SEENinHealth Interactive Map of (unlawful) NHS single sex and trans self ID policies for whole of UK - check out your Trust and find template letters to call for the return of lawfulness to the NHS!

[KnottyAuty]

Very proud to announce that SEENinHealth has published an interactive policy map on their website here:

https://seeninhealth.org/nhs-foi-map/

This is a huge milestone for the fabulous 40 or so mumsnetters who worked together to audit these NHS policies last year and "keep the receipts" which form the basis for this map. SEENinHealth have passed on their thanks to you all!

It is thought that there have been no single sex spaces in the NHS since 2009 despite public declarations to the contrary. The gender self ID policies on this map were in force in 2024-2025 and we found no evidence of any protected single sex spaces for staff or patients across the UK - over 300 Trusts!

We have been doing a follow up sample of FOI searches this month. The results are coming in but so far no Trusts have updated to lawful single sex spaces yet - all are waiting for EHRC guidance... the map will be updated in due course.

Please do use this data to help hold your elected representatives and NHS Trusts to account. And share with others. Sample letters and contact details are linked from the map page to make it easy to request that your Trust complies with the law.

SEENinHealth will be launching the map officially tomorrow so any help boosting their social media posts would be great thank you.

All the FOIs are in the public domain. Search on WhatDoTheyKnow under this researcher name:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/search/ermine%20amies/all

Then do a search for your local trust - it can be a bit glitchy so just use a few keywords

Although if you are in Scotland a lot of those results were sourced directly from Trusts and via MBM...

We got the policies from one of two places: either they were accessible from the Trust’s own website, in which case we archived them. If your Trusts’s policy is found (on the map) through a link to the Wayback Machine, then that is where it was when we found it.

Some Trusts only made their policies available via FOI requests. If the link to your Trust’s policy is via What Do They Know, then this is how we got it.

Some Trusts have pulled their policies, but have not informed anyone that they have done this. It is possible that your Trust is one of these.

None that we have contacted via a further set of FOIs have updated their policies.

There's a very specific reason I've asked this about my Board that I'd rather not post publicly as it will completely out me, and I can't seem to PM you. I'll do a bit more digging.

@SirChenjins if you DM TwoLoons with the Trust name she can probably tell you where it was sourced

Congratulations and thanks, Knotty Auty. It's scary to see and good luck with getting the new puritans to see the implications of protecting a tiny minority for the majority of women.

We live in a country where we can be denied treatment at all because there are no beds but trans identifying people are given the choice of where they want the bed that is obviously readily available for them to be. I wonder what happens when it comes to waiting lists ...

Another point this work makes clear is that if anyone was under the impression that This Kind Of Thing was only going on in a handful of places like Brighton or Bristol (not that that would be OK, of course), they are way out; it is all over the country, in every area. Endemic, I suppose you'd say.

"some may wish to be in a ward where there are patients of the gender they currently identify with."

I bet they do. And it's the patients (women) in the ward who are important, not the fact that it's a "women's ward". Women are the resource. Sick, hospitalised, possibly bed-bound, vulnerable women.

So inclusive. So caring.

Quite. Within 5 minutes walk of my house are both a well attended mosque (don't even think about trying to park on a Friday!) And an African evangelical church. I'd hazard a guess the congregations of both wouldn't be happy with this if they read it. And neither am , albeit we might have different reasons for reaching the same opinion.

I’ve DMd you, @SirChenjins

RDUH (Exeter):

"Patient Requests to See Specific Sex/Gender Clinician
From time-to-time patients may ask to see a specific sex/gender clinician. The Trust takes the position that trans clinicians will be supported in their identity and acquired gender to see such patients. "

Could this actually constitute assault?!

If they ask for a specific sex, and get gender, that's deeply worrying. What Upton would have done, as he admitted. If they ask for gender, it may be fair enough, but that presupposes the patient is aware of the differences.

If a patient is allowed to ask for either a male or a female doctor, which I know I am at the GP’s, then it is completely disrespectful to the patient to do this.

I would say it us a stealth attack of a kind.

