Do you know who's examining you?

Over a year has passed since the United Kingdom established rules ensuring that criminals convicted of violent and/or sexual offenses are incarcerated with those of their own biological sex if their reproductive organs are intact, to the relief of those advocating for the safety of vulnerable female prisoners. 

However, women are vulnerable in many settings and where more than in a doctor's office, where a doctor appearing to be a woman may not be?

‘She’ committed the crime but ‘he’ will do the time

Scarlet Blake started on puberty blockers at age 17, began hormone treatment at 18, and was sentenced to life in prison at age 26 after being found guilty of murdering a randomly chosen person.

According to the Daily Mail, Blake's own lawyer admitted that his client was so dangerous that no parole board would ever feel safe releasing him. Blake will be incarcerated in a men's prison (unlike other notorious killers and heinous criminals in Scotland and across the Atlantic, whose “trans” identities have been respected at the expense of everyone around them), but he is nonetheless recorded in official crime statistics as a woman, because, UK police said, “Blake identified as a female when in custody.”

We are required to record the gender of individuals when they are brought into our custody. Blake identified as a female when in custody. As such, Blake is recorded as female on our crime recording system.

Aside from the simple perversion of the truth that outraged so many, the inaccurate recording of Blake's sex/gender means that crime statistics become skewed. Since the vast majority of homicides are committed by males, the increase of even one murder per year by a “female” will create the false impression of a significant uptick in women's crimes. 

Pushback, with caveats

Commenting on the case, SEEN (the Sex Equality and Equity Network), a group of gender-critical police officers, noted that the public's trust in law enforcement is being eroded by such cases:

It is a matter of fact that humans cannot change sex and that Scarlet Blake is a male. We strongly encourage UK police forces to uphold the principles of integrity and transparency and return to accurate crime recording. We must strive to restore the trust of the public and victims of crime, and to preserve accurate records for future generations.

With a general election on the near horizon and the UK Conservative party keen to distance itself from its main rival parties (the leaders of which insist that it is perfectly possible that a person with a functioning male organ can be female), the Prime Minister's spokesman stressed that the government's policy is that “transwomen” who are convicted of crimes must be recorded as men—with the caveat that this only applies if they have not legally changed gender:

The definition of a woman is the biological sex and biological sex matters … Police forces should follow the … guidance that a person's gender is that which was registered at birth unless they have been issued with a gender recognition certificate…

Doctor Who?

Only a very small minority of the “trans” population apply for a gender recognition certificate (around 5,000 people have so far been issued a certificate out of anywhere between 200 and 500 thousand people who are believed to identify as "trans"). Within the medical community, statistics indicate that just two out of 77 U.K. doctors who registered a gender change have actually obtained a certificate.

Nonetheless, the General Medical Council (GMC), responsible for registering doctors in the U.K., has stated that it no longer requires doctors to provide a certificate in order to register as the opposite sex, because “many found it difficult to secure one.”

Patients therefore have no way of discovering whether the doctor they are booked to see is “trans” or not, unless they are unofficially informed by a member of staff who happens to know and is willing to risk being penalized for “transphobia."

‘Let them bring chaperones’

When questioned on its policy, the GMC responded that the purpose of its register is merely to show that doctors have “the appropriate training, skills, and experience” and that if a person has a concern, they can bring a chaperone to an appointment (although they don’t explain how a person will know whether a chaperone will be necessary).

According to Maya Forstater, executive director of the Sex Matters organization which campaigns for clarity on such issues, this policy of effectively concealing the true sex of a physician infringes on patients’ safety and wellbeing.

The General Medical Council’s handling of this issue is chilling and demonstrates that it prioritizes trans identities over the safety and wellbeing of female patients.

If a woman has been told that she will be examined by a female doctor, then it is a violation of her consent for her to find herself with a man posing as a woman ... this policy disregards women’s human rights and puts women at risk of state-sanctioned sexual assault [emphasis added].