginalise one group of society because of the actions of a minority within that group

Of course we can. Why do we exclude men from women's spaces most of the time, even though it's only a minority of people within that group that commit crimes?

And if trans people feel the need to be segregated for their own safety, then why don't they campaign for that, rather than taking over spaces set up for women's safety?

We're not "narrowing it down". This is about all male people. Sex. No one is singling out people by their personal gender identity.

MEN are the biggest threat to women. Just MEN plain and simple. Don't try to narrow it down by picking on a tiny, ostracised and unhappy section of society.

Yes men. And we can’t tell in advance which ones will try to hurt us.

Hence wanting single sex wards.

It's such an important issue. I campaigned strongly for single sex wards years ago. My grandma was put on a mixed sex geriatric ward in the 90s, she was mortified. She'd only ever been intimate with my grandfather as I would imagine most women of her generation were the same. It made her last months unbearable for her. At one point some old man with dementia climbed into bed with her in the night and molested her. It was horrendous. It's so important for women to feel safe when they are so vulnerable.

I have been the victim of sexual assault (more than once) and having a trans patient on the same ward as me wouldn't trouble me in the slightest. When I've been in hospital it is the male visitors that I find disturbing, the ones visiting their partner for hours at a time sitting opposite or a foot away from your bed staring at all the patients. They give me the creeps and I wish the nurses would boot them out after a couple of hours. Give me a trans woman any day, I expect they would be as keen as I am to get out of the hospital as fast as humanly possible.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

Regardless of our own experiences, we cannot marginalise one group of society because of the actions of a minority within that group. That is as true of this issue as it is of sexuality, religion or race. There are many women who have committed heinous acts, inclusive of rape. Trans people are far more likely to be the victims of violence, including sexual violence, than they are the perpetrators. Transphobia really has no place in society

Treating males as males is not "marginalising them".

At present, 1 in 5 women is subjected to attempted or completed rape during her lifetime. I imagine the stats for transmen, i.e. female transitioners, are similar.

I have seen no evidence that the statistics for male transitioners show they are far more likely to be victimised.

99% of rapists are male. 88% of those targeted are female. Of the remainder, significant numbers are male children, which is why we have paediatric wards, and do not place little boys on adult men's wards.

That is not the reason that we have paediatric wards.

Please stop saying you’ve posted links to relevant articles - you haven’t.

Yes she has. Stop being disingenuous. She posted an article about the reasons women might need to not have males around them for their own well-being.

@LightSpeeds

@NoisyPrat The tide is turning regarding men hastling women etc, we are hearing more and more about men calling men out on their poor behaviour.

This is a load of bollocks.

A lot of people are hijacking MN and every possible post with their constant anti-trans agenda and moaning.

MEN are the biggest threat to women. Just MEN plain and simple. Don't try to narrow it down by picking on a tiny, ostracised and unhappy section of society.

How can you possibly say this - MEN are the biggest threat to women. Just MEN plain and simple. Don't try to narrow it down by picking on a tiny, ostracised and unhappy section of society. - and not understand what the problem is?

You know transwomen are male, yes? How are they any different from any other male?

A transwoman is simply a male person that believes they are a woman. They don't have to make any changes to themselves, no hormones, no surgery, no changes in hair or clothes (not that hair and clothes change anything material anyway) nothing at all. I don't think many people realise this and think most are effeminate males that have a "sex change". There is literally no difference biologically between a man and a transwoman, and the vast majority don't have surgery anyway. Anyone that says this is shouted down and called a transphobe but it's true.

@SantaCarlaCalifornia How are they any different from any other male?

A transwoman is simply a male person that believes they are a woman.

You’ve answered your own question.

[quote Piper22]@lifeturnsonadime what evidence are you referring to which suggests women need to be in fear of their safety from sharing a staffed hospital ward with a trans woman? How does it differ from the evidence about consequences to patient safety from male workers and visitors?

Please, someone, point me in some sort of evidence based direction.[/quote]
Transwomen have the same pattern of offending as any other male. Governments since 1997 have recognised that males and females should not share bays together, that's why hospitals get fined on the occasions where lack of capacity leaves them with no choice but to mix. Why is it different if the male says "I am a woman".

