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.

Interesting to see that the guidance front page above features three pictures of transwomen and no pictures of transmen.

Not surprising though.

SEEN in Health have been tweeting about this all day including lots of interesting quotes.

That'll be the misogyny and erasure of women that's baked through evey aspect of this ideology 🙄

Male supremacy to the core.

Totally in awe of the expertise and sheer doggedness that you all demonstrated by producing such a thorough investigation. Some of the policies, no actually all of them, are completely horrifying. Exposure of what has been going on is crucial and glad it is getting the coverage. Thank you a million times.

I do hope the Devon Partnership NHS Trust gets some free publicity for their excitement about looking for opportunities to wedge male sex offenders into women's wards:

"Where a transgender woman is admitted and has a history of sex offending, decisions regarding risk should include consideration of whether they are being prescribed anti-libidinal medication that would be expected to reduce sexual risk."

'reduce'! 😡

Wow this is so useful, thank you

Mine too - with a double whammy of Royal Devon University Hospitals too. So presently we’re fucked!
I’ve written to Richard Foord previously, and received a very detailed reply as to why we should all be kind, but I’ll try again. In my case, Richard Foord replaced Neil Parish as MP. Yes, he of tractor porn infamy.
As,I said, we’re fucked.
Huge thanks to Knotty and team; seriously good work.

Great work - shame results are so depressing

It is odd that there is one law but so many variations of interpretations of it.

"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. "

This is pandering to male fetish, isn't it. Why else would a clinician specifically want to see a patient who they know DOESN'T want to see them?

And it's so obviously written by activists.

Remember trans GP Kamila Kamaruddin who described having such a lovely time performing intimate examinations on female patients? It's so satisfying for the trans person.

A lot of my patients were quite conservative — many female patients wore long clothes, or the hijab — but they allowed me to examine them despite my change. In fact, after my transition, they even allowed me to perform more intimate examinations that they did not let me to do when I was a male GP. Every single one of them refused my offer of a chaperone even when they knew that I am transgender. After the positive experience on my first day back to work, I remembered having tears in my eyes during my drive home. I was overwhelmed with emotions, and they were tears of happiness. I could not recall the last time I felt this happy.

What it’s like to be a transgender patient and a GP | British Journal of General Practice

I felt a bit sick reading that.

Thank you @KnottyAuty and everyone else who has contributed to this amazing body of work 💐

It is not all completely awful, I was quite heartened by this
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250327031842/www.nth.nhs.uk/patients/commitment/privacy/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20250327031842/www.nth.nhs.uk/patients/commitment/privacy/

All the Trusts say they have single sex wards but when reading their policies it's become obvious that single sex = single gender (mixed sex). The NHS don't have accurate patient sex records. They record gender and the patient can apply to have that changed.

Yeah - I would not go by what the Trust says publicly on its website. Go and see what their policy actually says (hint, it does not match what the website says).

Thank you to @KnottyAuty @TwoLoonsAndASprout @SeaStoat and all the co-ordinators.
I helped, under a previous username, and it was great to be able to do something constructive. If it is decided to do a follow up at some point, I would be happy to help again. Just send up the bat signal.

That’s because Trusts were told that it didn’t count - there’s actual Dept of Health guidance saying trusts can still report achieving single sex accommodation if a ward is mixed sex - as long as it’s A&E (makes sense), or intensive care (also makes sense) or the person identified as the right sex for that ward.

They seem to say they don't have any gender reassignment and/or transgender guidance and policies? I may have missed something, there's a lot to read.

If they don’t have any policies, it reverts to NHS England 2019 Guidance: Delivering same-sex accommodation:

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20251006050906/www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/delivering-same-sex-accommodation/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20251006050906/www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/delivering-same-sex-accommodation/

Which basically says as all the others say, that trans people must be accommodated in the same sex ward that matches their chosen gender.

(Apologies for the disastrous link - can’t seem to edit it to clean it up. Also see Knotty’s post below for more info…)

Ah this is a great example!
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust
Very similar to NHS Fife - in the sense that they have the single sex claims on the website

But otherwise the paper trail is minimal - in the beginning of the audit we thought this meant they didn’t have a Gender self ID, but im afraid that they do - it’s just tgat regular members of the public would never know…

If you click through to the LGBTQ+ affiliation this is where you get the “tell”. This trust was working towards a place of the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index. So automatically this means the Gender Self ID is through that Trust like a stick of rock. You can’t even get a foot in the door of the WEI without being full on self ID… but of course regular people would t know that…

Im never sure which is worse. The ones who wrote it all down or the ones like this who went stealth…

IMHO the Trusts who were worst were the ones who signposted their child patients who had mental health struggles to the gender affirming 'charities' for 'support'. I don't imagine any of that will change even after the Guidance is finally published.

i don’t have the words to express my appreciation for everyone involved in this audit. Thank you seems so feeble.

Before I click through to find out what my trusts policies are, I have a side question which is - why the fuck does each trust have their own policies on this or anything else? I thought we have three NHS organisations (E&W, Scotland, NI). Surely that should mean a maximum of 3 sets of policies to comply with national legislation. I cannot understand how we’ve got to the point where each trust is duplicating the work, and I also know just how much work is involved in creating and maintaining policies!

Surely to goodness there are a vanishingly small number of circumstances (hyper local issues?) where an individual trust needs a different policy from other trusts.

Sorry to distract from the excellent work of the #knottyaudit but it seems to me to be an example of where the NHS is going badly wrong. I’m generally ambivalent about centralisation of organisations as it can be done well or badly. In this situation it seems that a huge swathe of administrative function could be lost from each trust without any impact to medical services (sorry to anyone who would lose their job but maybe you could be transferred to work on the wards to answer the bloody phone when relatives call and do the admin there so the Ward Sister and her staff can to do their clinical work)