A woman who asked for her NHS breast-screening to be carried out by a female-born clinician was pilloried as a transphobe by a hospital trust

[stumbledin]

Clare Dimyon, 54, who was raped as a teenager and is a lesbian, wrote formal letters asking to be seen by a “natal female” when she went for a mammogram on Christmas Eve last year.

She made clear that after being violated by a man when she was “little more than a child” she did not consent to intimate procedures being carried out by people born as boys.

Staff at the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust were “visibly shocked” but sympathetic.

The mammographer signed one letter confirming she was female and another letter was placed in Dimyon’s medical records. But two weeks ago she saw her letters highlighted by the trust as examples of “unacceptable” and “highly discriminatory” communications in guidelines to support trans patients and staff.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/patient-branded-transphobic-after-asking-for-female-medic-3jh3snddt?shareToken=412f21b1846cf5dca5d036d78a8bed8a&wgu=270525_54264_15757964141189_2266477043&wgexpiry=1583572414&utm_source=planit&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_content=22278&fbclid=IwAR0mhEFWZkzwY4ohxW6Na9Q0fguFO5k6jDXsSUAhZ6YWp2DQIXC__5eDNvI

How is it possible that the medical profession have also signed up to the lal la land of gender.

Surely of any group of people they should know and respect the reality of biological sex.

And be trained to understand respecting patient's privacy and need for post traume support.

I wish it were possible to say oh well this is Brighton, but it seems the whole NHS has been captured and is now compliant with the trans agenda - at the expense of women.

So there would easily be an EA exemption here whereby a male born transsexual could legally be excluded from performing a mammogram yet the trust are misinterpreting the EA and ignoring the exemptions?

Stonewall et al would like to convince the world that
a) the exemptions don't exist to protect the interests of female people
b) they're naughty and should be removed (even though they don't exist)
and c) that recognising the needs of females implies that there is a lack of respect for someone's chosen gender identity, ie permission in law to perceive someone as male in fact regardless of their chosen identity.

This demand for respect (not enshrined in law yet) should according to them outweigh any need for reciprocal respect of disability, faith, culture, sex, or the need to not create an environment that is hostile or humiliating for the user.

The trust are demonstrating wholesale policy capture by a political lobby to the major disadvantage of a large swathe of the population, including those protected in law. It would appear highly debatable that this would stand up in court. Maya and Harry's results from their court cases get ever more important.

I really want this policy to be subject to judicial review. I would chip in for any legal challenge.

Siameasy
That's a really important question. Who accessed a patient's file in order to access her letter and then use it in sinister bullying training materials? Is the Trust not subject to GDPR regulations? The more you look at this the more it stinks.

and c) that recognising the needs of females implies that there is a lack of respect for someone's chosen gender identity, ie permission in law to perceive someone as male in fact regardless of their chosen identity.

This demand for respect (not enshrined in law yet) should according to them outweigh any need for reciprocal respect of disability, faith, culture, sex, or the need to not create an environment that is hostile or humiliating for the user.

Well tough shit for them, there is case law that says the use of an EA exception cannot constitute harassment. They don't have a counter claim.

www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/the-reverend-canon-j-c-pemberton-v-the-right-reverend-richard-inwood-former-acting-bishop-of-southwell-and-nottingham-ukeat-0072-16-ba

This case concerned the use of a religious exception against a minister who had married his male partner but the principle is the same.

The first tribunal judge said that it would be 'an affront to justice' if the lawful use of an EA exception constituted harassment.

The appeal judge agreed with the ruling but didn't like the wording, 'an affront to justice'. His preferred wording was: 'that would create an inherent contradiction within the statute'.

Now that's very interesting Pencils

LBC are having a phone in about this now

LBC haven't heard of the single sex exemptions in the equality act.

They don't know the difference between sex and gender

• Your feelings/needs/inclusion based on your race, age, sex, colour, faith, disability etc will definitely be respected by the NHS....

unless they happen to upset a male. In which case your requirements as a patient must in all cases be subordinate to the male health care provider's*

It's disgraceful. Men aren't immune though, I was browbeat and essentially forced into having a digital rectum examination by a male, despite it clearly being visible on all my records I have PTSD, and intimate exams should only be performed by female HCPs. I complained to trust who essentially told me to fuck off. No chaperone either.

Steve I was talking to a relentlessly Woke colleague who was abroad on a work trip and was taken for a steam bath/massage. He was shocked at how uncomfortable he was to find all the masseurs were male, and to have to cope with being intimately touched by another male. I explained to him that this was his first experience of feeling sexually vulnerable, and many women feel like this much of the time.

Patient choice about hcp sex should be absolute and unquestioned.

Further to the late night phone in, Nick Ferrari on LBC also had a short piece on this during his morning show. This is not the first time he has included an item regarding transgender issues and I am delighted as his programme has a very wide reach. The two female callers were excellent in clarifying some of the details and the wrongful confusion of the words gender and sex was highlighted.

Just a few moments later, the suggestion that only gay actors should play gay parts was discussed. While musing on the lack of opportunities of good parts for trans people, a chap who was once associated with Gay News asserted that the correct word for a non-trans person was cis gender. Hell will have to freeze over before I accept this definition of women and men.

years ago a black HCP used their hospital trust over an incident where a patient had refused to be treated by them and demanded a white hcp.

