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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Any evidence of assaults etc on women-only hospital wards?

19 replies

littlecabbage · 07/10/2018 23:02

Hi All,

I'm just writing an email to send to friends about the risks for women of a self ID system, and wondering if there are any reports of incidents resulting from a trans identifying male on a female hospital ward, or similar? I can't find any from a quick Google.

Thanks

OP posts:
arranfan · 07/10/2018 23:07

Karen White repeatedly raped a young woman with Asperger's on a mixed psychiatric ward.

www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/9ec4z6/the_times_a_much_more_detailed_investigation_of/

Redkeyboard · 07/10/2018 23:09

Fair PlaybGor Women did an FOI request but were told it wasn’t possible to give them the figures.

There were very high instances of sexual assault reported in mixed sex wards but yet apparently no system to check whether the assaults were actually by males allowed into female wards because they said they identify as women.

This is one of the things that really concerns me about self-ID - will anyone even track whether or not it does massively impact women or not?

Stats have to be kept by sex as well as gender identity as a matter of course, or any problems become invisible.

Redkeyboard · 07/10/2018 23:10

Sorry that should say in single sex wards, not mixed sex.

OVAgroundWOMBlingfree · 07/10/2018 23:10

Not direct physical violence but this should never have happened. To be accused of transphobia during a mental health crisis and a psychiatric admission is abusive on the part of the staff and NHS.

metro.co.uk/2018/01/14/woman-who-feared-men-accused-of-transphobia-after-objecting-to-hospital-room-with-trans-woman-7227597/

Original poster
littlecabbage · 07/10/2018 23:16

arranfan I can't find the actual article from that link. Just a discussion about it. There is a link for The Times at the top, but it says that the article is no longer available.

OP posts:
MIdgebabe · 07/10/2018 23:19

At the moment generally sex separation not gender separation is used, and few evil men have tested the potential opportunity to be had from claiming to be trans in a hospital environment, So the data you are looking for should not exist.

There is evidence that transwomen commit sexual violence at rate equal to or higher than men in general , suggesting that women would be safer sharing facilities with men than with transwomen

And I am keen to ensure that we never get to the state of having to prove that women have been assaulted on a ward by a trans person before we can retain / regain the current sex separation rights.

i suspect you will find lots of information about how mixed sex wards have higher levels of sexual absuse than single sex wards...recently came up in the context of mental health facilities.

You will also find some information about how women, especially those who have suffered sexual abuse, can feel if they are in mixed sex facilities. Didn't I read recently that women who had been raped had a greater chance of suffering ptsd than soldiers who had been in active combat. And separately, giving women control over who sees their body and giving women privacy can help reduce the ptsd symptoms?

So in the context of the self id debate. Self id will remove ( an ill thought through byproduct ) single sex exceptions. SIngle sex exemptions can be shown to provide physical safety and mental health benefits to women.

UpstartCrow · 07/10/2018 23:31

If you use this website and enter the word 'hospital' in the search, there are several cases.

transcrimeuk.com/category/sexual-offences/rape-sexual-assault/

transcrimeuk.com/?s=hospital

LucretiaBourgeois · 07/10/2018 23:39

There are some examples on these threads by women from their own experience. Sorry - can't do links on my phone but see eg a post on 23 Sept at 18:09 by Pandemonium on a thread What's with all the transgender hate? about being on a women's ward with a male-bodied person, and one on July 6th by Chocolate 1984 on a thread called What's with all the transgender hate? where she says:

We have had four trans women on our female wards in the last 1.5 years and all of them have been moved to private rooms for inappropriate behaviour. All were male bodied, none of them had a GRC. Never in all my years have we removed a women from a ward for removing her clothing and masturbating in the middle of a ward. We have never removed a woman for sexually touching another sleeping patient. We have never had to call security because a woman was threatening a nurse with rape.

