The RCN
I’ve been a member of the RCN since my student nurse days in the early 2000s. Back then there was a sense of pride in being a member of such a venerable institution, which has been supporting nurses since 1916. It also made sense to be part of a union which focussed so completely on nurses and their needs. The RCN *was* nursing.
However, in recent times the RCN has changed. They have refused to support fellow member Sandie Peggie in her fight to keep a male doctor out of the female staff changing rooms. In fact, they have remained eerily silent on this issue- you won’t find a single word about it on their website. They’re not the only union with this problem; you won’t find anything on the Unison website about the four Darlington nurses who also found their changing room being used by a man, and who also found that they could not count on their union’s support. However, the RCN is a union specifically for nurses, midwives and nursing support workers, an overwhelmingly female workforce. Why would they refuse to support a woman who doesn’t want to share a private space with a man?
You can find some answers in a search of the RCN website (links are below):
0 results for ‘Sandie Peggie’
0 results for ‘single sex’
1 result for ‘Gender critical’: a po-faced legal update about the Maya Forstater case which goes out of its way to reassure readers that trans people are still protected by equality legislation.
15 results for ‘non-binary’, including a much more positive piece about the Jaguar Landrover Employment Tribunal which widened the protected characteristic of gender reassignment to include people who identify as non-binary.
5 results for ‘Stonewall’
9 results for ‘pronouns’: nurses are encouraged to announce their own pronouns, ask the pronouns of people they are treating or working with, be ‘kind and understanding’, and avoid being a ‘diversity wrecking ball’.
19 results for ‘transgender’, including:
A piece by a clinical nurse specialist who felt she had ‘come home’ when she started working in ‘gender affirming care’
A guide (currently under review) for nurses caring for trans and non-binary people which demands nurses affirm the ‘true gender identity’ of trans and non-binary people, including children. It also uses the scientifically illiterate phrase ‘sex assigned at birth’.
A gushing piece about a guide to ‘transgender’ for people with learning disabilities, for which the nurse author was nominated for an RCNi nurse award
An entire page on Pride in Nursing: https://www.rcn.org.uk/Get-Involved/Campaign-with-us/Pride-in-Nursing
And what about lesbians? A search of the RCN website finds six results for ‘lesbian’. Four are actually about LGBT or LGBTQ+, with barely a mention of the actual word ‘lesbian’; one is a link to the Pride page; and the sixth is a link to a 2015 RCN and Public Health England guide for nurses about preventing suicide in LGB young people. There is a separate guide, from the same year, about suicide prevention in trans identifying young people. Clearly, ten years ago, people understood that the two groups have different needs.
The capture of the RCN has been swift. A 2011 guide to the then-new Equality Act doesn’t mention ‘trans’ at all- although it twice uses ‘gender’ when it actually means ‘sex’- but since then the RCN has gone from ‘treat everyone with respect’ (Respect Charter, 2017) to ‘being visible…adding pronouns to your email signature…wear badges, stickers…make it known that you’re an ally’ (Five ways to be a good LGBTQ+ ally, 2023).
For the RCN, women’s health is no longer just about women; their paper on support for women’s reproductive health in the workplace (May 2024) positions actual women, adult females, as a subset of women: ‘When faced with women’s reproductive health concerns, many women, including those with female reproductive organs, may consider reducing their work hours or leaving work entirely’. Presumably the RCN would be happy to support ‘women’ who need to make a deposit in the sperm bank in work time.
‘Equality, diversity and inclusion in women’s health’, last updated in Feb 2025, is at pains to point out, in the introduction, that the ‘most vulnerable’ in society often have the greatest health needs, and links this directly to ‘our gender-diverse society’:
The guide to abortion care requires nurses to refer to trans identifying patients undergoing termination of pregnancy as ‘he’ or ‘Mr’, while the ‘trans and non-binary’ section of the guide to menstrual health advises nurses to introduce themselves with their pronouns and talks about discussing controlling menstrual bleeding with ‘those assigned female at birth who retain a uterus’. It also asks nurses to use the body part terminology chosen by the patient; I’m sure most nurses will be just thrilled to talk about ‘front holes’.
The RCN has been so thoroughly captured by gender ideology that they have lost sight of their core demographic and purpose. It’s disgraceful that they have refused to support a female nurse purely because she understands that sex is real and can’t be changed. They have forgotten their own legal update from 2021, that gender critical beliefs are worthy of respect, and have chosen instead to champion an ideology that harms all women, including nurses. I’m no longer proud to be a member.
A few snippets from the RCN website:
Guide to the Equality Act (from 2011):
Single Equality Act and healthcare | Royal College of Nursing
Five ways to be a good LGBTQ+ ally | RCN Magazine | Royal College of Nursing
Legal update on the Maya Forstater case:
Legal update: gender critical views and belief protection | RCN Magazines | Royal College of Nursing
Avoiding being a diversity wrecking ball
Our equity, diversity and inclusion strategy | Publications | Royal College of Nursing
Legal update on the Jaguar Landrover case:
Legal update: protection and gender identity| Activate | Royal College of Nursing
Fair Care for Trans and Non-binary People
Termination of Pregnancy and Abortion | Publications | Royal College of Nursing
Care for trans patients: what nursing staff need to know | RCN Magazines
Perhaps nurses could band together & demand single sex spaces. I'm sure if a poll was taken of union members (mostly women), a majority would want single sex spaces. Members pay the salaries of the union board. They should be fighting for your rights, not cowering to the very few who are taken in by the trans ideology. Who ARE the board of RCN, and how are they elected? Time to kick out the board members afraid of resisting the trans cult, and elect gender critical folks!
Yes, very disappointing and frustrating but not surprising.
Thanks for your article.
Are you sending it to the RCN? And are you still a member?
I’m a retired member of Unison. I think a lot about leaving but also about trying to make my voice and opinion heard. I will continue to focus on LGBT Health and Wellbeing and LEAP Sports Scotland but Unison is next on my hit list!