Non-binary inclusion

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Conference
2018 Health Care Service Group Conference
Date
5 December 2017
Decision
Carried

UNISON has a long standing history of campaigning and helping those who face discrimination. In the past few years UNISON has made great strides in helping our transgender members. However there is still more to be done. A survey of non-binary trans people done this year by the Scottish transgender alliance showed that 60% of non-binary people are not comfortable being out in the NHS in general, with 50% not comfortable being out to their GP.

50% of non-binary transgender people were not comfortable being out at work. That’s half of our non-binary workforce feeling unable to be themselves in the workplace. We know LGBT people who do not feel able to fully be themselves at work can suffer from mental health conditions; 88% of transgender people struggle with depression and 75% struggle with anxiety.

This is a big issue for our non-trans workforce too, who find the idea of treating a transgender individual intimidating at times as they have a lack of knowledge. It’s important we do our best to help all staff understand and meet the needs of these patients; looking at e-learning as well as written guidance as a lot of our workers on wards will find e-learning more suitable.

As UNISON representatives there are steps we can take to make the workplace more inclusive; such as asking that any new bathrooms are non-gendered or asking staff to use non-gendered language. However the NHS Spine and IT systems used throughout the NHS are not inclusive, only allowing patients to pick between male or female.

In light of these issues, Conference calls upon the Service Group Executive to:

1)work with NHS Digital to update the NHS Spine to include ‘non-binary’ as a gender option should patients wish to self-identify to NHS services;

2)produce guidance and an e-learning module for our healthcare workers on using non-gendered language;

3)produce guidance and an e-learning module for our workers on the specific healthcare needs of transgender patients.