Government Helped Push ‘Gender Identity’ into NHS

Government departments let gender ideologues infiltrate the National Health Service

Widespread Gender Identity Orthodoxy in UK Medicine

After the British Medical Association’s resident doctors voted to condemn the Supreme Court ruling, many expressed surprise at the extent of gender identity capture this showed. However, this is not the first time the BMA has taken actions contrary to common sense and safeguarding due to their leaders’ faith in an ethereal ‘gender identity’. I have described other instances in my article Ideological Capture in the British Medical Association, such as lobbying to put men on female wards, speaking against the puberty blockers ban and campaigning to stop ‘conversion therapy’ - which the BMA defines as not agreeing with patients’ self-declared ‘gender identity’.

The BMA calling on the government to allow patients access to hospital spaces for ‘the gender they identify with’ (2020)

It is also worth remembering that the BMA’s current Head of Regulation, Education and Training (Laura Russell) was previously Head of Policy and Director of Campaigns, Policy and Research for Stonewall.

Emma Runswick, BMA Deputy Chair, stating that puberty blockers are reversible (2024)

However, the gender identity capture of the NHS has not only taken place due to ideologues in opportune roles. NHS leaders who should have carried out gatekeeping to protect patients from unevidenced ideological harm have also repeatedly failed to do so. An example of this is that the Heads of over 80% of UK medical schools acted contrary to medical ethics by signing GLADD UK’s charter agreeing that doctors will only affirm patients’ self-declared ‘gender identity’. This is a decision that puts vulnerable patients at risk by pressuring doctors to agree with medical harm in the name of gender ideology.

Many will also be unaware of the degree to which government departments have actively embedded gender identity ideology in the NHS. Government funding has also been provided for gender identity groups to do this, with the bill being footed by the taxpayer.

Gendered Intelligence and the Department of Health

One example of the government allowing a gender lobby group inappropriate input to the NHS is when Gendered Intelligence worked with the Department of Health. In 2007, they produced the NHS booklet A Guide for Young Trans People in the UK, which was funded by the Department of Health as part of its Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Advisory Group’s work programme.

This booklet includes an authoritarian demand for how people should think about trans-identified patients in the privacy of their own minds: ‘Trans respect. Here are some things we think our families and friends can do to respect our trans identities: Think of this person as being the gender they want you to think of them as’.

NHS Booklet A Guide for Young Trans People, produced with the Department of Health

The influence of Gendered Intelligence in the NHS remains strong to this day. As mentioned in my article The Fanatics at the RCPCH, in Spring 2023 the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) allowed Gendered Intelligence to advise paediatricians they should socially transition children and teenagers. This contradicted the advice of the interim Cass Review at the time. Gendered Intelligence also recommended that these minors should access whichever hospital spaces suited their ‘gender identity’, despite the impact on safeguarding and sex-based rights.

Now that we know how closely Gendered Intelligence has worked with the Department of Health, we must ask whether this gender lobby group’s involvement with NHS bodies was encouraged by the government. Back in 2015, another government department - the Government Equalities Office - produced another guide in partnership with Gendered Intelligence called Providing Services for Transgender Customers (which was only withdrawn in April 2024). This demonstrates the government’s long-standing relationship with this gender lobby group and the extent of power it has been allowed to hold.

Mermaids Trustee Created Nationwide GP Education with Government Equalities Office

As mentioned in my article Mermaids Trustee Doctors and Their Influence on the NHS (Part 1), Dr Anthony James (husband of Pink News CEO Ben Cohen) wrote LGBT education for all UK GPs at the same time as being a Mermaids trustee.

Dr Anthony James was a Mermaids trustee until December 2019 and played an active role in developing LGBT education for all GPs during this time. In this article of June 2019, Dr James said he was ‘developing a new programme of work with the Royal College of GPs [and the Government Equalities Office] on improving outcomes for the LGBT+ community [which includes] new e-learning resources, face-to-face teaching events and a national campaign to make general practice more inclusive’.

Did the Government Equalities Office know about Dr James’ conflict of interests due to working with this disgraced children’s charity? Notably, he does not now include his Mermaids trustee role on his LinkedIn profile, only citing his involvement with the lesser known charity HERO (Health Equality and Rights Organisation). In this Hello magazine article celebrating Dr James and Ben Cohen’s 2018 wedding, however, he was happy to publicly share that he had been a Mermaids trustee.

The Gender Activist Bias of NHS England

In April 2019, Penny Mordaunt appointed Dr Michael Brady in the newly created role of National LGBT Advisor for NHS England as part of her 2018 LGBT Action Plan. Dr Michael Brady has since used this role to push gender identity theory into the NHS and has shown bias towards allowing gender activists unprecedented access.

One example of this is when he gave a glowing foreword to GLADD’s medical schools charter that seeks to ban doctors questioning NHS patients’ self-diagnosed ‘gender identity’ - which it calls ‘LGBTQ+ conversion therapy’. In reality, this charter is trying to remove any interrogation of medical harm being done in the name of affirming patients’ inner gender spirit. It is astonishing that any doctors have agreed to this proposal - let alone one in such a prominent national role.

Another example is when Dr Michael Brady showed enthusiastic support for Stonewall and other gender lobby groups and helped them to become involved in the national NHS Rainbow Badges scheme. This scheme assessed hospitals for their adherence to gender identity ideology. In 2021, Phase 2 of this scheme included involvement from Stonewall, the LGBT Foundation, the LGBT Consortium and GLADD UK and Dr Brady openly welcomed this involvement.

We must ask why government departments have allowed gender ideologues to try to force NHS staff to go along with their gender-affirmative approach for so many years, even putting them in positions of huge influence. Why could the government not see the damage that was being done to patients’ health across the NHS due to this? Can the climate of fear that has been created due to NHS employees not being able to publicly disagree with these zealots really carry on? We can see the ongoing repercussions of this oppressive influence in current court cases such as Sandie Peggie’s and that of the Darlington nurses.

Government Equalities Office Allowed LGBT Foundation Influence Over Primary Care Services

Another example of the Government Equalities Office and NHS England pushing ‘gender identity’ into the NHS was described in my article LGBT Foundation’s Pride in Practice Scheme Embedded Throughout NHS. When Penny Mordaunt ran the Government Equalities Office in 2018-19, she gave part of £1millon funding to the LGBT Foundation’s Pride in Practice scheme. As described in this article, this scheme requires the promotion of ‘gender identity’ as an unquestionable and fixed state of being and has diminished sex-based rights and the safeguarding of vulnerable patients in NHS primary services.

As seen on the below certificate, both NHS England and the Government Equalities Office endorsed the Pride in Practice Scheme and encouraged NHS GP practices, dental practices, optometrist services and pharmacies to compete to achieve their Stonewall-style awards.

Pride in Practice Award Certificate with Endorsements from the Government Equalities Office and NHS England

The Pride in Practice scheme pushes GPs to prescribe treatments based on patients’ self-proclaimed gender identity. It questions instances when they do not do this and tries to make GPs and other NHS services express belief in the concept of ‘gender identity’ via the public display of pronouns. This scheme remains active across primary care services, primarily in England.

Overall, the influence of external gender lobby groups on the NHS seems to have been enormous over the last 18 years. We must ask why the government allowed these groups power over the National Health Service without the consent of the population. The outcome has been harm to society’s most vulnerable members and the routine silencing of NHS staff who disagreed with gender ideology.

Why were ideological activists given the ability to influence the NHS to this extent, with the government enabling and encouraging them to do so? And what would prevent a scandal of this proportion from happening again in the future?