This was originally posted on Reddit, but was silently removed as spam, with no attempt made to contact me.
pandoraholmes.org is now the single central point of information on Pandora's story - major updates will be posted to Reddit, Twitter, and the Fediverse as news breaks, while this page serves as an overall timeline and general information index.
General content warning: Consider Pandora's entire story to have a content warning, Older information is CW in both text and video for abuse, medical neglect, gaslighting, torture, dysphoria, forced detransition, and everything else you might imagine is there. Be aware this topic in general is a metaphorical rollercoaster through a minefield. Spoiler tags indicate the most extreme CWs even if you might otherwise be fine. Content warning on all videos, particularly earlier ones. Some of Pandora's videos from later on are less upsetting and more positive, but events following those videos are not positive.
Media inquiries
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The story so far
Original Reddit thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/MtF/comments/1dfjq4c/cw_the_nhs_are_holding_a_trans_woman_against_her/
Weekend megathread: https://old.reddit.com/r/MtF/comments/1dgin25/megathread_pandora_holmes_is_fighting_torture/
Pandora's youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thescoutpanda/videos
I have expanded on a few details and fixed a couple of timezone/off-by-one errors on dates. Timeline is still a work in progress. I have created subtitle files for some videos and sent them to Pandora to add, but some are not done yet - many of the early videos are emotionally very difficult for me to rewatch, so it is a slow process and I ask you to be patient there.
Tuesday, 4 June
Pandora Holmes was detained by the NHS under the Mental Health Act. This was initially for 48 hours. How this was done was unconscionable - she was lied to that she had a prescription that needed picking up. She came to collect it, and was instead taken against her will by mental health staff. Her HRT was taken away from her and she spent the night locked in a waiting room under guard, with the lights on.
Wednesday, 5 June
Pandora is taken to Sherwood Oaks 'hospital'. This is a place with a deeply troubled history of falsified records, assaults and other abuse of patients, mismanagement of medication, and apathetic staff. Pandora is held for two days in what is essentially a prison cell, watched by CCTV cameras, with no HRT, and not being allowed outside at all.
Friday, 7 June
The 2 day hold expired. Pandora asked if she is free to leave. She was told that she is "just staying with them". In this time, she has not been a danger to herself, or done anything to give the NHS cause to extend the hold. She has been asking for her HRT and expressing her feelings of emotional and physical distress at it not being available. She asks to leave when told she can, and is then told she can not leave, and they are detaining her under section 3 of the Mental Health Act. This is for 6 months. Pandora complains, and it is "generously" downgraded to section 2, for 28 days. 28 days of forced detransition for asking for her HRT - other than asking for the continuation of her medication, she has been compliant and not done anything dangerous, but was still facing the prospect of 6 months in a cell going through physical and emotional distress, for being transgender.
Saturday, 8 June
Video content warnings: Discussion of dysphoria, forced detransition
Pandora's partner posts a message on her behalf on their Discord server, where Pandora states she is being forcibly detransitioned and asks for help from server members.
Later that day, she posts a video of her situation, describing her HRT being taken from her as well as her being given insufficient treatment for nicotine withdrawal. After posting this video, she is retaliated against by staff, who began denying her food and water, although she does not discuss this until later.
Later that day, she posts a second video of her situation.
Sunday, 9 June
Video content warnings: Discussion of dysphoria, forced detransition, medical violence
Pandora releases a second video from her cell, asking her viewers to contact Sherwood Oaks to protest her mistreatment. Sherwood Oaks staff drugged her as retaliation for speaking out in the previous video, and discusses that she has been on HRT for two years. This is more than long enough that coming off it will be highly traumatic and emotionally destabilising, and have long-term impacts on her physical and mental health, and she is still experiencing nicotine withdrawal on top of hormonal changes; staff refuse to help with either. Pandora also expresses concern that next she might have her phone taken away as retaliation for speaking out.
In a third video, Pandora has been allowed "outside" in something even a prison designer might call "a bit inhumane", and in clear emotional distress - she was again drugged after making her second video. Staff have been telling her that she has to stop her HRT. At this point she has not been given food for three days, and only the bare minimum of fluids to keep her alive. An adult, whose rights to her gender identity the government would have you believe are legally protected, is being tortured by the NHS for being transgender.
