So over the rainbow

The Gender Zealots Running the NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme

Doctors Jo Hartland and Michael Brady

Since 2021, the NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme has been in ‘Phase 2’ of its existence. Stonewall’s website states that ‘Stonewall and the LGBT Foundation will be working in partnership with NHS England, with support from Brighton & Hove LGBT Switchboard, LGBT Consortium, and GLADD (The Association of LGBT Doctors and Dentists), to take the NHS Rainbow Badges to the next level with a new scheme to benchmark and award NHS organisations for their work on LGBT+ inclusion’. The public was not consulted on this and is unlikely to be aware of what power these controversial organisations have been given over the nationally-funded health service.

However, Phase 2 of the scheme has received the enthusiastic endorsement of Dr Michael Brady, who appears to be a gender activist at the heart of NHS England and is the National Advisor for LGBT Health. 

The groups in charge of the Rainbow Badge Scheme uphold a belief in 'gender identity' that the majority of the UK population does not share. For example, on 23rd July 2022, Stonewall received backlash for stating that ‘children as young as two recognise their trans identity’. In June 2023, the LGBT Foundation and NHS Confederation published national guidance on same sex care, sparking widespread upset. The Observer’s Sonia Sodha reported that its advice on how to handle patients’ requests for this care ‘gets the law badly wrong’ and could ‘lead NHS trusts to unlawfully discriminate against female patients’. Similarly, Naomi Cunningham (a barrister specialising in employment and discrimination law) described in The Critic how the guidance ‘fails women’ and ‘encourages NHS employers to break the law’. It is worth noting that the LGBT Foundation also has its own Awards Framework called Pride in Practice, which it uses to assess how much GP practices, dental surgeries, pharmacies and optometrists are meeting this external organisation’s requirements.

The NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme recently assessed Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and concluded that the Trust should not qualify for one of their awards. Reasons for this decision included that ‘The Trust was found to not have enough LGBT+ inclusive posters visible to patients, only 5% of patient respondents were asked their pronouns when receiving care and less than 50% of patient respondents were asked to confirm their gender’. Frankly, this should give some reassurance to residents of Cambridge that their hospitals are focusing on medical care rather than this ‘performative’ content (as described by one respondent to CUH’s staff survey). 

Cambridge University Hospitals Trust includes Addenbrooke’s Hospital and women’s hospital The Rosie, which is described by CUH as ‘a regional centre of excellence for maternity care’. Despite this, The Rosie was evaluated by the NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme as being unworthy of receiving a diversity award due to using the word ‘mother’ in their maternity leave policies. The population is likely to take a very dim view of attempts to forbid the use of the word ‘mother’. Many people will find it insulting and offensive - but, of course, the NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme’s emphasis on the importance of ‘inclusion’ does not extend to those who do not share their ideology. 

As seen in the examples above, this is a clash between navel-gazing career EDI ‘specialists’ and clinical staff working in the real world, who treat patients’ physical well-being rather than their identities. The confusion that arises is inevitable when gender ideology meets the reality of healthcare. If Hospital Trusts behave responsibly and in the interests of patient safety then, like CUH, they should not agree to the NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme’s identity-based demands.

GLADD UK (the Association for LGBT Doctors and Dentists) is among the organisations that run the NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme. We previously described how GLADD has persuaded the General Medical Council to list doctors on the public GMC register according to their self-declared gender identity rather than their sex - a worrying example of identity taking precedence over reality for this organisation. As well as failing to gain an award from the NHS Rainbow Badge Scheme (co-run by GLADD), it is worth noting that Cambridge University Hospitals Trust hosts Cambridge medical students on their clinical placements and that Cambridge Medical School has previously declined to entertain GLADD’s diktats. As we noted previously, the majority of UK medical schools have signed GLADD’s charter to promise that they will only ‘affirm patients’ gender identity’ - a concerning action which appears to have been carried out to appease the self-described ‘queer medical activists’ at GLADD. Cambridge University’s Medical School is one of only 8 medical schools in the country which have not signed GLADD’s charter. This is another encouraging sign that senior doctors in Cambridge are not prepared to elevate ‘gender identity’ over the material reality of sex. 

The other medical schools who have refused to sign GLADD’s gender affirmation-only charter are Anglia Ruskin, Buckingham, Edge Hill, Imperial College London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Oxford and Ulster. It is revealing that many of the medical school leads who have chosen to sign GLADD’s charter have also included their pronouns - and in some cases, the EDI Lead has signed the charter instead of the Head of the Medical School, starkly demonstrating the ceding of power to medical schools’ EDI departments. 

Dr Michael Brady (National LGBT Advisor for NHS England) once again failed to be impartial when he gave the glowing foreword for GLADD’s gender affirmation-only medical schools charter. Dr Brady’s foreword also states his pronouns, which expresses affiliation with gender identity ideology, as it denotes a belief that there is a gendered essence which can change someone’s sex. Considering this bias, how can the public have faith that NHS England would protect vulnerable patients from coming to harm from automatic gender affirmation in the NHS? 

In CUH’s staff survey, one staff member responding to the Rainbow Badge Scheme stated ‘I am gravely concerned about the influence on the NHS of organisations like Mermaids and Stonewall’. This is a well-founded concern, as until recently the organisation GLADD had a current trustee of Mermaids as their Trans Rep - Dr Katie McDowell. This means that despite being under investigation by the Charity Commission, Mermaids has continued to hold influence over the NHS via such conflicts of interest. As we have mentioned, GLADD’s website previously displayed Dr McDowell’s profile below.

In April 2023, a consultant psychiatrist, Dr Lenny Cornwall stood for a role on the Board of Trustees at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He ran as an openly gender critical candidate, which is a status protected in law from discrimination on the grounds of belief. Dr Cornwall campaigned for ‘evidence-based rather than ideological leadership’, stating that this would mean removing the influence of non-medical, politically motivated groups, including ending the Royal College’s partnership with Stonewall due to its stance of ‘no debate’ about transgender healthcare. Dr Cornwall also stated that the Royal College must do more to canvas the opinions of its membership on contested issues rather than imposing top-down decisions on its members.

During this election, the lead author of GLADD’s medical schools charter, Dr Joseph Hartland, reacted to Dr Cornwall’s campaign by telling his Twitter followers: ‘If you vote for this individual in the [Royal College of Psychiatrists’] elections, you are a bigot voting for a bigot’. The doctor went on to say: ‘Ideological criticisms of Stonewall are entirely anti-trans and anti queer agendas’. From this reaction, we could surmise that GLADD as an organisation is also against removing Stonewall’s influence from the NHS and is similarly opposed to considering the views of gender critical clinical staff. 

So according to GLADD, it seems that no clinical staff should be allowed to question or raise concerns about Stonewall’s influence on the taxpayer-funded NHS. They are obliged to adhere to Stonewall's every instruction, otherwise they are bigots. This approach completely stymies any opportunity for open discussion between clinicians regarding ‘gender identity’, despite such discussion being essential for patient care and decision-making. Can the UK medical profession really be expected to compromise patient safety around these issues solely to avoid offending the sensibilities of self-proclaimed ‘queer medical activists’? Why have such extreme voices been given this amount of power over the NHS with schemes such as NHS Rainbow Badges and Pride in Practice? Also the eternal question - why has the government allowed these fanatical activists to hold this power over the NHS, when the vast majority of the British public reject both them and their absurd ideas?