The British health secretary on Tuesday committed to removing certain gender-inclusive language from the U.K.’s public health-care constitution “to ensure privacy and dignity for women.”
Steve Barclay, a member of the country’s Conservative Party, ordered an overhaul of the National Health Service constitution with respect to gender following a forthcoming “consultation,” he told conservative conference delegates in Manchester.
Under Barclay’s plan, male hospital patients will be barred from receiving treatment in female-only facilities and vice versa. The official also ordered the NHS website to restore references to sex-specific medical issues. For example, the website’s discussion of cervical cancer implied that men can develop the disease. The cancer “mostly affects women,” the website states, adding that “all women and people with a cervix between the ages of 25 and 64 are invited for regular cervical screening.”
Barclay also ordered the cancellation of an NHS policy by which staff must declare pronouns to each new patient. A NHS diversity training revealed in July tells medical professionals to inform patients of their pronouns to “create a safe space for trans, non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming people who may not feel comfortable to go first in introducing themselves with pronouns.”
The module states that male staff must be permitted to access female facilities and vice versa, regardless of whether they have physically transitioned.
“To deliver the long-term change the NHS needs, we need a relentless focus on patient outcomes,” Barclay said. “It does not mean spending sums of taxpayers’ money on diversity consultants. Or having bloated diversity and inclusion teams. And it does not mean ignoring patient voices, especially women’s voices, when it comes to the importance of biological sex in healthcare. If we do not get this right now, the long-term consequences could be very serious for the protect of women and future generations.”
Currently, the National Health Services constitution stipulates that comprehensive services will be made available to all patients irrespective of a number of factors, including “gender reassignment,” or gender identity.
“As conservatives, we know what a woman is, and the vast majority of NHS staff and patients do too,” Barclay said to applause from the audience Tuesday.
While gender activism rages on in the U.S., the U.K. has tempered on the issue, with the NHS closing in July 2022 its gender-identity youth clinic after an independent review deemed its services unsafe. In recent years, referrals at the clinic had surged, especially among teenage girls and those on the autism spectrum. Between 2019 and 2020, 2,729 were referred to the clinic, most of whom were girls. Hilary Cass, the pediatrician leading the review, determined that the facility was “not a safe or viable long-term option.”
After it closed, the clinic faced legal action over claims that children were misdiagnosed as transgender without appropriate therapy and attention from clinicians and rushed into transition, the Independent reported.