Doctors Who Change Gender Are Allowed to Scrub Past Wrongdoing from Public Record
New public records for medics who change gender are wiped of previous suspensions and formal warnings it has emerged, after the General Medical Council confirmed that this is its policy. The Telegraph has the story about gender transition doctors.
Sandie Peggie’s case against NHS Fife for alleged harassment after the nurse raised concerns about a trans colleague has caused alarm among women and campaigners across the country. The NHS, she claims, was prioritising the rights of Dr Beth Upton, a trans doctor who was born male but insisted on using the women’s changing room, over her rights to a single-sex space.
Now, it can be revealed that the General Medical Council (GMC), which regulates doctors, takes an even more extreme stance on trans medics – effectively scrubbing the public disciplinary history of gender transition doctors who change their identities in this way.
“If a doctor had received a historical sanction [i.e., the suspension is no longer in place] prior to transitioning, this information would not be available on their new public-facing record on the medical register,” says a GMC spokesman. The GMC confirms that Dr Upton is one of 62 doctors to have been given new registrations under different GMC numbers, meaning that future patients would be unable to see any details of their doctor’s previous identity by searching the GMC’s online database using the medic’s new name and number.
The GMC’s position has come to light after a retired anaesthetist contacted the Telegraph, raising concerns that Dr Upton had been given a new registration number.
“Because the GMC has an even more important role than it did a couple of decades ago – recording and marking the careers of doctors – people need to be confident about the identities of gender transition doctors,” the whistleblower said.
A GMC number is a doctor’s professional fingerprint and appears on all of their paperwork – training, appraisals, official “revalidation”, prescriptions and, should they be unfortunate enough to receive one, complaints. It’s the one constant that proves a doctor is who they say they are.
Not only has the GMC issued Dr Upton with a new registration number, but the page with the doctor’s previous male identity remains on the GMC list, without any visible external link between the two.
Furthermore, according to its own guidelines, the GMC does not require doctors to “provide any evidence of your change in gender status”. Thus, a female patient who specifically requests a female doctor has no way of knowing whether that doctor was once biologically male among gender transition doctors.
A patient would also not see any details of any disciplinary sanctions – such as upheld suspensions and formal warnings – issued to a doctor before they transitioned. There is no suggestion that Dr Upton has faced any such disciplinary actions.
“There are extremely serious implications for the GMC issuing new numbers – essentially new identities – to 62 doctors,” says Helen Joyce, the Director of Advocacy at Sex Matters, a gender-critical human rights charity.
The GMC insists that records of doctors pre and post-transition are linked internally, but potentially important information about the records of a particular doctor would be withheld from the public if that doctor had changed their gender, making it challenging to assess those gender transition doctors.
