Literally Erasing Our Rights
Trans activism is encouraging NHS staff to defy the law and ignore women's rights
On Monday the EHRC published revised 2010 Equality Act guidance on the provision of single-sex services. The intention is to assist organisations which provide services such as toilet facilities, changing rooms and hospital wards etc to understand the law and balance the rights of all protected groups.
āThe guidance helps service providers to make lawful decisions about any services they offer to women and men separately, by explaining the permitted sex and gender reassignment exceptions in the Equality Act 2010.
It advises organisations such as hospitals, retailers, hospitality and sports clubs to put in place policies that are both legal and balance the needs of different groups.
The guidance confirms that service providers wishing to limit services to a single sex are legally able to do so, provided the reasons are justified and proportionate.ā
Being legally prevented from accessing certain female-only spaces and services made an awful lot of trans activists extremely angry.
The NHS, one of the very organisations which should be upholding womenās sex-based rights, appears to be intent on erasing them. Worryingly, numerous NHS staff have expressed their intention to defy the legislation which protects female-only spaces. Here, the NHS Trans Staff Network is urging employees to ignore the law.
This is Rachael Moses, head of clinical leadership development within the NHS Leadership Academy and president elect of the British Thoracic Society, apparently describing womenās sex-based legal rights as āhateā.
Here Stuart āHe/Himā McKenna, who describes himself as a senior HR professional within the NHS, openly stating that his team will not be advised to abide by legal guidelines.
Theyāve all got very short memories. Less than a month ago Baroness Nicholson reported this story to the House of Lords.
According to The Telegraph, trans activist, Tara Hewitt, is leading this charge to defy EHRC guidance in NHS services.
Hewitt is a trans-identified male, co-founder of lobby group Trans Equality Legal Initiative (TELI) and the head of equality, diversity and inclusion at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group.
On social media Hewitt claimed that the EHRC guidance would be āfound unlawfulā, urged NHS staff not to treat it with credibility and said it deserved to be put āin bin [sic]ā. (An interesting choice of words given that the guide simply re-states existing laws. Heās advocating that womenās legal rights should be put in the bin?)
He then urged NHS staff members being asked to āexclude a trans personā (ie uphold a female-only space) to contact him for āadviceā.
He was backed in his assertions by senior NHS staff, including Kathryn Thomson, the chief executive of Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust, and Aaron Cummins, the chief executiveĀ at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust.
Hewitt has form in this area. Here is a tweet from last year in which he misrepresents the Equality Act 2010. (There is no provision made in the act re gender identity, only gender reassignment and, even then, exclusions can still apply.)
Speaking in an interview with The Liverpool Echo in 2016, Hewitt describes himself as right-wing and pansexual. He discusses his sexual preferences, saying that he is an āadvocate of the BDSM communityā and into āpet playā (ie deriving sexual arousal by dressing up in animal costumes) and āswingingā.
Furthermore, Hewitt states that he is opposed to IVF treatment for same-sex couples and to abortion. He doesnāt seem to approve of women having reproductive rights and bodily autonomy.
In recent years, the number of teenage girls seeking help at the NHS gender service has increased at an alarming rate. In 2009/10 32 girls and 40 boys were referred to the Tavistock & Portman GIDS clinic. During 2018/19, however, in England alone referrals numbered 624 boys and 1,740 girls. In less than a decade there was a 1,460% increase in referrals of boys and a staggering 5,337% increase in girls.
This prompted the government announce its intention to research the huge and disproportionate number of adolescent girls seeking gender treatment.
Hewitt described the proposed research as āabsurd and offensiveā. He said the project should be āDropped in the binā (sounds familiar) and that āItās simply not an inquiry that needs to happenā. His concern for the well-being and safety of NHS patients doesnāt seem to extend to vulnerable teenage girls.
But then only a few years ago Hewitt appeared on a Gender GP podcast (GenderGP being the highly dubious offshore clinic which prescribes hormones to minors without their parentsā knowledge) alongside disgraced GP, Helen Webberley.
And now heās influencing NHS staff to defy the 12-year-old equality legislation which protects womenās sex-based rights and spaces.
Just who is trying to take away whose rights?
Shouldn't these people be immediately suspended? Surely employees should be expected to respect the law?
I hope Baroness Nicholson is onto this. Itās an absolute travesty that any government employee feels like they can openly flout legal guidance produced by governmental bodies. This genie never should have been allowed out of the box.