The disgraceful RCN and Nurse Jennifer Melle

[ArabellaScott]

The Darlington Nurses Union has now formally intervened to ask the RCN to step up and do its actual job:

'Suspended nurse Jennifer Melle says her gender row with the NHS has left her abandoned, vulnerable and alone.
The medic claims she has been cast into the wilderness and feeling like a pariah over her unshakable and religiously-held beliefs on biological sex.
She has been suspended from work for four months for breaching patient confidentiality after “misgendering” a convicted sex offender.
Single mum Ms Melle, 40, now faces being struck off but says the silence from those with a duty of care towards her has left her broken. '
...
'Ms Melle was hauled before a disciplinary hearing after an incident in May last year during which she refused to use female pronouns for a patient under her care.
She remains unable to work after Patient X, who was born male but identifies as a woman, was taken to St Helier Hospital in Carshalton, Surrey, from a male prison for treatment for a urinary condition.
Ms Melle was called a n*** multiple times after the inmate overheard her using biologically accurate pronouns during a phone call with a senior doctor.
She was suspended by the trust on April 2 for breaching patient confidentiality after speaking about the racial abuse and referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council.'

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2090368/gender-biological-sex-trans-NHS-nurse

'A paying RCN member for 12 years, Jennifer says that when the incident happened the union dismissed her case as not “meritorious” and told her to complete a “reflection” exercise to avoid future ‘misgendering’. She received no support despite the RCN recognising the abuse she experienced.
The Darlington Nursing Union (DNU), which represents Jennifer, has now formally appealed to the RCN to intervene.'

https://christianconcern.com/ccpressreleases/christian-nurse-in-trans-paedophile-misgendering-case-says-royal-college-of-nursing-abandoned-her/

I am retired now thank goodness. I think it would be a very good thing if every single non- captured nurse joined the Darlington Nurses union

The world is upside down. The nurse needs a formal apology & financial damages. The male pedophile needs to be unable to access medical care until he can be civil to all HCPs. (I know it doesn’t work like that, but it should)

It truly seems as if the NHS considers nurses to be disposable and infinitely replaceable.
Women are easy sacrifices in purity competitions. All too often it’s women egging on their status as sacrificial offerings - see the High Priestesses and vengeful colleagues of NHS Fife.

ETA See also the NMC.

Obviously I'm going to be pounced on for this...

Suppose this was a lovely 70 year old transwoman called "Debbie" in hospital. Should it still be acceptable for medical professionals to use male pronouns for Debbie and/or refuse to use female pronouns?

Quote below:
"Melle explained (to the patient) that she could not use female pronouns due to her Christian faith but offered to use the patient’s chosen name."

My understanding is currently medical professionals in the NHS are required to use preferred pronouns for transgender patients.

She's been vilified for daring to speak up. These brave nurses are all expected to STFU and not point out that HE IS A MAN.

I hope that Nurse Melle receives all the support she needs to seek the damages she rightly deserves.

The term "gender critical" is such a ridiculous phrase, designed to muddy the waters about the simplest possible fact of life. There are men, and there are women. It really is that simple.

It should be acceptable for anyone to call a man a man.

Should a nurse be penalised for calling a man his legal name when he claims to be Napoleon?

Should a nurse be penalised for agreeing with an anorexic when she claims she is too fat?

I half agree, and I understand how bloody difficult it must be to treat people who act like this, and how unfair it is, but HCPs deal with aggressive, obnoxious, and violent patients all the time. It's obviously totally unacceptable that Melle was censured or disciplined. That's the problem, really. We've created a situation where a man can abuse and terrorise a nurse and the hospital supports him, and the union supports him! It really is upside down.

It really doesn't matter whether the man is lovely or horrible, whether he's had his penis surgically altered or retained it; nobody should be censured for referring to a man as 'he'. It's absurd that we're in this position.

@ArabellaScott thanks for the clear answer.

Do you think this is the case as well supposing the nurse knows someone is transgender and others a friend/colleague may not?

If it may be "outing" them so to speak?

Is it relevant how distressing the person may find it?

I don't care how lovely someone is, it must be permitted to use pronouns as they have been used for centuries, and as individual people have used them throughout their own lives. Pronouns are usually used automatically - we never used to consciously think about them, we just used them. It is totally unreasonable to demand that everyone override their natural language in this way.

And of course in a medical setting it is sometimes vitally important that the patient's sex is not mixed up with their irrelevant 'gender identity'.

