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/

R.e. other threads, yes on second thoughts that wasn't a good definition of transgenderism that doesn't claim transwomen are biological women. Just plucked it off the net.

I am not a TRA so it would be silly for me to try and defend a position I don't hold.

Just not sure where I am on the issue of medical professionals be required to use preferred pronouns for transgender. Or refrain from using correct sex pronouns.

I'm uncomfortable with a medical professional deciding they can conscientiously object on religious grounds and say so to a patient.

It's interesting quite a few see using preferred pronouns this as lying or willing to engage in false beliefs.

Are you willing to use feminine names for a transwomen still?

Thanks all, sorry for being a bit snarky last night! I enjoy a good debate but when everyone piles on it gets a tad overwhelming 😉

Thanks all, sorry for being a bit snarky last night! I enjoy a good debate but when everyone piles on it gets a tad overwhelming 😉

I am now retired but I think that I am the only HCP who has commented on this thread so have practical experience of this issue. You don't seem that keen on a debate as you ignored my previous post but I will repeat it for you.

The only pronoun needed to use to a patient's face is "you". What they are called when being discussed among HCPs is none of the patient's business. I cannot see any circumstance where you would need to use a patient's preferred pronouns. Quite often we refer to patients by illness not name e.g. the MI in bed 7, the D&V in bed 9 or Pain In The Arse in bed 5.

Hi @PrettyDamnCosmic sorry for missing your post, thought I'd replied.

In this case the nurse was using pronouns on the phone with a doctor and was overheard by the patient who got pissed. I've had pronouns used in I.e. reports too.

I agree that noone uses third person pronouns directly to a patient.

Names are quite different to pronouns. There's nothing inherent about certain names being common for males or females, it's just a value we happen to assign and it can change. So the word or at least concept of female has an immutable meaning, which isn't the case for the name Jen instead of John.

Thanks. I can understand many see using "preferred pronouns" as lying.

I have a different take on this from philosophy of language, studied eons ago.

A lie is an assertion that someone makes despite believing it to be false.

From a philosophy of language perspective, pronouns don't by themselves have any truth value, they function to refer.

So "Debbie is cold, she asked for a blanket" is true if and only if she asked for a blanket. It isn't lying if Debbie is not a biological woman, the "she" points to Debbie.

Or it's equivalent to Debbie is cold and Debbie asked for a blanket.

But it's not the same as saying "Debbie is cold, the biological woman called Debbie" asked for a blanket which is false and so saying it would be a lie, I agree (unless you are Dr. Upton and believe a trans women is a biological woman).

So you agree that use of preferred pronouns is actually a non-issue in real life situations. The patient should not have been listening in to a private phone call between two HCPs as it may not even have concerned him.

Or in other words, why is it okay for a name that has been only used for women to be "just a value we happen to assign" and not for a pronoun to be, also a value assigned.

There are obviously names that are only used for women. Part of the purpose of a name is to identify sex. Would you be okay if your feminine name was used by a transwoman?

I think expecting anyone who works on a busy medical ward to give any thought to the philosophy of language whilst working is entirely unrealistic, tbh.

It also wouldn't be practical not to call someone by their legal name in a medical setting, when we live in a society where adults can call themselves almost anything they want. If you wanted to refer to TW Jen Smith by his previous name when discussing with another clinician, you'd have to dig it out and rely on the person you're communicating with to know what you were talking about. It would waste time, serve to confuse. In that respect, it's the opposite of the linguistic gymnastics you were advocating for upthread when talking about how a TWs urinary problems should be referred to.

We do actually have to bear in mind that we're talking about high pressure, sometimes life or death environments where we can't afford the staff to waste mental energy on linguistic wanking.

A transgender or any patient in bed cannot help overhearing what staff are saying about them.

So it's not a non issue. If someone's "misgendered" they will hear it.

I get it's high pressured but in that case why is it such a massive issue that a nurse has to start explaining to a patient that she can't used "preferred pronouns"?

You can't have it both ways. Either it's extremely important to you you aren't "lying" or you've got better things to worry about than pronouns.

I appreciate your perspective as a HCP. On other sites that are TRA though they make the opposite point and say it is easy and saves time and issues to use preferred pronouns.

@UpDo PS it wasn't me advocating for linguistic gymnastics when discussing male bits.

It has been, as well as having a male meaning in a different culture to mine long before I was born, and no I don't care.

But the distinction is that the pronoun refers to people who are members of a sex class, and that's all it means. Jen and John don't. We could use different words, refer to females as qwertyuiop instead of she and her, but either way the femaleness that they referred to would still be immutable in a way that no personal name is. This is why the two things are not the same.