An inpatient poses more of a risk to other patients than mere visitors because visitors are supposed to be restricted to official visiting hours, when patients will be less vulnerable than when changing or sleeping. Staff are vetted and stand the risk of losing their job (and won't have an easy task getting another) if they abuse their position. It would be unusual to have a lone male member of staff in charge of a ward full of women.

@Slowfoxfast

I have been the victim of sexual assault (more than once) and having a trans patient on the same ward as me wouldn't trouble me in the slightest. When I've been in hospital it is the male visitors that I find disturbing, the ones visiting their partner for hours at a time sitting opposite or a foot away from your bed staring at all the patients. They give me the creeps and I wish the nurses would boot them out after a couple of hours. Give me a trans woman any day, I expect they would be as keen as I am to get out of the hospital as fast as humanly possible.

Here's one who got arrested for their behaviour in hospital- using the wifi to download images of child abuse.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8521787/Paedophile-54-used-public-Wi-Fi-download-child-porn-hospital.html

Here's a reminder of @PurgatoryOfPotholes completely relevant article about single sex wards.

Piper

Feature Inpatient Care
Mixed sex wards: progress towards elimination is slipping Published 30 October 2019)

Emma Wilkinson, freelance journalist, Sheffield, [email protected]

Breaches of rules enforcing separate men’s and women’s accommodation are creeping up again, findsEmma Wilkinson, while patients call for the rules to be made even stronger

Dolly Sen from Norfolk remembers being an inpatient in a bay on a mental health ward and men coming in to ask for sex. She had stayed in mixed sex hospital accommodation many times, and on this occasion a man pushed her against a wall and assaulted her, she toldThe BMJ.

“You’re feeling vulnerable. A hospital ward should be a safe space. It does not feel safe being around men who don’t have inhibitions,” she said.

Sen’s experience was in the early 2000s, before the government’s 2011 pledge to abolish all mixed sex NHS hospital accommodation in England except in intensive care units and emergency departments. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland had by then already scrapped mixed sex accommodation.

The 2011 pledge was limited to stopping the sexes sharing sleeping areas, bathrooms, and toilets or having to cross mixed sex areas to reach these facilities. To meet the rules hospitals could use single rooms, wards for men or women only, or mixed wards but with separate bays or rooms for men and women. The caveat “except where it is in the overall best interest of the patient” gave trusts wiggle room in emergency situations or when patients need highly specialised treatment in a critical care unit.1The rules have been suspended in times of peak winter pressure.

But the 2011 rules aren’t always followed, and incidents such as Sen’s persist. And many patients and doctors think that the rules don’t go far enough in the first place.

In 2018, after inspectors found an unnamed trust to be breaching the rules and several patients reported sexual incidents, the English regulator …

Continues: https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l6107

BMJ2019;367:l6107

@LightSpeeds

@NoisyPrat The tide is turning regarding men hastling women etc, we are hearing more and more about men calling men out on their poor behaviour.

This is a load of bollocks.

A lot of people are hijacking MN and every possible post with their constant anti-trans agenda and moaning.

MEN are the biggest threat to women. Just MEN plain and simple. Don't try to narrow it down by picking on a tiny, ostracised and unhappy section of society.

Yes men. That includes all biological men, including trans women. They don't suddenly stop being a threat because they feel female, if they did, we wouldn't be seeing more and more incidents of women being assaulted by them.

@SevenWaystoLeave

I think the biggest favour you can do yourself in the run-up to surgery is to avoid reading scaremongering stories online and in the media about trans people. These stories are designed to play on your fears and scare you, they don't reflect reality. You are vanishingly unlikely to encounter a trans person in hospital and they will not harm you if you do.

They are true stories, and you do not know what a male bodied person (transwomen) might do. Stop gaslighting the OP. Her concerns are real given past trauma, and legitimate.

A transwoman is simply a male person that believes they are a woman.

You’ve answered your own question.

What do you think "believing you are a woman" means for a male person, practically?