Pandora never gives up. Later in the day she releases a fourth video shows she was promised a "consultant" the next day. They always seem to have everything happening "the next day" but it never arrives. Local trans groups and Pandora's friends have continued outreach efforts and she has started to receive some help, with the Liberal Democrat candidate contacting the Care Quality Commission and a solicitor (lawyer, for American audience).
Pandora is also finally offered food, and declines, because she is worried about accelerating her detransition by increasing her metabolism. This requires some context as to the level of poverty she has experienced - she has an unstable living situation and experiences food insecurity on a regular basis due to the failings of the tattered remnants of the UK's social safety net, in some cases relying on donations from her viewers on YouTube for food, but to her will to survive, her identity is the most important thing. This is what the NHS tried to take from her. After the video was released, she did eventually, with convincing from her friends, eat what was considered a "small" amount, that was in line with the amount of food that she was used to having available, and she declined further food because she felt full. Apparently, poverty is a mental health issue to the NHS...
Tuesday, 11 June
Video content warnings: Discussion of solitary confinement, surgery, mental health treatment
The police arrive at Sherwood Oaks to take Pandora to a "secure facility". Pandora is subject to transphobic verbal abuse from staff on her way out of Sherwood Oaks. On arrival at Highbury Hospital, NHS staff attempt to admit her to a male ward. The police had to intervene and tell the NHS staff to put her in the correct ward, and not one where she would be at risk of >!being SA'd or murdered!<. This is what the Tories and a large proportion of Labour want for all of us, and they plan to rewrite the NHS constitution to enable this.
Pandora releases her fifth video after being moved and placed in the female ward - at this point she mostly feels optimistic that her treatment is going to improve, and does not go into details of her initial treatment at Highbury, but does mention that she is still subject to intensive observation, and is now not allowed outside again, so she is unable to vape. Overall, she keeps her new video positive in the hopes that this will cause the staff to continue to treat her well. After over a week without HRT, she is in emotional and physical distress, and has once again had the promised timeline for HRT pushed back with no sign of the "consultant", yet again. Some highly excessive testing (the second round), clearly looking for how they can deny her rather than any kind of preliminary levels test, the promise of the return of her HRT yet again pushed back another day. Pandora plans to appeal her confinement if HRT is not provided soon.
Wednesday, 12 June
Video content warnings: Discussion of dysphoria, forced detransition, ongoing imprisonment
Pandora's sixth video is released. Now the NHS want to go back to section 3. 6 months or more in a very slightly less miserable prison. For mental health issues that the NHS is causing by withdrawing her medication. Staff are attempting to gaslight her, telling her about "all the wonderful treatment they can offer". Given the stalling of care with HRT, one can only assume they mean conversion therapy. At this point, Pandora had not yet filed an appeal. Still no sign of the "consultant", who is now supposedly due tomorrow, yet again. Pandora also notices that she is being followed by a guard, something that is not happening to any other prisoners - what that says about the hospital's attitude towards trans people seems fairly obvious, especially with the transphobic abuse some staff have subjected her to and the initial attempt to place a woman with men.
Video 7 is released later the same day day - Pandora's appeal has been filed. This is critical - she was again told that she could get HRT if she waited longer. There is a two week deadline to file an appeal The NHS tried to trick her into waiting until she can't appeal, and every time, the delay until the promise of HRT gets longer and longer. Still trying to convince her to accept it. Just endless false promises, and the same one repeated whenever the previous one is shown to be a lie. Pandora also plans to pursue legal action for her mistreatment at the hands of NHS staff.
Thursday, 13 June
Video content warnings: Discussion of dysphoria
Video 8: Pandora finally saw the "consultant", and of course, no HRT. Since arriving at Highbury Hospital, Pandora has still not been allowed outside at all, not even a prison-style courtyard. Pandora is speaking to a solicitor, and shows her interest in taking this to the highest levels she can to fight this institutional neglect and mistreatment. Pandora further discusses how staff have been going back and forth on her HRT, trying to string her along just enough but never taking any concrete steps towards providing it.
