The hospital hasn’t been named, nor has the victim but the story has made its way to the House of Lords where it became a topic of discussion. The unnamed hospital had a ward reserved only for women. When a woman staying on the ward claimed she was raped the hospital told police that was impossible.
Emma Nicholson, the Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, did not name the hospital where the alleged incident took place, or give the identity of the victim. No further information on the alleged incident has been publicly reported.
The woman who said she was raped “naturally reported it to police,” Nicholson told fellow members of the House of Lords. “The police spoke to the hospital, and the hospital informed police that there was no male in the hospital, therefore the rape could not have happened.”
But CCTV backed up the victim’s claims and nearly a year later the hospital admitted there was a trans woman on the ward.
“They forgot that there was CCTV, nurses and observers.
“None the less, it has taken nearly a year for the hospital to agree that there was a male on the ward and, yes, this rape happened.
“During that year she has almost come to the edge of a nervous breakdown, because being disbelieved about being raped in hospital has been such an appalling shock. The hospital, with all its CCTV, has had to admit that the rape happened and that it was committed by a man.”
The policy of keeping trans women in he women’s ward is the result of a rule called Annex B:
The policy states that trans people should be accommodated ‘according to their presentation: the way they dress, and the name and pronouns they currently use’, rather than their biological sex at birth…
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Lady Nicholson added: ‘The result of Annex B is that hospital trusts inform ward sisters and nurses that if there is a male, as a trans person, in a female ward, and a female patient or anyone complains, they must be told that it is not true – there is no male there.
‘I think it is completely wrong that the National Health Service should be instructing or allowing staff to mislead patients -to tell a straightforward lie. It is not acceptable.’
Annex B is being reviewed but some suspect nothing will be done because the current policy is deemed the most equitable. Lady Nicholson has previously argued that anyone who disagrees with the policy may not say so for fear of being fired.
One nurse said that her Trust’s policy makes it “impossible” because “she is obliged to advocate out for the vulnerable, but trans rights supersede all other rights and concerns”.
Medics are “inhibited” from speaking out for fear of being branded “bigots” or being sacked, Lady Nicholson told the upper chamber.
“I have met several nurses who have lost their jobs because of this”, she said. “A doctor says that he no longer feels able to make comments about sex and gender. He recently delivered a baby, he said it was a girl and he was accused of transphobia.”
Police are still investigating the alleged rape.
Update: I was able to find video of Lady Nicholson discussing this in the House of Lords. She explains why she’s not naming the victim.
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