I don’t believe the above behaviour is typical of trans women but I believe changing the law would make it easier for men to enter women’s spaces and behave like this. Why don’t women want to protect other women?

I wouldn’t want any female friend or relative in a ward with a male bodied female.

Might be more if you use Advanced Search.

R0wantrees · 07/10/2018 23:41

At the moment generally sex separation not gender separation is used

All hospital trusts will have a same sex accomodation policy and this applying this is a performance indicator.

However, all trusts also have a transgender policy which for those receiving inpatient care does in actuality allow gender self-id.

The two policies are in conflict.

It seems likely from what I have seen that the NHS conflates sex and gender identity in records. So it may not be possible to establish data.

LucretiaBourgeois · 07/10/2018 23:42

Sorry, copy and paste fail. That second thread was called To be saddened by the transphobia and homophobia on Mumsnet?.

Tanith · 07/10/2018 23:43

There were very high instances of sexual assault reported in mixed sex wards but yet apparently no system to check whether the assaults were actually by males allowed into female wards because they said they identify as women.

Anecdotally, there were occurrences during the 80s of men trying to get into bed with women on mixed sex wards. Both my grandmother and my MIL reported this happening to them, but it wasn't recorded, of course.

As a child, I was put on a mixed sex ward for a week. I was only just too old for the children's ward. It was a traumatic experience. The staff were clearly extremely concerned that I was there at all.

Original poster
littlecabbage · 07/10/2018 23:46

Thanks everyone. I've been working on this for a few hours and need a break (and sleep!) now, so will re-read tomorrow.

In the meantime, I am also looking for evidence of male crime (particularly rape) being recorded as female crime. Can anyone help?

Thanks.

OP posts:
UpstartCrow · 07/10/2018 23:47

The website I posted earlier will help with that.

Original poster
littlecabbage · 08/10/2018 21:23

Thanks for all the links posted last night. I am further on with my email - hopefully will send it tonight.

For now, does anyone have a link relating specifically to male crime being reported as female, especially rape?

OP posts:
madeoficecream · 08/10/2018 21:27

Karen White. My DH and my friend both work in services which dealt with him. It was ridiculous and no one could do anything until he had actually already done the damage. Everyone knew he was a predatory man but they were forced to treat him as a woman.

UpstartCrow · 08/10/2018 23:36

The police were looking for multiple rapist Craig/Lisa Hauxwell. Current law protecting trans identities made it difficult for them to do so.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/06/gender-sex-offender-bbc-crimewatch-appeal-attacker-could-living/

Hamster00 · 09/10/2018 01:10

I've actually had experience of this. I was admitted to hospital about 3 months ago via A&E.

I'm transsexual (with diagnosed GD) but currently on a surgical waiting list. I have no GRC, but one is in "the pipeline".

My local hospital's policy states I should "automatically" be placed into a female bay, and in fact they tried to do just that. I actually refused (for obvious reasons) - which left them rather bemused as their policy also stated they couldn't put me in a male bay (and I also refused to be put in a male bay).

I ended up lying on a bed in a ward corridor for 9 hours until a side room became available.

The bed manager couldn't actually get his head around the fact that I didn't want ill/potentially vulnerable women feeling uncomfortable with me in the bay. He actually tried the whole "we could pull a curtain around...." tactic - again which I refused.

He also couldn't get his head around the fact I didn't feel safe in a male bay because of the potential risk of violence towards me from other men.

The system is ridiculous and clearly the default position is "if patient IDs as "female" / presents as "female" then patient MUST be female regardless. There is absolutely no safeguarding..

I did actually write to the hospital after the event but had a woolly response which gender/sex seemed wildly interchangeable... and this coming from a building FULL of allegedly medically trained people.

IdaBWells · 09/10/2018 02:08

Hamster I just want to thank you for your sensitively to women, I hope your hospital stay wasn’t too uncomfortable. I imagine with the NHS being so overstretched they don’t always have a third option available.

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