Mixed sex wards and trans women.

[sarsleypage]

I've opened a new account as the old one was too full of personal bits and someone could've connected the dots.

I am a medical student and we have a diversity lecture coming up, so I had a look at the LGBT slides. A lot of this seems to focus on trans.

I got curious about the requirements for sex-segregated wards, as I know this has been an issue for a while. Women want single-sex wards, both on wards for physical illness and those for mental illness, because they see themselves as vulnerable to abuse from men, especially whilst ill.

Fine. Nobody seems to oppose this, and it's become a requirement in pretty much all hospitals.

And then you see this: uktrans.info/attachments/article/5/trasngender_booklet_low%20res.pdf

"• Trans people should be accommodated according to
their presentation: the way they dress, and the name
and pronouns that they currently use.
• This may not always accord with the physical sex
appearance of the chest or genitalia;
• It does not depend upon their having a gender
recognition certificate (GRC) or legal name change;
• It applies to toilet and bathing facilities (except, for
instance, that pre-operative trans people should not
share open shower facilities); "

There's an example in the leaflet of a young female nurse refusing to wash a trans person because it was against her religion. This is held up as an example of trans discrimination.

I am struggling to square this away with feminism. In fact, I don't think it does square. Women have fought for this segregated space, based on female sexual characteristics (not a preference for make-up, long hair, but XY/vaginas/generally smaller in stature and weaker). But now, apparently, if you decide you feel like a woman, you're entitled to be on a woman's ward when women are at their most vulnerable.

It means if you're sectioned under the mental health act and a trans woman with a penis is on the ward, you have no legal argument to get them removed to make you feel safer.

How is this right?

[accidentally poisted this on another thread, not spamming!]

What I dont understand is this...
I have mental health issues, very clearly and obviously caused by life experiences. I am treated like scum and have been labelled in damning ways and treated like a nuisance and a waste of time (and if I do end up committing suicide it will be this discrimination and judgement that's done it, not the original problem!). Quite obvious, rational things are treated like bonkers delusions on my part. I am treated like an idiot.

Why then, do people with the mental health issues of thinking they are a woman/man despite demonstrably not being so, have their delusions pandered to so extremely?

Why is the NHS bending over backwards to accommodate them whilst other extremely vulnerable people are left without any treatment or support? We have to put up with positive thinking wellbeing shite rather than proper therapy - the equivalent of that for trans people is surely someone saying "you've got a cock, you're a bloke. Next!" (Am quite tempted to pretend to be trans to see how quickly/what type/level of services I get.)

Is there an equivalent slide for mental health? Women? - being refused adequate pain relief due to being female... etc.

There is no such thing as a male urology ward. It is mixed now. Obviously women are put in a separate bay. The men are given their pain medication first. I was last in a mixed urology ward (Kidney trouble), in 2009, not so long ago. I could write a thesis on the attitudes towards the male and female patients. There were no trans patients on the ward as far as I was aware. The only patients who kicked off were the males. We females had to have lights out at ten and laughing and talking was forbidden (we were too loud and the other patients, male, found it disruptive). They were, however, allowed to watch Match of the Day.

I've no interest in what Pink has to say, to be brutally honest, as it seems that Pink just wants to disrupt rather than contribute. This isn't an echo chamber, rather a forum for discussion and solutions.

Also there was a young female 20 years old who came onto the ward as I escaped, was discharged . She was not allowed to use her laptop, though I'd seen men using them. It was the first thing that was said to her. She had been in and out of hospital since she was 10.

I want females to be treated the same as males in a hospital. That should be the benchmark. When that happens, then we can have a discussion about what to do with trans patients. As a female, I do not want my recovery trampled on because trans/male. As a female you really are at the back of the queue, metaphorically and literally.

"how good for you. Want a medal? Yes, I am, because it's time for you to step aside. Your time has gone, your idea of feminism is dead."

Gods help us if Pink's brand of "feminism", complete with the rudeness, condescension to women, and fucking astonishing ignorance is the shape of things to come.

Actually, I think Pink is totally wrong to think that feminism needs to be nicer and gentler. The US has just elected a president who has stated that he wants to roll back Roe versus Wade - Handmaid's Tale, anyone?

And in fact, one of the messages of the Handmaid's Tale is hidden in the retrospective parts, where the narrator is remembering life just before the theocracy came to power. She remembers that while she was busy laughing at her (implicitly second wave) old fashioned angry feminist mother, a government was creeping into place which was about to take away all the rights her mother won for her - and if only she'd paid some bloody attention, they might not have got themselves into a position of power "under the radar" and been in a position to do so. What seemed like dystopian fiction first time I read Atwood now feels like prophecy.

All this time third wave feminists have been worrying about microaggressions and misgendering and pole dancing being empowerfulising - and they haven't sodding noticed how precarious their reproductive rights are - they've now got, what, till mid January to get a mirena coil fitted before they have 4, probably 8 years of Trump, at the end of which there will be hardly any states in the US in which it's legally possible to get an abortion. Angry feminism seems to me to be needed more than ever right now. (I know professional women same age as me, in their fifties, in the states, who are busy dredging their memories for how to handle police aggression from demos back in the 1970s and 1980s because they're heading to the women's march in Washington on Inauguration Day, and they don't know how it's going to pan out, but they're readying themselves for the worst).

Sex segregated areas should always mean sex segregated. However, it becomes a bit of a grey area post-surgery and I do think private rooms should be used when they are available. This matter, as with many others is a bit of a crossover with trans-rights and womens-rights.