Additional video content warning: Discussion of torture/sleep deprivation, gaslighting
Later on, in video 9, Pandora discusses her sleep deprivation for the first time publicly, which she has previously only discussed with trusted friends. Guards have been waking her up every 10 minutes while she is trying to sleep. She has not had a night's sleep in three days. Sleep deprivation is torture. She is being singled out for this torture - this is only happening to her. This is retaliation. The NHS wanted to >!put a woman in a men's ward, knowing what would potentially happen!<, and the sleep deprivation is a clear case of retaliation for asking for her HRT, and something that she was not even subject to at Sherwood Oaks. NHS still pushing to keep her for 6 months of cold-blooded torture, and gaslight her into snapping so they have a way to justify it. I know I would have likely snapped before this point. They are calling her dysphoria "paranoid delusions". Dysphoria that they are causing. Pandora's strength in resisting this treatment and even waiting this long before going public with it is inspirational to me, and has been something I have focused on whenever I felt distressed over the many long nights of writing, rewatching videos, reading, collecting evidence, and the nightmares I personally have had from thinking about how she has been treated and the fact that this could happen to any trans person for no valid reason at all.
Friday, 14 June
Public pressure starts to force the NHS' hand. We did this. Every single person who upvoted, shared, wrote, sent care packages, called their MP, did anything at all but sit idly by, we have you to thank. HRT has been promised on the actual same day and not at some vague future date. Later, video 10 is released - Pandora has been given appropriate treatment for her dysphoria, after over 10 days of torture. Despite her state of almost complete exhaustion from sleep deprivation, Pandora is truly feeling hopeful for the first time since she was taken. Again, Pandora expresses her interest in staying to receive help for her other issues if she does receive her HRT and is treated with some dignity.
Saturday, 15 June
Video content warnings: Discussion of dysphoria
Pandora has had her first night's sleep since being moved to Highbury Hospital 4 days ago. No more lights coming on every 10 minutes. Video 11: NHS trying to control the narrative, trying to tell her that it was their own choice to give her her HRT. "We told you we were here to help you". Too ashamed to admit "we lost to reddit, fedi, twitter, tumblr, local activists, and countless others", I guess...
Pandora has been allowed outside for the first time, within a courtyard.
Video content warnings: Strong content warning for discussion of dysphoria and physical aspects of her transition
Later in the day, Pandora releases video 12 - she has agreed to stay voluntarily both in order to access gender-affirming care including proper monitoring of her levels, and for treatment for her actual mental health, now she is receiving appropriate affirming healthcare. Pandora also does into detail about how she has managed her transition, without any support from the NHS whatsoever due to the woefully inadequate GIC system and the complete lack of any treatment options for trans people. Self-medication is an act of desperation, of doing what the NHS has repeatedly, systemically, and callously failed to do for trans people, a story repeated country-wide by countless people who have been forced into self-medication through lack of other options.
Pandora reiterates her intention to pursue legal action over her mistreatment, and to seek justice for anyone else who has been detransitioned under the 'care' of the NHS. Pandora again asks for letters of support, and asks her supporters to stop making complaints about her treatment now it has improved - even after everything she has been through, she is willing to try to build a better relationship with staff and avoid any tension.
Monday, 17 June
Video 13 is released. Pandora has been given additional freedoms, and has now been allowed outside for short time periods. She again discusses her choice to remain voluntarily. Her strength is once again an inspiration to me, that she is able to put the mistreatment and torture behind her and ask for people to stop causing problems for the staff as long as she is treated well. Even after everything she has been through, Pandora is willing to give them another chance. Thanks once again everyone for your help. The difference in just everything here makes me so happy - she looks so much happier, she is being treated with dignity.
Tuesday, 18 June
Pandora announces she is to be discharged on tuesday of the next week. Her hormone levels are monitored, and the difference in her mental health is already obvious. She is to be receiving assistance from the local council for a new, safer place to live than her current unstable living situation, and a repeat prescription to remain on HRT.
There is still work to be done; this is not the last you have heard of her story, and every single person who acted to help her should be proud of themselves, and I know how committed she is to repaying that kindness by working to expose the abuse she has suffered and hopefully change things for the better for all trans people.
