Interim Statement: NHS England Single Sex Guidance.

In January 2024, TransLucent published the results of 180 FOI requests showing there was only one complaint about a trans woman using NHS female wards for the year ending August 2023. Rob Clearly, a former NHS director, conducted the investigation, requesting information from 130 acute NHS trusts and 50 mental health trusts. The one complaint Rob found at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust was minor and was not escalated to the second stage of the NHS’s complaints procedure. TransLucent has posted the NHS Trusts’ replies to Rob’s FOIs on its website; nothing could be more transparent.

This was not the first investigation of its kind; Steph Richards, TransLucent’s former CEO, had undertaken similar investigations dating back to December 2021. Steph never discovered a single complaint.

Yesterday’s news was devastating for many in the trans community: a manufactured panic from bad-faith transphobic organisations in the culture war to promote transphobia, assisted by the right-wing media, has yet again further segregated trans people as second-class citizens, potentially violating Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The consequences of yesterday’s policy change will unfold over the coming days, weeks, and months. Sadly, evidence suggests trans people will be even less likely to seek medical help when required, as reported by journalist Patrick Strudwick in the I Paper in July 2021, when Lord Duncan of Springbank opened his heart regarding the loss of his trans brother, Sean (a trans man).

The same applies to bearded, deep-voiced trans men who could be placed in female wards, a similar scenario that caused the death of Sean.

Sadly, that is the level of transphobia in the UK today.

A full statement on NHS England’s policy change will follow on this website in the coming days.