CROWDFUNDER!
Justice For Joelle
Justice For Joelle
"My daughter is dead because she is trans"
A message from Jane (Joelle's Mother):
In a medical emergency requiring urgent treatment, Wolverhampton NHS Trust took 16 days to find a bed for Joelle, a 27-year-old trans woman. Joelle had an aggressive form of lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects children and young people in their 20s, which has become almost entirely curable in recent years but is rapidly and certainly fatal if not treated very rapidly. With its survival rate and emergency nature, it is more comparable to appendicitis than other forms of cancer. The 16-day delay certainly cost her her life. It is impossible to survive this cancer with a delay of this scale; treatment pathways are well understood and need to be immediate.
There was a bed available on the cancer ward the day she was admitted. We know this because we saw it; she was initially taken to that ward. When staff saw her, they changed their mind, and she was taken back to A&E for 12 hours, then admitted to a single room in an inappropriate ward on the far side of the hospital. She was admitted to the single room on this ward because she was trans and refused admittance to the bed on the cancer ward because it was in a multi-bed women’s ward. The day before Steve Barclay, Conservative health minister, announced plans to block trans women from wards with his famous ‘‘As conservatives we know what a woman is. And I know that the vast majority of NHS staff and patients do too”
We were persistently ‘reassured’ it was not an emergency, that all was happening as fast as possible and she was in the right place. All three were lies.
In addition to the very basic fact that being in the wrong ward cost her life, it also meant she was with staff who had no experience or even competence with cancer pain management. It is hard to find the vocabulary to describe the horror of the intense, persistent, unmanaged pain of those 16 days. Joelle’s abdominal tumour measured 98cm. Her normal weight was 8 stone. The wrong ward also meant being in the care of people who had no experience or understanding of the likely rapid deterioration of someone with aggressive lymphoma, and did not take appropriate steps to protect or care for her as her condition deteriorated in a way that is textbook expected for this lymphoma over less than 16 days.
Joelle is dead because she is trans.
We are seeking an article two inquest for two reasons:
The first reason is justice for Joelle. Joelle was precious, beloved and magical. She had an inventive, agile mind, was generous, articulate and funny. She had integrity and courage. A gifted musician with a first from a conservatoire, she effortlessly held down a code-writing job, a skill she taught herself. She was very loved by her family, her friends and her partner. In the care of the NHS, she suffered intense physical pain, akin to torture, and mental agony as we frantically tried and failed to access emergency treatment. And daily transphobia was our lived reality. Neither her death nor her suffering was unavoidable. We cannot shrug it off as some kind of mishap.
The second reason for an article two inquest goes beyond the individual cause of death and explores systemic reasons that contributed to the catastrophe, with a view to protecting other people from similar disasters. The Supreme Court ruling against trans people in April 2025 is famous for its implications on access to toilets. Somewhat under-discussed is its impact on trans people’s access to hospital beds. If the current EHRC guidance goes through as it stands, trans people will be allowed access only to single rooms in hospitals. There is no question that there are nowhere near enough of these beds for anyone, never mind trans people. Single rooms are the most under-pressure beds in a spectacularly pressured NHS. They are needed for the very sick, infectious and dying. If trans people are blocked from accessing wards, what happened to Joelle will become a matter of policy across the country, not just the transphobic decision of one hospital.
One might imagine that if a situation such as Joelle’s cropped up, no young person would be left to die in favour of ideological policy. I’m here as a witness to say otherwise, and that is why we need an inquest; this is exactly what happened to my child. In the name of Joelle and me, it could happen to anyone. When asked what would happen to trans women needing hospital admittance, Keir Starmer said they “would be accommodated but not on a woman's ward and err…err…. well…hospitals already do this, there are ways that this can be done and… lots of wards have side wards, side rooms, that sort of thing”. Rationally, you might imagine, he’s right; surely no one would be left to die, and somehow a bed would be found in an emergency. That’s why we need an inquest. The answer is no: Joelle was left to suffer, plead for her life and die a horrific death at 27.
Best wishes,
Jane