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/

The relevant case here is Higgs v Farmor's School.The Employment Appeal Tribunal found:

“The dismissal of an employee merely because they have expressed a religious or other protected belief to which the employer, or a third party with whom it wishes to protect its reputation, objects will constitute unlawful direct discrimination within the meaning of the Equality Act.” [175]

'However, it can be lawful to take action against someone if their conduct is not simply an expression of belief but is itself objectively “objectionable” or “inappropriate”. In this case if the respondent can show that their response was proportionate to the inappropriate conduct, it would be lawful.
The judgment also emphasised that:'

“It is necessary in this context to judge a statement by what it actually says, and not by reference to a concern about what some readers might wrongly read into or infer from it.” [178]

https://sex-matters.org/case-briefings/higgs-v-farmors-school/

I am so very sorry.

He resigned, then brought a discrimination and harassment claim. The judgment held that they had tried to engage with him to find out if his beliefs could be accommodated.

@PrettyDamnCosmic personally I don't care how staff refer to me behind my back..."pain in the arse" is fine! 😂

Staff do use pronouns though i.e. I get a copy of my medical reports with "she"/"her" etc.

Perhaps old fashionedly letters often start with "thank you for referring this pleasant woman"...dunno if there's a doctor code for "pain in the arse"?

You can keep presenting as many straw man fallacies as you like but it doesn’t change the facts of the matter.

‘the specific responsibilities a medical professional has to their patient’ is first and foremost to treat their health issue with expediency by not getting sidetracked by pronouns, which are irrelevant in a medical setting.

No one is entitled to force anyone else to participate in their delusions, and expecting medical professionals to do this is beyond ridiculous. Medical care is completely predicated on biological sex, if a man and a woman are both admitted to hospital with chronic stomach pain they need to be treated completely differently, because they ARE completely different. Muddying the waters by expecting the medical staff to participate in this nonsense is quite frankly ridiculous.

"Specific responsibilities a medical professional has to their patient’ is first and foremost to treat their health issue with expediency".

Duh. However they do have to talk to and about patients and write reports don't they? I'm not suggesting stopping in the middle of a resuscitation to ask preferred pronouns.

I think we also disagree with what a straw man is. Making analogies to get to the heart of the matter is standard debate and here a nurse has said it is against her Christian beliefs. Nothing to do with science so comparison to same sex marriage objections is valid. That is often also a common fundamentalist Christian belief.

It's worth asking even if a medical professional disagrees with "preferred pronouns", that's the current NHS policy. Privately disagreeing or campaigning against it is different to ignoring it when dealing with patients.

This teacher explains the difficult position he was left in, caught between upholding his duties to safeguard children, and the college's 'affirmative' policy.

Using the wrong pronouns isn't neutral. It has impacts.

https://feweek.co.uk/teacher-sacked-in-trans-student-name-row-can-appeal/

'The case will now be heard at an employment appeal tribunal after a judge ruled there were “arguable points as to the boundary between belief and manifestation” of belief under the 2010 Equality Act, and “unqualified rights to hold a belief” under the European Convention on Human Rights.'

I think any person claiming to be the opposite sex and often removing body parts and taking harmful drugs to change their appearance is pretty extreme.

It is clearly a debilitating mental health condition as it makes sufferers unable to function in their daily lives without extremely delicate handling and full participation from all they come into contact with.

I agree with this @ArabellaScott; however using a child's preferred pronouns is very different from using an adults in a medical setting. In the latter the adult patient has autonomy in how they wish to be treated.

And it's extremely unlikely even if you think using preferred sex pronouns is somehow harmful (which is debatable) that someone is going to change their mind based on a short interaction with a nurse.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/religion-or-belief-workplace/religion-or-belief-how-do-i-handle-employee-requests

An employer would need to justify discrimination against an employee's beliefs. They may be able to discriminate if it's considered proportionate and reasonable, but they'd have to justify that and balance it against other considerations.

Compelling a gender critical employee to mouth the catechism of gender ideology could potentially be discriminatory, in the same way making an agnostic recite the Lord's prayer would be. Or conversely, making a religious employee denounce their religion.

'Where a working condition causes this 'group disadvantage' refusing a request to change it will be unlawful indirect religion or belief discrimination unless you can objectively justify it.'

It's not about changing someone's mind. It's about the right to hold a belief and manifest/express that belief.

Your focus is relentlessly on the person demanding a fiction is upheld.

You/employers need to consider the beliefs and rights of others also, and they must be given equal weight.

Jennifer Melle's right to believe that a man is a man is equally protected as the man's belief that he is female. He has a right to think and say he is female; he doesn't have a right to compel anyone else to agree.

Okay thanks

1. "Refusing a request to change it will be unlawful indirect religion or belief discrimination unless you can objectively justify it.". The nurse concerned did not request to change it with her employer based on her belief.

2. "Unless you can objectively justify it". In the case of a nurse, as with the DWP it would be objectively based on them needing to treat /meet transgender individuals. And that transgender patients would find "misgendering" distressing.

And there is no obligation on HCPs to share or pretend to share patients' beliefs. They mustn't impinge on patient's beliefs, or discriminate against them, but they equally aren't compelled to pretend to believe other people's beliefs just to keep them happy.

Agree. Either it’s a serious mental health issue or they are robust enough to deal with reality and understand that others have different beliefs.