Also I think you may have me confused with another poster, I have worked in the NHS but am not a HCP.

Okay right back to Genesis suppose a female name like Eve that right now only refers to a group of biological women called "Eve".

A transwomen decides to call themselves "Eve". And wants to be called "Eve".

If you are saying pronouns and "Eve" are descriptive and changed then so can "she".

Both are words referencing a group of women according to your theory. If one changes then the other can change.

(There are also issues with a descriptive theory of language which is why we go back to referring for truth values but nm.)

Presumably continuing to quote the Bible this nurse should object to having to call a British man "Eve".

That is fundamentally a Christian female name, after the first woman. If sex is so important it's surely important for names not just pronouns.

Apologies for the error. We seem to be quite confused about each other!

He challenged her on it, after he heard her. She was explaining why she used “he” that he had overheard. She didn’t just come out with it as a spiel when she was introduced to him 🙄 then he called her the n word multiple times.

No. There's no surely, and this is a fundamentally terrible argument.

Femaleness and maleness exist outside of human cultures and words and do not change. This is not true of language, which means use of female terms for a male are factually wrong in a way that using someone's legal name isn't. Referring to TW Jen Smith as Jen Smith is correct, referring to him as female is not. There isn't any more to it than that.

Indeed gets confusing @UpDo ! My debate was more around medical professionals refusing to ever use "preferred pronouns" and / or insisting on same sex pronouns.

Not aware it's been thought about so I thought I'd throw myself in the ring.

Am a pragmatist I don't mean when medical practitioners are busy. But ever i.e. even if someone is deceased and talking to relatives using "preferred pronouns".

It’s just more bizarre mental gymnastics. I don’t believe in their religion, I don’t want to be forced to lie about reality.

R.e. truth and language I don't agree that's how language works. Pronouns refer to nouns such as given names i.e. Eve. Names refer to individuals. You wouldn't ever use a pronoun outside of a shorthand for a name.

I agree biological sex is extremely important in the world. I'm not some post modern reductionist.

The meaning of "Eve is flatlining. Help her!" is clear. It's not factually accurate or inaccurate depending on whether or not they are biologically male or female (which we also may not know).

No-one has a gender assigned at birth though.

Their sex is identified and recorded.

As you say, sex and gender are different concepts. It’s not helpful for clarity to use “gender” in two different ways, sometimes to mean “sex” and other times to mean something like “feeling of being masculine or feminine” (if any gender ideologists can settle on a definition). It prevents clear communication.

Yes @nutmeg7 I agree the definition I picked out wasn't very good, apologies.

It's hard to come up with a decent definition, I just wanted to avoid the batshit "transwomen are biological women" definitions.

Some hold that sure, not all.

I would say pronouns are also used around gender (of words) not about sex. We are all aware of languages with gendered nouns, that have masculine / feminine / neutral classes.

I apologise for bringing philosophy into it but when it comes to what words mean and how they work that's part of what philosophy is for.

You can disagree all you like, it’s a free country. I haven’t been persuaded by any of your arguments though.

From a philosophy of language perspective, pronouns don't by themselves have any truth value, they function to refer.

I disagree. Pronouns like "that" and "this", "you" and "they" are simply refer functions, but in English at least gendered pronouns like she and he carry additional information, and therefore can be used to misrepresent aka lie.

You missed that you implicitly assumed the meaning of "Debbie is cold, she asked for a blanket" is what it always has been, but implicitly accepted the meaning of "she" has been changed.

If we write out those assumptions and simplify, we get:

"If we assume "Debbie is cold, she asked for a blanket" can only ever mean that the person known as Debbie asked for a woolly cover, and assuming that said person Debbie did indeed ask for a wooly cover, it is not a lie to say Debbie asked for a blanket."

"If we assume "she" could mean a biological man or a biological woman, amd Debbie is a biologically male transwomen, it is not a lie to say "Debbie is cold, she asked for a blanket" because this means "Debbie is cold, she, the person I just referred to who could be of either sex, asked for a blanket"

Well, no shit Sherlock 😂

However, if we do not assume "she" could mean a biological man or a biological woman, and keep to the original sex based meaning, we get "Debbie is cold, she, the person I just referred to who is a biological woman, asked for a blanket"

And that is a lie because Debbie is not a biological woman.

Do you see? The flaw in your logic/philosophy is that it pre-accepted the thing you are trying to prove.

It's nothing to do with philosophy of language, it's simply an error of logic. You have the wrong frame.

It is that initial implicit asdumption "she" could mean a biological man or a biological woman which is the contested belief at the heart of all this so it is that which you need to interrogate, not what comes after.

What @FlirtsWithRhinos said much more eloquently than I could.