It's certainly not allowing informed consent.

If a doctor examines a patient without informed consent it is an assault (obviously there are exceptions for situations like an unconscious patient).

I agree. But the NHS seems not to. I wonder if they have codified this in any way, re what constitutes assault and uninformed consent. I suspect not.

It doesn't matter what the NHS thinks it's the CPS that decides on prosecutions for assault.

True. If someone raises it. Which they might not if the NHS batters them down, as a vulnerable patient. I know when I've been in hospital, my general bolshiness fell by the wayside. Which makes it worse.

The individual NHS trusts are awful - but they’re just repeating what’s in the (very old) Dept of Health guidance.

It’s quite astonishing, a campaign group called Press for Change (in the person of Christine Burns) basically wrote all of the Dept of Health guidance relating to trans people in 2007, and it’s still in most of the NHS trust policies today.

"Patients who are Trans should be accommodated according to their self identified gender presentation. Different genital or breast sex appearance is not a bar or a determining factor in considering accommodation for a patient. Where Trans patients have privacy concerns they can be reassured that this will be protected through the use of curtains on the ward or where available and requested by a patient accommodation in a single side room adjacent to a sex-appropriate ward that aligns with their self-identified gender identity. This approach may only be varied under special circumstances where, for instance, the treatment is sex-specific and necessitates a Trans person being placed in an otherwise opposite sex ward. Such departures should be proportionate to achieving a ‘legitimate aim’, for instance, a safe nursing environment. This may arise, for instance, when a Trans man is having a hysterectomy in a hospital, or hospital ward that is designated specifically for women, and no side room is available. The situation should be discussed with the individual concerned and a joint decision made as to how to resolve it."

And where women (and men) forced to share wards with opposite sex trans identified people have privacy concerns, what will we be offered as protection?

How strange there is no mention of that.

🤯🤯🤯

OMG. They can't be serious!
Here, let's put this paedophile on the children's ward because he wants it. It'll be fine, he's wearing a chastity belt. 😡

Christine Burns is a trans identifying male, who made the curious decision to have their own face on the cover of a 99 page booklet from 2008 that they authored for the DfH.

I find this slightly odd - I wonder how many other government advisory committee members get to put their own faces on government publications? It seems really unprofessional and I wouldn't dream of doing that - maybe it is just me though and everyone does this all the time?!

ETA you can download a full copy from here:
https://facialteam.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Trans.-A-practical-guide-for-the-NHS.pdf

Some of the PP have been surprised about the different issues which might face any women who complain about lack of single sex space. More from the SEEN pages:

For female patients this means that if they complain about sharing toilets, showers or sleeping accommodation with a bearded trans identifying male (a "trans woman"), then NHS staff are instructed to variously:

• re-educate the patient that their privacy/dignity/safety concerns are bigotry
• deny that the person is male
• consider reporting this as a hate crime
• threaten to withdraw treatment from the woman for complaining

In case you think that this is exaggeration, quotes from the policies speak for themselves:

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust
“Providing education to other service users in a ward to prevent ignorant or transphobic comments is, if successful, a better solution than having to protect or isolate the trans service user, but please note that disclosing that someone is transgender without their consent may be unlawful.”
Supporting Trans and Non Binary People – Best Practice Guidelines (p26)

Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
“Refusing to use a name, pronouns, or gender which the patient recognises or asking intrusive questions about a patient’s trans status when not relevant or pertinent to treatment is a form of harassment and a form of discrimination. If this is malicious in intent, this may be considered as a hate crime.”
Supporting Trans Patients Policy (p9)

Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
“Examples of intimidation or behaviour that is not acceptable” “Derogatory or offensive racial, religious, political, disability, ageist or sexual remarks gestures or behaviour” and “You should recognise that abusive and violent behaviour could result in you being refused access to NHS services”
2021 Policy for the Management of Patients and Visitors, Who Are Violent, Abusive, Aggressive or Threatening (p6-7)
(NB Sandie Peggie was disciplined and suspended from work for using the word “man” which was considered abusive)