Summary
The "Non-Problem": A comprehensive survey of all 180 acute and mental health trusts in England (covering approximately 6.75 million adult women inpatients) found only one single complaint received in the 12 months leading up to September 2023 regarding the presence of trans women on women's wards
Trans Women in NHS Wards: FOI Data Reveals Only ONE Complaint Amid Culture War
By TransLucent Investigative Team
The foundation of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) rests on core values: compassion, respect, dignity, and the binding commitment that “nobody is excluded, discriminated against or left behind”. As an organisation advocating for the rights and acceptance of the UK’s transgender and gender-diverse community, TransLucent finds these values to be essential.
Yet, this essential consensus is currently under political assault. In October 2023, the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Steve Barclay, announced a commitment to change the NHS Constitution to “protect the rights of women” and “recognise the importance of different biological needs”. This move was widely reported as paving the way for a ban on trans women being treated in female-only wards, making the provision of care, such as for a trans woman with a hip fracture, potentially contingent on being placed in an orthopaedic ward otherwise reserved for men.
This proposed intervention is not aimed at solving a “truly significant” problem facing the NHS, such as mounting waiting lists, failures in cancer care, A&E delays, or staff strikes. Instead, this focus on excluding a small minority from basic compassion appears to be a calculated battle in a wider “culture war”.
The evidence collected by TransLucent, spanning multiple years and hundreds of Freedom of Information Requests (FOIRs) across public facilities, proves conclusively that the presence of trans women in women-only spaces is a non-problem.
The NHS: One Minor Complaint in a Year
To gain a definitive and current picture, TransLucent conducted a comprehensive survey leading up to January 2024, polling all 180 acute and mental health trusts in England responsible for adult inpatient care. We specifically asked how many complaints had been received in the 12 months leading up to September 2023 regarding the presence of trans women on women’s wards, or in women-only day rooms (in the case of mental health trusts).
The results are staggering. At the time of writing, nearly 90% of trusts had responded substantively. Across the entire relevant part of the NHS, only one (1) single complaint was received on this topic, reported by one acute trust.
To put this solitary complaint in perspective:
- Over the same review period, these trusts cared for around 6.75 million adult women inpatients.
- The NHS, excluding GPs and dentists, typically receives around 200,000 written complaints per year.
- We confirmed through a follow-up FOIRFOIR How to make a freedom of information (FOI) request You have the right to ask to see recorded information held by public authorities. https://www.gov.uk/make-a-freedom-of-information-request that the single complaint received was not designated, investigated, or reported as a ‘Serious Incident’—a formal NHS category typically covering matters of serious harm, abuse, or ill-treatment.
In summary, for every 200,000 complaints the NHS logged, zero were about the sharing of sleeping accommodation with trans women.
A Consistent Finding Across Years and Facilities
Our most recent findings are merely the latest data point in a pattern stretching back years. Our previous investigations, conducted over a period of two years and three months (from April 2020 to June 2022), involved a total of 102 FOIRs made to NHS Foundation Trusts. The outcome of those extensive inquiries was consistent: No NHSFT reported a woman complaining about a trans woman in her hospital ward. The results were described as “No complaints, none, zilch”. In total, across four investigations spanning three years and three months (282 FOIRs), TransLucent has only ever found one minor complaint.
This pattern of non-complaint extends beyond the hospital environment. Our “Local Authority Facilities Survey 2022″ specifically investigated complaints concerning transgender women using public changing rooms and toilets owned by Local Authorities in England. By targeting the 50 largest Local Authorities in England (covering 20 million people), we sought complaints recorded during the calendar year 2022. Of the 40 authorities that provided substantive responses, 35 reported “None” recorded incidents where a complaint was made about a transgender person, or someone perceived to be transgender, using women’s facilities.
Compassion is the Policy
The idea that trans women pose a widespread threat to safety and privacy in these spaces is not supported by any factual evidence. The reality is that trans people have existed for millennia and have used hospitals, changing rooms, and toilets without a major “whimper”.
The NHS already has sensible, inclusive, and compassionate guidance in place: “Trans people should be accommodated according to their presentation: the way they dress, and the name and pronouns they currently use”. Privacy concerns are resolved using straightforward clinical technology referred to in the documents as “curtains”.
In fact, the greater risk stems from segregation driven by ignorance. Hospitals generally treat patients based on “medical condition,” not “sex”. When staff segregate trans patients into single-occupancy side rooms simply because they are transgender, the outcome can be fatal. We have seen tragic cases where trans women placed in side rooms suffered cardiac arrests that went unwitnessed, arguing they should have been placed in an open women’s bay where earlier intervention could have saved their lives.
TransLucent hopes that NHS professionals will be allowed to carry on doing what they are clearly succeeding at: balancing the needs of all patients with expertise and compassion. Instead of attempting to fix the NHS Constitution to allow the exclusion of a small minority from fundamental compassion, Ministers should stop “behaving like characters in a Carry On film, exhibiting instincts and values… that should have been abandoned long ago”. They must instead turn their attention to the overwhelming majority—the estimated 99.999%—of complaints that are not about trans women.
