On Monday Penny Mordaunt, the UK's Minister for Women and Equalities, announced the formation of a National Advisor for LGBT Health in the NHS. Lead by Dr Michael Brady and supported by a panel of twelve experts, they will advise the government on LGBT issues in physical and mental health. In a statement, Mourdant said "Dr Brady and the experts on our new panel will give LGBT people and those working on their behalf a direct route to government and shape the policy on decisions which shape their lives."
Many were suspicious of the recommendations likely to emerge after the names of the panel were released. These included Ruth Hunt - a deeply divisive figure who stepped down from her role as CEO of Stonewall after sustained and substantial criticism that she ignored the needs of the LGB in favour of the T. We decided to take a closer look the panel members and the measures they are likely to advise.
Ruth Hunt
Under Ruth Hunt's six year stewardship of gay rights charity Stonewall, she has alienated many of it's gay, bisexual, lesbian and transexual members. It lead Simon Fanshawe - an original Stonewall Trustee, to urge the charity to reconsider its “extreme" stance on transgender rights.
Under Hunts leadership Stonewall effectively erased same sex attraction and replaced it with same gender attraction. This allowed men who identified as lesbians - including cross dressers, to be afforded the same status as lesbians. She also broadened the definition of transphobia to include The fear or dislike of someone based on the fact they are trans, including the denial/refusal to accept their gender identity. This definition includes anyone who refuses to believe that someone can become a member of the opposite sex, based solely on their self declaration. Hunt also remained silent as many lesbians complained of abuse and harassment from those within the trans community - including those who propagated Cotton Ceiling rhetoric - which effectively encourages the corrective rape of lesbians.
Furthermore Stonewall was actively lobbying the government to remove single sex exemptions within the Equality Act, which allowed transwomen to be excluded from spaces such as female prisons and rape crisis centers.
Paul Dillane
Paul Dillane is the Executive Director of the The Kaleidoscope Trust - which has the Speaker of the House of Commons - John Bercow, as it's President. Dillane worked as a refugee lawyer for many years and has a background in LGBT rights globally.
He has worked closely with TELI, a company which was set up by Jess Bradley - who was recently suspended from her post as NUS Trans Officer after allegations emerged that she exposed her penis in public and posted the images on her Tumbrl blog exhibitionizm. TELI have stated they are working to set legal precedents which undermine the rights of women in the UK.
Dillane is also a UK signatory to the Yogyakarta Principles - a document which informs human rights globally as regards to transgenderism. Critics argue this document has allowed much legislation to be passed in 'stealth,' undermining women’s human rights by replacing biological sex with gender identity in law.
S Chelvan
S Chelvan is an LGBT immigration barrister who in 2018 was instructed by trans woman Guiliana Kendal to lead a private prosecution against Venice Allan - who organised the ‘We Need to Talk’ meetings, along with the founder of Black History Month Linda Bellos. The case was discontinued as the judge ruled they had no case to answer.
James Morton
James Morton is a Scottish Transgender Alliance Manager at the Equality Network. He has been working to dismantle the protections afforded to women under the Equality Act, as well as preventing the government from collecting sex based data.
He produced guidance for Scottish schools on trans inclusion which did not assess the impact on girls, and allowed teenage boys who identify as female to access female only spaces without proper oversight. Many councils have failed in their statutory duty to conduct appropriate Equality Impact Assessments and refused to address the issue.
As part of his role at the Scottish Transgender Alliance he also informed policies with the Scottish prison system, which advised inmates should be housed in line with their gender identity, rather than their birth sex. No women's organisations were consulted about the plans and have since criticised the policies for failing to address women's views or safety concerns.
The Scottish Transgender Alliance also submitted recommendations to the government which included the removal of sex markers on passports; full implementation of The Yogyakarta Principles definition of gender identity; and the removal of sex based exemptions in UK equality legislation.
Paul Roberts
Paul Roberts is the CEO of the LGBT Consortium which is a lobby group who worked with Mermaids, GIRES and Stonewall to produce a response to the GRA consultation, undermining the rights of women and children.
Consortium want to remove gatekeeping to allow gender dysphoric patients greater access to medical treatments. They question the NHS process which requires medical reports, arguing trans people find them demeaning. They say that patients become "experts with knowledge that matches or even exceeds that of medics"
Ellen Murray
Ellen Murray is the Policy and Research Officer at Transgender Equality Network Ireland - a company which provides training and consultancy to businesses on trans inclusion; as well as producing resources for trans people and their families.
Murray is a trans right activists and self identified queer who often refers to women with the slur TERF - a word which, it has been argued, is often used against lesbians for their refusal to accept biological males as potential sexual partners. She dismissed women's concerns about receiving a smear test from trans women as scaremongering.
