A psychiatrist took legal action Thursday against the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust in England, alleging hospital officials ignored safeguarding concerns about men who identify as women being admitted to female psychiatric wards despite a landmark U.K. Supreme Court ruling on biological sex.
The Christian Legal Centre, which is representing the psychiatrist under the name “Dr. A,” said in a press release that “vulnerable female patients, including survivors of sexual violence, have been detained in psychiatric wards under unlawful NHS policies which allow men to access these wards and intimate places, such as showers, because they merely identify as women.”
“The public, politicians and the media need to know that mentally ill men and women are being detained together on mixed-sex wards whilst the NHS pretends its wards are single-sex,” Dr. A said in the press release.
The dispute follows the U.K. Supreme Court’s unanimous April 2025 decision that the terms “woman,” “man” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex. The ruling permits biological males who identify as women to be excluded from certain women-only spaces while leaving existing protections against discrimination based on gender reassignment intact.
Despite the ruling, Dr. A claims that her repeated requests about how the NHS Trust was complying with the law were “met with delay, resistance and suggestions that the judgment might be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights.”
Dr. A also said that the day after the Supreme Court ruling, the Trust reportedly told staff there would be no immediate changes for patients.
Her claim gained attention after she alleged that a biological male patient who identified as a woman was placed on a women’s psychiatric ward where he exposed male genitalia to female patients. According to a report from U.K. outlet The Times, the patient was temporarily moved to a male ward following complaints before being returned to the women’s ward.
Dr. A said the incident was described to her by another consultant working at the hospital.
“He said that there had been a man with a beard and full male genitalia who had been exposing himself to female patients and they were unhappy,” she explained.
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Dr. A said she pursued legal action after concluding that her efforts to raise the issue internally over the past three years had not resulted in adequate changes. She filed an Employment Tribunal claim against the NHS Trust alleging unlawful workplace discrimination and harassment over her protected gender-critical beliefs, claiming the Trust ignored her safeguarding warnings and failed to bring its policies into line with the Supreme Court’s ruling on biological sex.
“As a senior doctor, I could not remain silent while women’s privacy and dignity were being compromised. I raised these concerns because I believe every patient has a right to be treated with compassion and to have her sex recognized when intimate care, accommodation and personal safety are involved,” she said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
The NHS Trust now acknowledges the Supreme Court ruling on its website and said it is reviewing its existing rules.
“As a result, we are actively undertaking an audit of our policies, procedures and processes in order to reflect this clarification in the law,” the Trust said.
The Trust’s review came as national NHS guidance also remains unresolved. NHS England’s current guidance, first issued in 2019, says transgender patients should be accommodated according to their gender presentation, including for toilets and bathing facilities, but NHS England added after the Supreme Court ruling that the guidance is “currently being reviewed.”
The existing guidance also states providers should generally have a “zero-tolerance approach” toward mixed-sex accommodation and should protect patients’ safety, privacy and dignity.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission pointed Fox News Digital to its new statutory Code of Practice, which took effect in August and outlines how service providers should apply the law to single-sex services.
“In separate or single-sex services, a trans man will be excluded from the men-only service because his sex is female, and a trans woman will be excluded from the women-only service because her sex is male,” a spokesperson said.
The EHRC press office also directed Fox News Digital to provisions requiring service providers to consider whether women’s safety, privacy or dignity would be jeopardized by sharing a service with men. The guidance specifically tells providers to consider whether women are likely to be undressed, have limited ability to leave or choose an alternative service, or are receiving services connected to male violence against women.
Sonja Shaw, a candidate for California superintendent of public instruction and girls’ sports advocate, sharply criticized policies she says put women’s safety at risk.
“Sex is real, and girls and women deserve privacy, safety, and fairness, not institutions that pretend otherwise,” she told Fox News Digital. “Hospitals putting bearded men who identify as women into female psychiatric wards reads as the next step of a process that has been perpetuated by this perverse political agenda.”
“It is the same failure we already see in schools that put biological males into girls’ sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms,” Shaw continued. “And it won’t stop until we address the root problem and codify protection for biological women’s right to private and protected spaces. Stop sacrificing women and girls at the altar of ideology. Female psychiatric wards turned into male cosplay zones isn’t healthcare. It’s malpractice against vulnerable women.”