On Jennifer Melle's faith position, it reinforces her discomfort with mis-sexing, as she not only sees it as untruthful to use identity-based pronouns, but if she is compelled to do so, I think she is (from her perspective) denying her faith. I don't have exactly the same perspective, but I think I can see hers. People with strong faith or culture perspectives have to decide what their boundaries are when there is a difference between their values and what is societally or legally acceptable or required. Those boundaries may be quite rigid or quite flexible. I personally draw a distinction between what the law does not permit (and accept that I must not break the law, or at least knowingly accept the consequences) and what the law (or society) requires me to participate in. The latter may be coercive, and I may have a faith-based duty to resist, for example not to participate in medical treatment which I believe to be unethical even if the law permits it. We are in trouble as a society if we make it impossible for Christians or Buddhists or atheists or Muslims to be nurses or physios or doctors, for example.

The pronoun she would have used directly to him is you.

Hi @RapidOnsetGenderCritic I was trying to narrow the discussion to a medical setting because of the specific responsibilities a medical professional has to their patient.

General principles of free speech evidently don't apply in a medical setting. I.e. the first principle of NMC is "prioritise patients".

I know less about religions other than Christianity, but many are working as healthcare professionals and using preferred pronouns. CofE has transgender vicars these days.

Some Christians still see marriage as only possible between a man and a woman. Does that mean they should be free to say:

"I'm sorry but I can't refer to such and such as your husband because of my Christian beliefs". ?

I'm also not sure how it can be unethical to refer to man/transgender woman as "she"?

Sure but patients will often be discussed with others and overheard.

No, a HCP should not be censured for conveying neutral, factual information about a patient to another HCP. HCPs often deal with patients who may find their situation distressing, for obvious reasons.

No HCP should use derogatory or offensive language to or about a patient, of course. But accurate information relating to their anatomy or biology is pretty much unavoidable.

How far would you suggest taking the implication that people must refer to others with preferred language? I don't call priests 'father', because I'm not Christian. I shouldn't be censured for refusing to agree with an anorexic that she looks fat.

If a man is distressed by his biological sex, the problem is not other people.

This sort of reflects how I feel. I don't have a problem with the nurse referring to a man as a man in a clinical context at all. It's quite possibly clinically necessary as PPs have said.
But to make this about her faith rather than clinical necessity, disturbs me somewhat. Why would someone's faith override patient centered care? What consequences does saying the rights of a medical professional to faith based freedom of speech is paramount, regardless of how much it distresses a patient, have for the vast majority of us who aren't Trans?
It feels to me like she's in the right, but for the wrong reasons.

I'm also not sure how it can be unethical to refer to man/transgender woman as "she"?

Can you understand why many black people objected to Rachel Dolezal calling herself 'black'?

@ArabellaScott having had serious mental illness, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that using someone's preferred pronouns is analogous with i.e. agreeing an anorexia looks fat.

Anorexia is often fatal and any pro-anorexic from a nurse would be in clear breach of their responsibility for patient care. Similar with your comparisons to psychosis.

Accurate information about their biology or sex is one thing, but their sex or biology may not be relevant to their complaint or they may be talking to the patients family or friends. Or writing a report copied to the patient etc. etc.

A trans person who lives openly as both the sex they are and the gender they feel has no fear of "outing".

The reality is that trans "women" are no closer to being women than any other men.

It is onlt those trans people who do not live openly as trans who could be "outed", so it is their own choice to misrepresent themselves that created this "outing" risk.

If someone chooses to live their life deceiving others that it up to them.

But their choice to lie to people who trust them does not create a moral obligation that others must also lie, perhaps about something they feel strongly about, perhaps even though to condone it damages them, and it should not create a legal one.

She spread nothing to the press. She is being punished for using medically accurate language when discussing a patient with a doctor.

Medically accurate language, including accurate sex descriptors, is critically important because parameters such as kidney function vary between the sexes.

But using medically accurate language in this context is being described as 'outing' the trans-identifying man and this beating GDPR.

More evidence that the GRA is not fit for purpose and Hans the very individuals it was designed to serve.

I'm uncomfortable with the idea that using someone's preferred pronouns is analogous with i.e. agreeing an anorexia looks fat.

It's not helpful to support delusions.

Okay, no supporting delusions of any kind by your view. So someone on their deathbed requesting a priest for last rites should be told there's no biological basis for life after death?

Someone dying who sees a loved one should be told about the biological basis of near death hallucinations and that it doesn't mean that they will still be with them?

Absolutely agree. The sexism and possibly racism against SN Melle is shocking. I really hope the RCN gets dragged over the coals for this and all the other gender woo nonsense they've supported )eg Sandie Peggie, Darlington nurses).

How on earth are Drs and nurse supposed to do their jobs correctly and safely, if they can't use clear, biologically accurate language to describe patients and their health issues?

@BeLemonNow

I'm uncomfortable with the idea that using someone's preferred pronouns is analogous with i.e. agreeing an anorexia looks fat.

Why?

"Preferred pronouns" is a euphemism for "sexist beliefs".

Women should not be expected to condone sexist beliefs that are socially harmful to us.

It's not just trans people who matter in society.

@FlirtsWithRhinos Because going along with someone's anorexia can kill them. That's where that leads.