Correct beliefs required
A former NHS chief executive has been told not to apply to work with a transgender clinic because she believes that a person cannot change sex.
Kate Grimes, who has a history of transforming troubled hospitals, was told not to waste her time applying for the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust as her belief in biological sex was “not a viewpoint” they want.
What next? People have to believe in god, or witchcraft, or reincarnation, or homeopathy to work for the NHS? Belief in obvious well-established facts shouldn’t be a disqualifier for a medical institution.
The Tavistock has now been accused of breaking equality law by discriminating against those with gender-critical beliefs, just months after the appeal court ruled it was protected under the Equality Act.
“Gender-critical” is kind of superfluous, really. We just believe that sex is what it is, and that it’s not magically changeable. We believe what everyone has always believed. Some beliefs of that kind are wrong, of course, and can be changed via evidence or argument or both. But “men are not women” isn’t that kind of belief. There hasn’t been a new discovery that shows men are women if they say so. We’re not wrong to go on believing (i.e. knowing) that men are not women.
The trust, which provides a national service for treatment of gender dysphoria including for children, is recruiting for a new chairman and non-executive directors after an external review found multiple corporate governance problems and “deep seated” cultural issues.
And why? Because of this absurd new belief that men are women if they say they are, the one that is apparently a prerequisite for working there.
Ms Grimes is now calling on Sajid Javid to intervene to ensure that an external body takes over the process and to launch a review into the processes. In a letter to the Health Secretary, Ms Grimes said that the trust was “exacerbating its governance failures – and breaking the law – by refusing to interview anyone who believes biological sex cannot be changed”.
And guaranteeing that it will get only dogmatists applying.
Ms Grimes told the Telegraph that patient safety was at risk if “clinicians are working from a belief system rather than evidence-based care”.
Indeed. They might as well hire Charles Windsor for the job.
It’s so weird being called a science denialist by the troops of David Gorsky and Steven Novella, isn’t it? Likened to flat-earthers, when there isn’t even the equivalent of the appearance of ‘flatness” to be fooled by. Sarah Haider refers to herself as a “gender atheist,” and I am tempted to join her on that.
This is to my mind a clear case of discrimination, and I hope they are taken to task for it.
The Times reports a more complete version of the response sent to Kate Grimes by Dr Melanie West of the recruitment firm Gatenby Sanderson:
Before she entered executive recruitment, Melanie West trained as a midwife: “It’s a boy! – for now; but you must bear in mind that sex is mutable…”
Mike – SO weird. All this time and I still can’t get used to it.
Mike @1 Exulansic is also a ‘gender atheist’ – the first one I saw using this term. I see it as a cult, so it makes sense.
https://americanmind.org/salvo/how-gender-atheism-saved-my-body/
Thanks, Twiliter! This is an excellent description of my viewpoint on it.
I find it interesting that short hair was viewed as a marker on how serious she was about being trans. It’s regressive, seriously regressive.
@5 And coming from a detransitioner too, I think she has some really good insight. The parallels with religion are too obvious to ignore. It’s not just some fad, it’s dangerous, destructive stuff. In other words, a cult.
I read somewhere, but I have not been able to find it again, that one of the reassignment surgeons stated explicitly that “no one thinks the operations actually change anyone’s sex.” That needs to be found and gold-plated. My google-foo sucks, though. I have NOT been able to trace it again. Wish I had bookmarked it at the time.
“Men are not women” isn’t even the sort of proposition amenable to alteration in light of new evidence. It’s analytically true. There is literally no amount of evidence of any sort that could have any bearing on the matter. Bachelors are never married, triangles are never squares, and men are never women.
Godfrey Daniels, this category error shit is tiresome.