Hospitals are allowing male patients to share female wards if they self-identify as women, even if they haven’t had gender reassignment surgery, The Daily Telegraph has revealed.
England’s NHS Trusts do not require a patient to have begun a physical transition for them to be treated as their “preferred” sex.
More than 80 per cent of people identifying as transgender do not undertake gender reassignment surgery, according to the Gender Identity Research & Education Society.
‘Concerned’
Steps have been taken over recent years by the Department of Health to end mixed-sex wards in NHS hospitals.
However, the Department’s guidance has also paved the way to allow a person with male genitalia to choose to be treated on a women-only ward.
The Daily Telegraph also found that one NHS trust would allow children to share a single-sex ward with members of the opposite sex, even if it conflicted with the will of the parents.
Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust states: “Where appropriate the wishes of the parents must be considered, but in the case of young people their preference should prevail”.
‘Most vulnerable’
Dr Nicola Williams of lobby group Fair Play for Women argued that: “In an attempt to accommodate a minority, the state is sacrificing the needs of the majority at their most vulnerable.”
Last year, the Government ran a consultation on transsexualism, which asked whether current safeguards on changing legal sex were necessary. There were over 100,000 responses.
“It’s quite right that a Conservative government made a commitment to end mixed sex wards,” MP David Davies said. “But people with male bodies should be on male wards.”