While I think that is an awful thing for the patient to ask, I'm not comfortable with asking patients to se any doctor they are uncomfortable with, even for stupid or unethical reasons. And I realise that while it might not be that relevant today, this sort of thing used to cause real problems for women doctors or those of certain ethnicities, or even social class backgrounds.

But it's an intimate relationship, not just in terms of personal examinations. Someone is touching you, asking personal questions, knowing details of your life that might be quite private. Patient centred care is an important principle IMO.

The crunch f course is always availability. My father lives in a town with one female doctor. So if you want to see a male doctor, you need to drive an hour. In an emergency that might not be a real option. I think that affects how people see this, they imagine that in an emergency most people would take what was available, and so for most people asking for a doctor o a particular sex is a want rather than a need.

sorry for the old thread revival, but....

does this patient now have a good case against Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust?

I don't know. However, I imagine all the nasty discrimination against (mostly women) people who don't believe in the gender ideology can now be informed by the Maya case.

Otherwise, they are deliberated promoting bigotry, and illegally discriminating against and slandering people for their belief in scientific facts.

It needs to be clearly stated, that if a female patient does not want to be intimately touched by someone they perceive as male, their right to say no is trumped by the male person's requirement that their personal choice of subjective identity be respected over and above reality and fact.
Interesting. I would also prefer not to be examined by a trans men whom I perceive as male in their presentation, mannerism etc.

I had a coupe of male midwives with dc and I felt totally uncomdrable about it. It's different with male doctors as they are not caring for you as such. I felt so self conscious when I had to throw up in the middle of night after my CS and show him a massive clot that I had passed as they wanted to keep an eye on things. Awful and not what I needed. I put up with it but I think midwifery is for natal women.

uncomdrable = uncomfortable

Hi All,
this was me!
HMQ gave me a medal for "LGBT" so I feel kinda responsible.
I have "Daughter and granddaughter of doctors Disorder", I had genuine apprehension so I wrote two documents for the mammographer to sign. They were lovely and shocked I was even asking. They were fantastic, there was no fault at the clinic.
I am aware others are frightened and this worked, so I posted online for others to know what they could try.
I hope the MBE [LGBT] thing can help others. I have been in this "LGBT" soup being a campaigner but THIS is not what any of us signed up for. I feel terrible but I am also directly affected.
The Equality & Diversity team FOUND it online and...
stripped out that it was a mammogram and actually covered by sex -exemption (I didnt know that before but it is)
the stripped out MBE [LGBT] with the excuse of confidentiality, when I posted it online, so why did they take it out I wonder?

I found it by accident online and recognised my letter in one of their documents (with mammogram and MBE LGBT) stripped out and YES I jolly well did go top the Times. I must also say that although I have been doing being an out rape survivor since 12 months before #MeToo, it wasn't easy and Nicholas Hellen was an absolutely gent, he really couldn't have been more appropriate as a journalist interviewing a rape survivor. That is more than can be said for Adina Campbell who in fact groomed me into "going public". Highly manipulative and they were waiving legal waivers under my face, not for my welfare, oh no, so I put some clauses in of my own and then had to spend the whole weekend, exhausted from the whole thing, chasing the BBC to get them to DO what they said and not to place me in needless danger. I really appreciated reading your comments, I hadnt seen it til today.

I am a Quaker and in fact on the 32nd anniversary, I had an article published by the Quaker weekly journal The Friend (15 April 2016). It's in Quaker jargon but if you are interested.
www.sexsegregatedprisons.info/moj-prison-popn-statistics/only-3-9-prison-popn-female/quaker-testimony-rape

my financial circumstances very precarious meant I didnt dare take a case in case I lost.
I didnt know LBC did a piece how interesting!

Clare thank you for your bravery. In awe.

I'm sorry that you ever needed to stand up for yourself in this way, but I'm grateful that you did it because so many women will benefit from your bravery.

I wanted to say thank you too, Clare.

Clare

Its when women are so brave in being able to put this stuff in the public domain that the realities of it all start to bite. Women's needs cannot be subordinated to political ideals.

This is absolutely shocking.

She gave them so much personal information to justify why she needed a natal female healthcare provider, and they still manage to make out she's transphobic?

No woman should ever have to give a reason for asking for a same sex healthcare provider or other professional.

It bothers me that she has to justify her request by disclosing being sexually abused as a child, and it bothers me that even when a woman states she has been abused by a man, she still isn't allowed agency over her body and her healthcare without false accusations of transphobia.

Much the same as access to terminations shouldn't be based on whether a woman has been raped, access to same sex healthcare providers or other professional support should not be withheld unless a woman has been abused by a man. Stating that you want / need a same sex professional to care for you is not transphobic.

That hospital trust have badly let down every woman they are responsible for, both as employees and as service users. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Clare

Gosh... I just couldnt walk on by, I dont care what the kid did, no 14yo should be subjected that, it was just in me. The BBC Adina Campbell was all "Will you come to Oxford...for an interview", she was SO manipulative...but I also knew it MIGHT reach women and girls it needed to reach. I spoke to a lovely woman on the then BBC helpline, she said she had seen really great feedback, all appreciative...I just had to let that ripple in the pond do its thing... and know I would probably never know the outcome and who it had reached... BUT postscript