Safeguarding Concerns in the NHS
Many readers have seen Children of Transitioners’ letter from Sussex NHS Trust (thanks for your help Lottie/ Biology Matters project) link here.
Policy Exchange Biology Matters COTS Letter
Many press reports focus on the male secretion content rather than the ethics of unnecessary experiments with unlicensed drugs on babies or the use of infants in sexual paraphilias such as lactation fetish. There is no understanding that children with a parent who is trans should be safeguarded as other children are. The conflicts between the NHS LGBT/Stonewall rainbow badge scheme requirements and the rights and safeguarding of children of transitioners were apparently not noticed by NHS safeguarding staff before the scheme was heavily funded.
Since May 2023, we have been waiting for NHS England’s safeguarding team to respond to the safeguarding concerns and regulatory, legal, human rights and ethical failures we raised. We are therefore releasing this email so everyone can access our concerns.
From: childrenoftransitioners (email removed )
Date: On Friday, May 26th, 2023 at 15:05
Subject: SAFEGUARDING CONCERN -NHS policy enforcing the abuse of children of transitioners/ transpeople
To: england.safeguarding@nhs.net <england.safeguarding@nhs.net>
Attn Lead Safeguarding Officer
We are the UK group representing children of transitioners/ transpeople (CoTs). Sadly many of us have experienced abuse, both domestic and sexual, from a parent (usually our dads) and you can find out more about our experience here
here
and here https://transcrimeuk.com/
As you know CoTs who experience these crimes have the right to anonymity eg 2 girls who have experienced sexual abuse from transitioner males, including a father, in the press just this month.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12012541/Woman-sexually-abused-father-discovers-released-jail-identifying-woman.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65610429
We are writing to you as the body responsible for NHS Safeguarding nationally to raise a substantial safeguarding concern about the sexual and emotional abuse of babies and children of transitioners that needs urgent action to protect children from further abuse. We understand some NHS Trusts are now seeking to enable and enforce the sexual and emotional abuse of children who are CoTs, and are introducing policies that not only fail to safeguard these children, nor recognise UK and European law, but also actively encourage the sexual assault and grooming of vulnerable babies and children who come into contact with NHS staff.
Some of our dads ‘transition’ for sexual reasons, and many just change their clothing choices or have breast implants. CoTs’ still have both the legal right and the emotional need to be safeguarded by NHS staff – just like all other children- and to have the reality of our birth respected by NHS staff and other professionals, even when that is in direct conflict with the demands, gaslighting and abuse of our parents, who have even tried (and failed- in both UK and the European courts) to falsify our birth records in law, and try and force us to pretend a father is a mother (or vice versa) even though this is specifically forbidden in the GRA itself and legal cases since https://childrenoftransitioners.org/paperwork/
We have seen evidence that some hospital Trusts are making children of transitioners suck their father’s nipples- a act of sexual assault and grooming that deeply shocks us as NHS staff should be protecting COT infants not enabling their abuse- and refer to our fathers as our mothers, or vice versa, in the presence of children of transitioners, which is abusive gaslighting in conflict with the law.
2 examples of Trusts doing this are Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals
and York and Scarborough Teaching hospitals
As an NHS service providing care to both transpeople and their children, you have a responsibility to safeguard all, and balance the needs and legal rights of all. We have no idea of how many NHS Trusts are doing this. It fails to consider the health, welfare, and safeguarding of children of transitioners. It encourages our fathers and other men to feed children like us, as babies, drug induced secretions from their bodies and to commit, and groom us for, sexual assault. Please take urgent action to
- prevent Children of Transitioners being used by those who wish to feed babies drug induced bodily secretions as part of a sexual fetish
- provide scientific/ medical evidence which has tested the composition of any such male secretions for safety and nutritional value, ie evidence and medical trials that feeding babies these drug induced secretions is safe and beneficial for Cots . ( It appears that baby Cots are being used in a unethical medical trial by the NHS as nursing mothers are forbidden to take many of the drugs being used)
- provide evidence of health outcomes for infant Children of Transitioners being used in this way in NHS Trusts eg the results of ingesting male drug induced bodily secretions , conception in a body flooded with synthetic testosterone , future sexual assault stats etc
- it is of note none of the NHS Trusts have consulted Children of Transitioners, the main group negatively affected by this guidance, or specialist Safeguarding Groups who represent our needs (in contrast to trans lobby groups/ individuals who all directly lobby to remove rights and safeguarding from Cots in order to benefit our trans identified parents).
- We bring to your attention information on the Cots website such as ‘How to help Children of Transitioners’ and our Government Submission for the GRA consultation https://childrenoftransitioners.org/gra-inquiry-submission/ , as NHS policy in these Trusts directly conflicts with safeguarding children, what children of transitioners need, and the current protections for Cots in law, such as our right to correctly sex and name our mums as mums, and dads as dads (protected in both the GRA itself, and UK and European law link here https://childrenoftransitioners.org/paperwork/
- Please advise whether NHS insurers have authorised NHS Trusts to enable feeding newborn babies these drug induced secretions, and force babies to suck men’s nipples when men don’t produce milk, and what legal cover you require staff / Trusts involved in this to have eg for medical negligence for failing to protect baby CoTs (eg from our parent’s sexual fetishes/ assault or drug induced male secretions) in a hospital environment
- Please ensure all NHS policies safeguard children including children of transitioners- this requirement cannot be removed by ideologically captured staff who want to enforce the demands of trans identified parents. It’s not just feeding newborn babies drug induced bodily secretions that conflicts with the rights of Cots, other examples include NHS trans policies stating ‘referring to someone as “mother” when they do not identify that way may inadvertently cause harm to trans people’ but makes no reference to the fact that referring to a mother as a father will have a negative impact on their child, will cause distress to the child, and conflicts with the legal status of the the mother as a mother- laid out in the Gender Recognition Act itself (as well as the recent case law links above). Cots do not consent in most cases to pretend our parents have changed sex, as it is nonsense, and to pretend a father is a ‘mother’ 1.4.3 in the Brighton policy) is abusive gaslighting of children. We have the same rights to both safeguarding from abuse and to have our mother correctly recognised and acknowledged by NHS staff as all other children in maternity units, whether we are there as babies or older children visiting.
- Please advise how NHS safeguarding policy protects and ensures accessibility to services for children of transitioners, including as adults, in NHS hospitals. Most of us will never reveal we are Cots to NHS staff to protect our privacy, but obviously cannot access mixed sex wards (required by Annex B) or accept opposite sex intimate care, whatever the gender beliefs or GRC status of staff/ patients.
Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility, and we are deeply shocked that the NHS is enabling the abuse of children in this way, using CoT babies as part of an unethical medical/ ideological trial, and thus excluding children of transitioners from basic safeguarding protections offered to other children in hospital and at home.
We look forward to your response and immediate action to safeguard CoTs .
Children of Transitioners
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