Freedom of expression has been dead in the United Kingdom for some time. That's a sad pass when you consider that this includes Scotland; many of my ancestors came from Scotland, a big bunch not long after the Jacobite Rebellion when they faced a choice between legging it to the New World or having their heads chopped off. Before that, though, they were fighters, inhabitants of a hard, stony land, so it's not surprising that many of them found homes in hard, stony lands like New England and Appalachia.
Nowadays, Scotland is a very different place. Not only have they lost freedom of expression, but they have also been forbidden to exercise any freedom to acknowledge reality. Case in point: Scottish National Health Service (NHS) workers have been ordered, in a fictional training scenario, to call a big, bearded dude "Lucy."
The fictional dude's real name, which in the scenario he hasn't bothered to legally change, is "Lee."
Training materials for NHS Scotland workers ask them to consider the fictional case of “Lucy”, a 29-year-old trans nurse who had yet to formally change their name from Lee.
The cultural humility training module states that Lucy “is still producing facial hair which is exposed” and that some other staff are unhappy correcting patients when they use male terms to describe the nurse.
The module stated that “discrimination against Lucy will not be tolerated” and the staff “have a duty (under equality law) to use the correct name and pronouns for Lucy”.
Now, hang on - "Lucy" hasn't changed his name yet. (Sorry, NHS, but I live in a free-speech zone - it's called the United States of America, and I'm free to call a dude a dude if I see fit.) If his legal name is still "Lee," isn't that the correct name? That's how it is here, I'm pretty sure - and that's how it should be.
This isn't the first case of such lunacy on the part of the NHS. And, we must note, there are signs of some sense returning to this whole mess. Recently, a Scottish judge ruled that a NHS nurse was free to refer to her male colleague as... a man.
I know, right? Wonders never cease.
Read: A Win for the Obvious: UK Tribunal Rules NHS Nurse Can Call a Man a Man
True story: Our oldest daughter, a nurse practitioner who has worked in emergency medicine for over 15 years, occasionally has one of these folks in the ER. She has related many times with growing frustration that they almost universally get upset when she insists on using their legal name, as American medical regulations require it. She's also increasingly annoyed at the necessity of telling these people "I don't give a crap how you identify, I need to know what parts you have."
But wait! There's more!
In addition, the training endorses the rollout of gender-neutral lavatories, claiming they “promote equality by eliminating the need for people to conform to traditional gender norms”.
The training scenarios, prepared by the NHS Education for Scotland (NES) agency, also said that people can decide for themselves “whether they identify as disabled”.
The content of the materials was disclosed by The Times as John Swinney was forced to deny that Scotland’s gender self-ID policies are “state sponsored abuse of human rights”.
Uh, traditional gender norms are norms for a reason. Allowing men, most notably big, bearded dudes like the fictional "Lee" into women's bathrooms, locker rooms and presumably, showers, is a gross violation of those women's rights to privacy. That's the exact opposite of promoting equality. That's forcing women - actual women - to comply with something that they can't possibly be comfortable with. And what does the NHS Education for Scotland mean when they say that people can "identify as disabled"? Well, mentally disabled, or at least unbalanced, that we can allow without argument.
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I'll bet a pound of haggis that you won't find 10 Scottish women that will honestly admit they are in favor of this. In the UK and elsewhere, not only is free speech dead, apparently now reality is as well - and the message to the UK's people appears to be that they damn well better shut up and comply. No delusion is so... delusional that the NHS won't cater to it, it seems.
It's a sad state that the once Great Britain has come to this. Maybe that seeming return to some semblance of sanity noted above will grow. Also, this whole thing raises the question: Will healthcare facilities in the heavily Muslim-immigrant areas also be requiring this training? Now, that would be interesting to see.
