Female NHS workers ‘humiliated' by trans guidance in hospitals
Female NHS staff are being forced to work in a 'degrading and humiliating' environment because hospitals are still using outdated trans guidance, campaigners have claimed.
Sex Matters, a women's rights group, said dozens of NHS trusts were 'breaking the law' by continuing to allow trans women to use female facilities in defiance of last month's Supreme Court ruling.
It has written to the NHS Confederation, which represents trusts, to demand that it withdraw guidance that says trans people can use whichever lavatories and changing rooms they wish.
This flies in the face of the Supreme Court judgment that, legally, a trans woman does not count as a woman and therefore cannot use facilities of the opposite sex.
'Humiliating and offensive'
Maya Forstater, the chief executive of Sex Matters, said in the letter: 'Those that are following the current guidance from the NHS Confederation are breaking the law. There is no reason for delay. The fact that your guidance is 'informal' is no excuse.
'It encourages NHS employers to uphold policies that create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and offensive environment for staff who do not wish to share single-sex spaces with members of the opposite sex and to breach workplace health and safety rules.'
A growing number of public bodies are changing their guidance in light of the Supreme Court judgment. On Thursday, the Football Association said trans women would be banned from women's sport.
However, the NHS has not yet done so. Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has said he wants new guidance in place by the summer.
In her letter, Ms Forstater said the NHS Confederation's trans guidance was 'legally illiterate' and 'encouraged NHS employers to break the law'.
The guidance states: 'In all types of workplaces, trans and non-binary people should be supported to use the bathrooms they feel most comfortable using. At no time is it appropriate to force staff to use the toilet associated with their assigned sex at birth against their will.'
It also tells management, senior healthcare leaders and human resources directors to take a 'zero-tolerance attitude' to transphobia, even though this approach led to NHS staff such as Sandie Peggie and the Darlington nurses being disciplined for asserting their rights to single-sex facilities at work.
Ms Forstater said the confederation guidance also promoted individual trusts' guidance, which is unlawful, such as Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust.
This trust said: 'You are entitled to use single-sex facilities in accordance with your gender identity. For non-binary people, this may mean using gender-neutral or accessible facilities, or using a combination of different facilities.
'A non-binary person can choose to use facilities they are most comfortable using, if gender-neutral facilities are not present.'
Ms Forstater concluded: 'The Supreme Court has now put it beyond all doubt that the terms 'man' and 'woman' in the Equality Act refer to biological sex, and that single-sex services must be single-sex. Yet the NHS Confederation is still refusing to take responsibility and withdraw its guidance and tell its members it was wrong.'
'Elements of our guide are dated'
A spokesman for the NHS Confederation said: 'Following the UK Supreme Court ruling and the subsequent interim guidance from the EHRC [Equality and Human Rights Commission], we recognise that elements of our guide on trans and non-binary allyship are now dated.
'This has been reflected in the document and on our website. We understand our members will want to take the ruling and interim guidance into account in their local policies and decisions.
'Up until this point, our guide has been based on the Equality Act 2010 and the advice from the EHRC as it stood prior to April 2025. We will update the guide more fully as soon as the Government has responded to the EHRC's updated code of practice after it has been publicly consulted on, so that the implications of the judgment for NHS services are fully known.
'We will continue to work with our members while we do this. The resource on our website remains as guidance and is not official policy for the NHS.'
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