Lewis Turner
Lewis Turner is a researcher into transgender issues with a PHD thesis entitled Gender Renaissance: reconfigurations of femininity - an ethnography of a trans group in Blackpool. He was a member of trans lobby group Press for Change which was a key body informing legislation such as the Gender Recognition Act (2004) and the Equality Act (2010).
He also advised Mermaids on their CPS report, which has informed HR policy across the UK - in institutions such as the Crown Prosecution Service and the Police. It has also been used to inform hate crime legislation, including recommendations which argued continued 'misgendering' should be considered a form of abuse.
Paul Martin
Paul Martin works for the LGBT Foundation which ran a project called MORF. They were heavily criticised in 2018 after a newspaper investigation uncovered the fact that MORF were acting unlawfully by giving out breast binders to 13 year old girls without parental consent. Breast binders have been linked to numerous health problems including fractured ribs and chronic chest and back pain.
Jayne Ozanne
Jayne Ozanne is the Director of the Ozanne Foundation and member of the Church of England General Synod. At a General Synod meeting in York in 2017 she spoke about her gay conversion therapy which resulted in two breakdowns and two spells of hospitalisation, arguing the practice was “abuse from which vulnerable adults need protecting."
Catherine Meads
Catherine Meads is a professor of Health at Anglia Ruskin University. She has published numerous systematic reviews and health technology assessments, including music for recuperation after surgery and in sexual orientation and health.
In 2018 she conducted a National survey for the LGBT Foundation on the sexual well being of women who have sex with women - to inform policy and set funding priorities. However, in the aim of inclusivity, their definition of what constituted a woman was so broad many questioned it's how useful the data would be "This research is inclusive of people who identify as women – all or part of the time - including trans women, non-binary people and gender fluid people who identify as lesbian, bisexual or are questioning their sexual orientation or who do not identify in this way but do have sex, or intend to have sex, with women."
Marcel Varney
Marcel Varney is the Assistant Director Children's Services at Barnardo'a; as w National Chair LGBT+ Network. She has a background in LGBT bullying, young carers, looked after young people and advocacy for looked after young people.
Stevie-Jade Hardy
Stevie-Jade Hardy is an Associate Professor of Criminology and expert on equalities and hate crime at the University of Leicester.
Conclusion
A familiar pattern seems to be emerging in the appointment of some of these advisors, whose interest in transgender issues could show that the concerns of the LGB may be overshadowed by the interests of it's transgender members. Some of the appointments have shown a disregard for the rights of women and children, as well as a questionable history in regards to the health of transgender individuals. Others have used homophobic language and ignored the concerns of gay and lesbian members whom they were supposed to represent.
Penny Moudaunt herself has proven to be somewhat of a divisive figure. Last year she led a consultation to reform the Gender Recognition Act, which took as its starting point the controversial statement that "transwomen are women." With such a faith based proclamation informing government policy, it seems unlikely that campaigners concerns about the clash between women and transgender rights will be taken seriously. People have concerns about a number of issues which fall under her remit yet Mordaunt seems unable or unwilling to provide answers or even acknowledge that she understands the issues at hand. Her appointment of such a controversial panel of experts does little to allay those fears.
Considering the previous campaign work of the appointed panel it might be interesting to see what stance they take on the following issues in LGBT healthcare:
NHS policies which allow people to self-declare their own gender in hospital wards, effectively removing single sex spaces.
Removing women's right to a female medic in intimate medical examinations such as smear tests.
Introduction of unisex toilets and changing rooms in NHS trusts and properties.
Removing medical oversight in the provision of hormones and surgeries for transgender patients.
Increasing funding to deal with rise in referrals from teenagers to gender identity clinics.
Extension of "affirmation only" treatments for transgender patients and a ban on the pursuit of alternative therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy (often referred to as 'conversion therapy.')
Issuing guidance and conducting research into the effects of breast binding on teenage girls struggling with gender dysphoria.
Conducting longitudinal studies into the effects of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones.
Removal of sex markers on medical records and for purposes of data collection.
At a time of national crisis and on-going political uncertainty regarding Brexit - as government budgets are slashed and waiting times increase, it will be interesting to note what recommendations the panel advises. Transgender healthcare is a multi billion dollar industry. In the US, from 2003-2013, funding increased eightfold as a transgender medical infrastructure sprung up across the country. In the UK referrals to the only NHS gender identity service - The Tavistock Clinic, have increased by 4,000% over a ten year period - largely from girls who, previous to identifying as boys, identified as lesbians. The cynics among us could be forgiven for questioning the remit of such a panel.
By DJ Lippy
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