The case of the hysterectomy care sounds horrendous, and a transman is still a woman. I find it disgusting the bad care that person received however I cannot immediately say it was because the patient was trans, having suffered horrendous medical treatment myself before that was (really) a case of cuts and not enough staff or funds.

If you find it impossible to be a feminist without being dismissed I would suggest this is to do with how you express yourself, Pinkisrad, rather than anything intrinsic to feminism. Having originally been interested in what you, as a new poster, had to contribute I've reached the point where I can't take you seriously. Debate reveals so much, character as well as insight.

Wards are mixed, apart from maternity and gynaecology. No mtf will be in a maternity ward, though some gynaecology wards are attached to maternity wards.

There are bays, which are sex segregated. I cannot image that the few side wards available will only go to trans - I would see the males on the wards kicking off about this. There would have to be at least one male in a side ward, this keeps the peace.

Very sobering post, M0stlyHet, but an important one.

The election of Trump in the US is a massive worry for women's reproductive rights, but we should never be complacent here in the UK considering that women in one of our devolved administrations do not share equivalent rights with other women in the UK.

Similarly, family planning clinics are so short of funding and so many GPs are deskilled in fitting IUDs, there is already a form of rationing of contraceptive options in the rest of the UK. When DH and I were ready to start TTC with #2, I had to wait 6 weeks for an appointment to get my coil removed as my GP wouldn't/couldn't do it.

Power, full power, to those women Het who are organising this march. Great post, totally agree regarding your analysis of the Handmaidens Tale. It's gone before we fully realise, though there is a character who is like Pink in that tale. Her life is not one I would want to live either, though she gets her makeup and clothes. No woman's life in that book is a picnic.

Power to the females!

Yy M0stlyHet - I'm in the US too, and was talking to the mother of one of my good friends. She is planning to attend the march too, and as a veteran of things like the Vietnam protests is telling my friend not to come (and definitely not to bring her DC). She is at a stage where she doesn't care so much what happens to her, but worries that an arrest record will stymie her daughter's life chances - particularly under a Trump government

Pink - I think you misunderstand the anger of many posters. It's not that we think all men are evil, nasty people (many, if not all of us, have wonderful men in our lives who we love dearly). It's that men as a class still have an upper hand over women as a class for no reason at all except that we are still living in a patriarchy. Do you tell black people that they sound a bit angry about racial inequality, even though there are lots of laws providing them some degree of protection? Or do you maybe tell them that Black Lives Matter should be renamed All Lives Matter?

Oleanna, one of the things I'm blown away by is that these women are professional women with a lot to lose. I'm not sure I'd have their guts (especially one who is a government scientist - Trump is pretty anti-science, and anti public sector, and would be quite capable of instigating a witch hunt against those in the public sector who've taken part in political campaigning for the other side, even if it was done "off the clock"...) Most admirably of all, these women really are the opposite of the "I'm alright Jack" attitude. After all, in their 50s, they don't need reproductive rights any more - they're doing this purely because they care about women, and about standing up for what is right.

Am quite tempted to pretend to be trans to see how quickly/what type/level of services I get.

I went to a course recently delivered by a trans women, about trans rights. One thing I learnt was that when people transition they have the option of having their entire medical history archived so that any treating doctor would not know anything of their past.

I have an item on my medical records that I really don't want anybody to know, I want this item removed. I have been told it has absolutely no relevance to my future health or medical treatment. I have also been told that it is impossible to ever have this entry removed. I can't bear for anybody to know this information and so as a consequence have not had a GP for nearly 10 years. If I was trans, this entry could be gone.

Pink's comments are very shallow and uninteresting. It's a shame they're derailing the thread.

Fake

One thing I learnt was that when people transition they have the option of having their entire medical history archived so that any treating doctor would not know anything of their past

News to me. Personally I would trust medical professionals to know my past IF it is relevant to any diagnosis. I do think you have to have complete trust in a medical professional and they need to know about a past - if it is relevant to health.

m0stly

Thats was one of the best books we read at book club

Scary as you could see it happening,

I am not sure that medical records can be changed.

This is from GP online

www.gponline.com/medico-legal-treating-transgender-patients/article/1284580

"Problems with records were the most common reason for complaint, including patients who wanted their previous gender and all references to their gender reassignment to be deleted from the record.

Patients are entitled to challenge the validity of records and to have factual errors corrected, but medical records need to reflect accurately the treatment and care provided.

An entry should not be amended because the patient objects to it, although it may be possible to add a note to reflect the patient's view. Patients can also ask for certain information to be kept confidential."

Ego that doesn't quite make sense. Surely any medical professional would see your full medical history.

Sorry crost posts

I went to a course recently delivered by a trans women, about trans rights. One thing I learnt was that when people transition they have the option of having their entire medical history archived so that any treating doctor would not know anything of their past.

I wonder how this works with life insurance and travel insurance policies where accuracy and full, honest disclosure are needed for actuaries to cost your policy (e.g. history of smoking, relevant conditions). If you need to claim, will the insurer have access to your old medical records too or do you get to conceal a history of drug & alcohol abuse, serious illness etc in the same way as it seems trans with criminal convictions can shake off an inconvenient past? Or is it failure to disclose, potentially voiding a policy?

Same. Xposted with Ego.

I think this must have been what she was referring to. She said she was then given the choice to have her old records archived so future medics would not have access to them.

Practices must apply to the CCG so a new NHS number and record can be issued. The patient's gender should be changed for all continuing care, but previous records should reflect the patient's original gender.

Medical / life insurance. My insurance company knows. I've had some fun conversations over that - and it usually leads to them 'having to check'. It's just something you have to do.

That's important because I need it to pay up in the event of death. I have no doubt they would not pay if it was not disclosed.