The NHS continues to be weird.
When Charlotte* discovered that a male colleague was using the women’s changing room at work, she raised the matter with her manager at the NHS. The colleague identified as a woman and had begun using a female name, but female staff had not been consulted about the effect on their changing arrangements.
“The matron spoke to HR and asked: ‘Where should this person change? They’re identifying as a woman.’ And HR said: ‘Well, they change wherever they want. If they want to use the female changing room, that’s what we need to let them do,’” she says.
Well, if people can change wherever they want, what even is a “female changing room”?
You can’t have both, you know. Logic forbids it. There are only two options: one changing room for each sex, for a total of two, or two changing rooms, both for both sexes.
Then came the Supreme Court ruling in April 2025 that the words “sex”, “woman” and “man” in the Equality Act 2010 refer strictly to biological sex. Charlotte’s NHS trust withdrew its gender identification policy immediately. But it was only this August, 16 months later, that staff were finally instructed to use changing rooms corresponding to their biological sex or the available unisex facilities.
16 months later…”Oh by the way, we forgot to tell you, the rules have changed.”
It’s especially ridiculous because it’s the NHS. They know from bodies. They know the differences. They’re not engineers or lawyers, they’re nurses and doctors. Bodies are their job.
It is a problem across the NHS. Despite last year’s Supreme Court ruling and the recently published EHRC Code of Practice, many NHS organisations have yet to produce clear, up-to-date policies.
The Telegraph has reviewed Freedom of Information responses from eight English ambulance trusts. None disclosed a policy clearly stating that women’s staff toilets, showers and changing rooms were reserved for biological women. Some retained policies permitting access according to “affirmed” or “social” gender, while others were reviewing or replacing their guidance. Several also supplied policies warning that repeated or deliberate “misgendering” could lead to formal action.
It’s so wearisome. If the medical profession can’t get it right who can? What is so difficult about this?
While changing rooms have become the most visible battleground in the conflict over sex and gender, they are just one symptom of a much deeper problem – an enduring NHS workplace culture in which challenging gender self-identification can still carry serious professional and social consequences, whatever the law says.
Apart from Hutchison, every NHS employee interviewed for this article has asked for anonymity, fearing complaints, investigations or damage to their careers. That alone is telling.
Yes it is, especially because [see above] this is medical care we’re talking about. It’s not religious institutions, it’s not academia, it’s not the arts, it’s not architecture. It’s bodies. It’s of the earth earthy. If medical professionals are willing to pretend not to know which bodies are which, how can anyone trust them to tell the truth about anything? Or even bandage a small wound?