Wednesday, 19 June
Pandora releases video 14 discussing her pending release - the section 2 has been lifted so she is no longer held against her will, and has agreed to stay until Tuesday so her new flat can be got ready. She has been allowed outside into the town during the daytime, and shows some of the gifts and letters of support she has received. Pandora also discusses an upcoming article that will mention her experience, and that the Nottingham GIC (Gender Identity Clinic) is working to implement policy changes and education so her mistreatment is not repeated. She points out that all it would have taken for her to receive HRT was a brief phone call, which was simply not done, and instead she was left to suffer for over a week, and hopes that in future trans people will be treated with respect and dignity. Pandora also mentions a patient meeting where she discussed getting no sleep for three days, and is again given the excuse that they needed to see her - at the very least, this policy appears to be applied inconsistently and inhumanely and should also be revised. Pandora also still plans to pursue legal action for emotional damages for her mistreatment, and hopefully cause staff members who were abusive to her to face consequences.
Thursday, 20 June
Pandora says Happy Pride Month! She's getting to have one while she's in there, even a Pride event inside the hospital. The NHS definitely need more training on how to treat trans people, but at least it looks like there's change happening, already someone is coming in to speak to staff, and Pandora has developed a much better rapport with them.
At this point, Pandora is still looking at Tuesday for release, and looking forward to getting back to everything.
Friday, 21 June
Pandora releases a video 16 addressing threats by a troll to send items to get her in trouble. This comes from what appears to be the same account that posted messages about doing this on her Discord server and YouTube comments. Pandora points out that she is making the staff aware and that if they try they would be caught. Pandora again expresses her hope at the thought of getting out on Tuesday, and discusses her future transition plans.
Monday. 24 June
Pandora's cat, who was being looked after by a neighbour after Pandora was taken, escapes while being checked on.
Tuesday, 25 June
Tuesday was originally supposed to be the date Pandora was to be released from hospital. Since the first public appeal for help on Reddit, she had been treated well and given a greatly increased amount of freedom, and provided with her HRT. This stands in contrast to how she was treated when we first intervened to help, where she had had her HRT taken away and was being tortured and gaslit by staff.
On Tuesday, it was communicated from Pandora that she would not be able to leave that day, as her new flat was not ready and they wanted that to be and to make sure she had a repeat prescription for her HRT. Pandora was instead allowed home for the day but required to come back to the hospital.
Pandora has been worrying about her cat through this entire ordeal, and was heartbroken on her escaping, so on Tuesday, Pandora spent almost the entire day looking for her, ignoring friends telling her to not miss her deadline to get back. The last confirmed messages anyone received from her were at 6:36pm UK time on Tuesday, where she posted messages thanking people who have helped her so far on her Discord server.
After this, Pandora went silent. Her phone remained on, but all messages and calls went unanswered. This is entirely atypical - I have been in communication with her since her early calls for help and in that time she has never gone more than 8-10 hours without communicating with at least one of us, and I have been regularly checking in with her specifically if she goes quiet. We are now at 23 hours since her last known message.
Wednesday, 26 June
Pandora has not been heard from for 12, then 24 hours. Her phone is confirmed to be on, but no messages or phone calls are being answered. Her friends try to get in contact with the hospital to find out her status. The most they are able to gather is that she is still in Rowan 2 ward at Highbury Hospital, and that she is "ok", with no further clarification given. When pressed on her lack of communication, we were told that it is "her choice" not to respond. This is completely unprecedented.
We spoke to Highbury hospital on the phone who confirmed that she is there, and in their words, "is ok", with no expanding on what that means. When asked if she was free to communicate and if she had access to her phone, the answer was that it was "her choice" - again, no clarification offered. Pandora's emergency contact at the hospital also tried, and was told the same and that they could "pass a message on" to her, which does not sound like her being free to communicate. When asked directly if she had her phone and was allowed to communicate, staff refused to answer.
At this point I feel it is almost certain that she has had her phone taken from her, or something else has happened such as the staff drugging her. She may be being retaliated against in other ways; it is definitely possible staff will start mistreating her again now. Pandora did not try to escape, she had every intention of returning but was worried about her cat, but it seems that her communication is being restricted as retaliation.
36 hours since Pandora's disappearance, her phone is still on, likely indicating that someone has it for it to still have a charge, but at this point it can only be assumed that Pandora either does not have it, or has been extremely heavily drugged as retaliation for being late from looking for her cat.
Activism
At the moment, Pandora seems safe. Her release is likely on monday.