A simple problem made very complicated

A female nurse with thirty years' service to her name working in the British health service has been suspended from duty for the crime of "transphobia". She did not feel comfortable getting undressed in front of a male colleague. A colleague she considered to be a man rather than a woman as he claimed to be.

This is simple. Very simple indeed. No body ought to find themselves having to get undressed in front of anyone. Changing rooms can be single person affairs. It is not complicated. It is not difficulty to build changing rooms with individual cubicles or create rooms for one person to use at a time.

I ask you this. If you had a mastectomy, would you feel comfortable getting undressed in front of others, male or female. If you had a bad rash or a scar that you prefer to be kept hidden, would you want all and sundry seeing it? Some have boundless confidence to get undressed in front of anyone. However, others are much more shy, much more reserved and feel most uncomfortable changing with others watching.

It cannot be that difficult to build individual changing rooms within the bounds of a huge hospital building. Individual changing rooms provide privacy for all. They help us maintain our dignity. They avoid any gender-based discrimination.

The managers of the hospital are doubly at fault. Suspending someone for what they believed to be a xenophobic reaction to the situation that they created. They failed to provide their staff with a private place to get changed in.