Long tweet by lascapigliata, commenting on the BBC article about male surgeons sexually assaulting female colleagues:
"What troubles me the most about NHS capture by gender ideology and "trans staff polices" which are allowing men to enter women-only spaces and falsify their sex on their documents and registration records, is that the NHS is behaving as if medicine DOESN'T attract male abusers.
Medicine is one of several fields that give unprecedented access to and power over vulnerable women and children, and for that reason it absolutely does attract abusers. The incidence of sexual assault and abuse of power differential in medicine is staggering, even though it often goes unacknowledged and unreported. I know hundreds of women, both patients and clinicians, who were abused or sexually harassed by male clinicians (doctors, nurses, radiographers, physios etc) and the vast majority either didn't report it or their reports were dismissed.
So for the NHS, the biggest healthcare employer in Europe, to be so nonchalant about allowing male clinicians to falsify their sex and gain access to female facilities and female patients in need of intimate care, while intimidating and persecuting women who complain, is so outrageously cruel and unsafe it is beyond anything I ever expected to see in my entire life. Add to this the fact the NHS is allowing male patients and male visitors to also "identify as women" and gain access to women-only spaces without restriction or supervision. The only conclusion I can make is that misogyny and male predators are way more common and a lot more powerful in medicine than even I, who was always hyperaware of these issues, imagined. Just consider, as a patient, what this means, and to what sort of system you are entrusting your children, your wives, your grandmothers, in their time of illness and vulnerability."
https://twitter.com/lascapigliata8/status/1702062739676398066
Archived: https://archive.ph/nr1rp
She goes on to say:
"Here's what happened to me the first time I set my foot in a hospital, as a first year medical student. More followed as years went by. I am terrified of publishing the whole memoir, but I am acutely aware how necessery it might be for me to do so."
Excerpt 2 from my (still in draft) memoir ‘Sexism in Medicine’
"First time I had a tutorial in the hospital, we met the consultant in the Accident and Emergency department and then we were led up to the ward to observe a bronchoscopy on an unconscious patient. The room was small and stuffy and many of us gathered around the bed. One of the consultants was operating a piece of equipment I have never seen before and everyone was holding their breath. This was when I felt a man’s hand slipping under my coat and starting to grope me. I froze as he rubbed against my bottom, assaulting me in a room full of people, during a procedure that could have ruptured the patient’s lungs if I screamed or started any commotion. So I stayed frozen, in order to protect the patient from harm. I remember thinking that I would kill that bastard as soon as the procedure was over.
The procedure finished without incident and as the crowd started to disperse, I turned around and faced my abuser. He was a small, insipid man in a white coat, with mousy brown hair and a moustache. But his gaze was stone cold and very threatening. Before I could confront him, he squeezed a quiet threat through his teeth. He said nobody would believe me and that he would ruin my career before it even started if I told anyone. I was stunned, but he just laughed at me and walked off."
Full article:
https://lascapigliata.com/excerpt-2-from-my-still-in-draft-memoir-sexism-in-medicine/
Archived: https://archive.ph/o0Qbw