Christian Concern has challenged the British Medical Association’s opposition to NHS England’s new single-sex guidance, drawing on years of legal battles supporting nurses, doctors, teachers and parents who have faced punishment for upholding biological reality.
For well over a decade, Christian Concern and its Christian Legal Centre have defended the Christian understanding of human beings as male and female, challenging policies that undermine safeguarding, freedom of conscience and the rights of women and children. Through legal representation, public campaigning and support for individuals and families, the organisations have exposed the consequences of allowing gender identity to override biological sex in public institutions.
Responding to the BMA’s statement published yesterday, Christian Concern said its continued support for access to accommodation and services according to gender identity fails to confront the harm revealed through these cases.
The organisation called on the BMA to support the implementation of lawful single-sex safeguards, acknowledge the experiences of women whose concerns have been dismissed, and defend healthcare professionals who speak accurately about sex.
Years of standing alongside those who raised the alarm
Christian Concern’s involvement in the Darlington nurses’ case began long before their landmark tribunal victory. In conjunction with the Christian Legal Centre, it provided legal, media and pastoral support and set up the Darlington Nursing Union for them as the nurses challenged their employer’s policy requiring them to share female changing facilities with a biological male.
In January 2026, seven nurses succeeded in claims of indirect sex discrimination and harassment against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. The tribunal found that the requirement to share the changing room violated their dignity and created a hostile, humiliating and degrading environment.
The Trust subsequently apologised and paid £187,000 in damages.
The judgment addressed the Trust’s policy and treatment of the nurses’ concerns.
The same insistence that staff must accommodate gender identity, even at the expense of freedom to express Christian faith and accurate clinical communication, has been central to the Christian Legal Centre’s work supporting Jennifer Melle.
Jennifer faced disciplinary and regulatory proceedings after using male pronouns during a clinical discussion about a biologically male prisoner patient who identified as female. The patient subjected her to racist abuse and threats. With the Christian Legal Centre’s support, she challenged her treatment, returned to work and reached a settlement with her employer. In July 2026, the Nursing and Midwifery Council closed its investigations with no case to answer.
Years earlier, in 2019 the Christian Legal Centre supported Dr David Mackereth after he lost his role as a disability assessor following a dispute over his refusal to use pronouns inconsistent with biological sex. His litigation secured recognition that his beliefs were protected, although his discrimination appeal was dismissed. Following his self-referral, the GMC subsequently found no impairment of his fitness to practise.
The Christian Legal Centre is now backing a consultant psychiatrist, anonymised as Dr A, as her NHS Trust dismissed her safeguarding concerns about biological males being admitted to female psychiatric wards and causing harm to other patients.
Dr A’s case raises concerns about women detained under the Mental Health Act, including survivors of sexual violence, access to showers and intimate facilities, and failures to record biological sex accurately.
The same conflict has reached the classroom
Christian Concern is also clear that NHS cases reflect a wider institutional problem. In our legal work we have repeatedly encountered the same in schools: professionals and parents who question gender ideology can find themselves treated as the problem, while their safeguarding concerns go unanswered.
The Christian Legal Centre supported Nigel and Sally Rowe in challenging primary-school policies that expected young children to affirm a classmate’s change of gender identity. It has also supported teacher “Hannah”, who raised safeguarding concerns about the social transition of a primary-school child, and Joshua Sutcliffe, whose teaching prohibition involved findings about his treatment of a pupil who identified as transgender.
Its sustained support for school pastoral assistant Kristie Higgs culminated in her landmark Court of Appeal victory in February 2025, after she was dismissed over personal Facebook posts expressing Christian beliefs and concerns about teaching on sexuality and gender.
These cases involve different legal questions and outcomes. Together, Christian Concern says, they demonstrate why institutions must protect the freedom to question policies, raise safeguarding concerns and express Christian beliefs about sex without facing automatic accusations of prejudice.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre, said:
“For well over a decade, we have been warning about the consequences of institutions abandoning the truth that human beings are male and female. Through the Christian Legal Centre, we have stood alongside those who have paid a very real price for saying so.
“We have supported nurses who wanted privacy while changing, doctors who could not in conscience use language they believed to be untrue, and teachers and parents who raised concerns about what was happening to children. We have carried these cases through years of proceedings because the people involved deserved justice and the issues affected many others.
“We have established unions, when UNISON and others have let down the workers they should protect.
“The BMA should be listening carefully to what these cases reveal. Its response to the new NHS guidance is a profound failure of leadership. Women’s privacy and dignity deserve serious attention from the medical profession.
“The Darlington nurses should never have needed our help to take their employer to court to secure proper changing facilities. Jennifer Melle should never have endured such an ordeal over pronouns while the racist abuse and threats she suffered were compounded by the way she was treated.
“Our work now includes a psychiatrist raising concerns for women detained on psychiatric wards. Some of these women are survivors of sexual violence. They cannot simply leave when they feel unsafe. Their needs must be central to NHS policy.
“The BMA points to pressures on buildings and bed capacity. Those pressures require practical solutions and proper funding. They cannot become a permanent excuse for disregarding women’s privacy or dismissing the professionals who speak up for them.
“Our Christian conviction is that every person is made in the image of God and deserves compassionate care. That includes people who identify as transgender. Compassion requires honesty about the body, careful clinical judgment and respect for everyone affected.
“The BMA must confront the harm caused by policies that subordinate biological reality to gender identity. It should help restore confidence in the NHS by supporting lawful single-sex provision and defending staff who raise legitimate concerns.”
Turning guidance into practice
Christian Concern is calling for NHS trusts to publish clear implementation plans, provide suitable facilities for all patients and staff, monitor and address breaches of same-sex accommodation requirements, and protect those who raise safeguarding concerns.
It also seeks accurate, confidential recording of biological sex where relevant to clinical care and safeguarding, in accordance with data protection and disclosure law.
Separate national guidance remains necessary on pronouns and professional conscience; the new accommodation and staff-facilities documents do not resolve those questions.
The Supreme Court’s April 2025 judgment established that sex in the Equality Act 2010 means biological sex, while maintaining protection against unlawful discrimination for people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. NHS England’s guidance applies to England, and implementation must protect the clinical needs, privacy, dignity and safety of every patient.
The Christian Legal Centre has published clear guidance on this issue.