Transwoman on women's ward

[Sallycinnamum]

Had a minor gynae procedure today but nevertheless was very anxious leading up to it.

Was wheeled back to the day ward to be greeted quite literally (started waving at me) by a transwoman in the bed opposite me.

There was no doubt he was a man and being completely immobile due to a spinal anaesthetic with no underwear on I asked the nurse to completely close the curtains so he couldn't look directly at me.

Spoke to a nurse who confirmed it wasn't a mixed ward.

I am so upset. I felt so vulnerable especially as I couldn't walk so had to pee into a bedpan in clear earshot of him.

I've emailed PALS but I feel so bloody fed up of it all. Had a man next to me in the M&S lingerie changing rooms a few weeks ago and was made to feel like a total bigot when I complained to the staff.

Intergender? This is not a word.

So... The Op should just shush, right?

Who cares how she feels?

Have you ever heard of voyeurism?

What’s intergender when it’s at home? Intersex is an outmoded term for DSD, but do tell us how intergender differs from nonbinary, gender fluid etc. Maybe someone who identifies as intersex even though they’re not?

you cannot be sure of someone's birth gender by looking at them

Oh, come off it. Like the previous poster who thinks no one can tell if you’re trans by looking, we all know that’s total codswallop. 99 percent of the time it’s resoundingly obvious. Almost no trans people pass as the opposite sex, and the vast majority of the time everyone else is humouring them or just pretending out of politeness.

OP, I’m so sorry you were put in this position. I don’t know if PALs will be able to help, as I suspect the old guidance (pre Supreme Court ruling) is still in place.

The original Dept of Health guidance actually envisaged this scenario as good practice. Annex E emphasises that it is important to accommodate trans people according to the gender they present, and their preference (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7cd02ced915d6b29fa8d19/CNO_note_dh_098893.pdf ).

Honestly, the procedure itself was fine, if a little uncomfortable. I didn't have a GA in the end as I was offered a spinal anaesthetic hence being immobile for bloody ages and not being able to urinate!

You'll be absolutely fine.

From Google: Intergender is a gender identity under the nonbinary and transgender umbrella terms. Intergender people have a gender identity that is in the middle between the binary genders of female and male, and may be a mix of both. Whatever that means !!

And most of the real world…..

Do you like all and sundry having a good nose at you when you’re in bed or on the loo, or immobilised after surgery as the OP was? What an absolutely asinine comment.

What on earth is a ‘cisgender woman’?

It’s a nasty slur for a woman. You know, an actual, never had a penis and testicles, woman.

In their terms, it's a woman who 'identifies' with their birth sex/gender (?). Cis is the opposite of trans.

Trans woman = AMAB woman.
Cis woman = AFAB woman.

I type all this out to display how people who ironically claim to have destroyed the binary just can't escape it.

They've put a mealy mouthed statement on NHS pages regarding the Supreme Court judgement -

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/delivering-same-sex-accommodation/

Due to the ideological capture of the NHS, a woman requesting a female examiner for her mammogram had her request letter passed around the Trust as an example of 'transphobia', a NHS trust lied outright to Police for over a year saying that a rape couldn't have taken place on a ward because there 'wasn't a male there', and there are no less than two ongoing court cases regarding nurses being denied single sex changing facilities.

There will be more and more court cases and the NHS will be forced to follow the law. Finally.

Doesn't mean anything at all.

Haha...me too!!

By manly characteristics do you mean in possession of a penis?

There is no such thing as cis - it is a pejorative term used by trans activists to 'other' women and to label them as a subset of their own sex. Anyone using the term cis simply isn't worth arguing with as they are indicating all too clearly that they have been captured by the trans lobby and are thus incapable of taking part in any informed debate.

Of course no one can escape the binary.

There are exactly two sexes and everyone is either one or the other. No amount of wishful thinking will change that.

When you’ve had a gynaecological procedure, you slowly come-to wearing a gown with an open back and with a pad stuffed between your legs, no pants. If you want to get up to close the curtains or try to use the loo or change the bloodied pad. you have to hold the gown closed at the back with one hand and try to keep the pad from falling out.

I had a visiting male observe me while I attempted to do this and the pad fell out while he was looking at me.

Is it a recovery ward or an actual gynae ward? I only ask as I’m an nhs nurse and mixed gendering is only allowed on surgical recovery post procedure and critical care like ICU and high observation bays where again people are critically unwell. Gendering like that is absoloutely not allowed on wards and the trust can be fined very hefty sums! Regardless of current gender, we always aim to put transgender people in their own rooms and not in bays

I don't want to strip naked in front of my father in law, or my cousin David or the window cleaner or my boss. I'm not paranoid I'm not scared of them I just don't want to show them my naked body, and I certainly don't want to see theirs.