If we're going to keep Christian beliefs out of medicine, can we please keep gender beliefs out of medicine too, and just deal with physical reality? If someone kicks up a fuss about their physical reality being referred to, then I would expect a professional to try to defuse the situation. I think that is what Jennifer Melle was trying to do, by pointing out that she was not being deliberately offensive. It was at worst foolish to mention her beliefs, but that should be dealt with not by suspension but by a respectful discussion between her and her manager in the first instance.

There is an obligation currently to use preferred pronouns in NHS medical care as I understand it. As there is an obligation to respect i.e. same sex marriage irrespective of religious beliefs that marriage can only be between a man and woman. There is an obligation to believe in i.e. vaccination. It's quite clear in the policy.

You may argue it shouldn't be there. But currently it is.

We'll see in due course whether the court will side with a nurse who may have committed the sin of calling a man 'he' after an aggressive, abusive paedophile repeatedly used the 'n' word towards her, or her employer for punishing her for doing so.

Where.

Often in NHS Equality Docs and Policy not sure which Trust. R.e. NMC it's on website:

A registered nurse deliberately misgenders a transgender person attending a diabetes clinic, despite that person repeatedly asking them to refer to them using the correct gender. The transgender person makes a formal complaint to the nurse’s employer. When challenged about her behaviour, the nurse says that she was acting in accordance with her belief that human beings cannot change their sex or gender.

We are likely to take action against this nurse. Persistently and deliberately misgendering a trans person is contrary to the requirements of the Code to treat people with kindness and respect. The nurse’s beliefs do not justify a clear departure from the provisions of the Code. Although gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act, this does not mean that those with gender-critical beliefs can ‘misgender’ trans persons with impunity.9

From www.nmc.org.uk/ftp-library/understanding-fitness-to-practise/fitness-to-practise-allegations/misconduct/freedom-of-expression-and-fitness-to-practise/

I can't speak for Eresh but one of my close family had a severe mental illness that ultimately lead to suicide.

Am I allowed an opinion on pronouns now?

My opinion is this.

It is absolutely offensive to me as a woman to pay lip service to belief system that claims the fundamental difference between men and women in this world is not our bodies and the differences in social expectations and experiences that this leads to, but simply that our minds are different?!?

So different apparently that none of the consequences of our bodies and the embodied experiences of women are as significant as a man's self image based on - well, based on whatever-the-hell-it-is he thinks it is to be us, which seems to be anything from a fashion choice to a sexual preference to a rejection of masculinity, but sure as hell is nothing I recognise as a fundamental source for my own experiences of womanhood.

So you know, if my views drive away women who accept the premise that some men are closer to women than other men because of how they think, I'm afraid I'm ok with that.

Because if they care more about offending such men than respecting the reality of women and of women's lives, I can't see how we can ever be on the same road.

Afaik, there is nothing in law that defines ‘misgendering’.

Especially in light of the Supreme Court clarification this policy appears to be utterly unlawful. Maybe it needs testing in court.

I am sure the full details will be revealed. By the details that are currently in the public domain that scenario is not what happened prior to the report to the regulator.
The NMC referral as it currently stands is adjacent to a Minority Report scenario. Itself like the workplace that Hadley Freeman (?) left at The Guardian.

Are you guilty?' said Winston.
'Of course I'm guilty!' cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. 'You don't think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you?' His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. 'Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,' he said sententiously. 'It's insidious. It can get hold of you without your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep! Yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit -- never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?'
He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to utter an obscenity.
"Down with Big Brother!" Yes, I said that! Said it over and over again, it seems. Between you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me before it went any further. Do you know what I'm going to say to them when I go up before the tribunal? "Thank you," I'm going to say, "thank you for saving me before it was too late."
'Who denounced you?' said Winston.
'It was my little daughter,' said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride. 'She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don't bear her any grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway.' [George Orwell, 1984.]

https://www.abhafoundation.org/assets/books/html/1984/152.html

It's not difficult: the nurse can just describe the anatomy to which the catheter is inserted. In the event that a (non-catheterised) problem is in a part of the body that both males and females have, the other people in the discussion can ask if a relevant sex specific body part is involved (relevant = may alter treatment decisions) and the nurse can answer with a simple "yes" or "no". The nurse could also volunteer clinically appropriate information by saying something like "...and problem is not currently presenting in the patients' penis".

There is no need to mention "he" or "she" and the nurse could preserve both their and the patients sensibilities; the nurse knows this (or should do).

@FlirtsWithRhinos I have no problem with anyone discussing pronouns, what I do have a problem is being compared to someone telling someone who is anorexic that they are fat or someone who is psychotic that they can fly. Yes I do find that inappropriate and offensive and frankly a pretty shit argument.

And I haven't even said what I think the right answer is. I've raised a question about whether medical professionals are or should be allowed to use "true sex" pronouns when referring to their patients. If they don't agree should they be able to "misgender"? As far as I'm aware it hasn't really been discussed in that context.

I have also raised concerns about what this nurse has actually been suspended for. According to the news articles it was for breaching patient confidentiality not for her religious beliefs about sex.

I support women's rights and same sex spaces without jumping on every possible court case about it, not least because some of them might actually end up being something different or have concerning implications about i.e. bringing religion into medical practice.