6 days ago
NHS won't ban trans women from female changing rooms for months
The NHS has delayed a ban on staff who are trans women in female changing rooms and lavatories until the autumn.
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, promised new guidance in April, after the Supreme Court ruled that trans women – people who are biological men – should be barred from using women's single-sex services.
The Telegraph can reveal that NHS England has no plans to bring out the guidance until 'late summer or early autumn' – meaning it may not be published until October or November.
Women's rights charities said that in not complying with the law, hospitals and GP surgeries were putting female staff and patients in an 'undignified and humiliating' position.
The group Sex Matters said it had been approached by staff at several English trusts who had raised objections to biological men in female facilities, but were rebuffed.
NHS England's delay comes even though a health trust in Scotland faces a huge payout to a nurse who was forced to share a changing room with a trans doctor.
Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy at Sex Matters, said: 'NHS England's failure to forbid unlawful policies permitting trans-identifying hospital staff to use changing rooms for the opposite sex is staggeringly complacent.
'Sex Matters has heard from staff in several English trusts who have objected to such self-ID policies without success.
'All around the country, it seems as if lazy, self-satisfied bureaucrats are leaving female staff to face undignified and humiliating conditions rather than admit that the 'inclusive' policies they put in place were always unlawful and harmful to women.'
The Supreme Court ruled that a trans woman was not legally a woman because the word 'sex' in the Equality Act refers to biological sex and not self-identified gender.
It means services which are segregated by sex, such as toilets and changing rooms, should be segregated by biological sex.
Many public bodies have already started observing the rules. The Football Association, for example, has barred trans women from the female game.
But NHS England has still not acted, despite Sir Keir Starmer telling organisations to comply with the law 'as soon as possible'.
The NHS Confederation, which represents trusts, quietly withdrew its guidance two months ago.
The original guidance said trans people should be allowed to use their chosen toilets and changing rooms. It has not yet been replaced.
Ms Joyce said NHS trusts faced huge pay-outs in the future if they did not update their guidance to comply with the law.
In Fife, the NHS is defending itself in an employment tribunal against nurse Sandie Peggie, who was suspended after objecting to a transwoman in the changing room.
Ms Joyce said: 'In Scotland, NHS Fife has already wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds defending an employment tribunal brought by nurse Sandie Peggie, who was forced to share her changing room with a male doctor who identifies as a woman.
'The eventual cost – which will be borne by taxpayers – could approach a million pounds.
'How many more Sandie Peggies have to put their reputations and livelihoods on the line before this ends?'
