The horrors of the battlefield are as fresh for Colonel Dr Kelvin Wright today as they were at the height of the Afghan conflict.
As a reservist Army medic, he vividly recalls his daily Chinook helicopter flights across enemy-held Helmand territory, having volunteered to risk his life to save critically injured soldiers and civilians. Their injuries, as he recalls today, were often gruesome.
But for all his distinguished front-line service over a 14-year military career, the intensive care consultant has now been defeated by a different sort of enemy – the extreme ideology of the trans lobby.
The 54-year-old, whose calmness and expertise were so respected that he ran the emergency department at Camp Bastion hospital during his second tour of duty, has now been forced to quit the job he loves after being dragged through a Kafkaesque disciplinary process.
His ‘crime’? To share, without comment, a Facebook post that he considered simple common sense – but which promoted an angry backlash from one of his junior officers. The message featured a quote from women’s rights campaigner Helen Joyce which read: ‘If women cannot stand in a public place and say ‘Men cannot be women’, then we do not have women’s rights at all.’
The horrors of the battlefield are as fresh for Colonel Dr Kelvin Wright (pictured) today as they were at the height of the Afghan conflict
To Dr Wright, who works as an intensive care consultant in the NHS, it was an innocuous act, pointing out the importance of freedom of speech around an issue which has become highly contentious.
But what happened next is a cautionary tale which illustrates just how much the trans lobby appears to have captured institutions like the British Army.
Despite his years of selfless service, Dr Wright found himself dragged into disciplinary proceedings after a solitary complaint snowballed. It escalated into a seven-page letter – signed by several LGBTQ+ activists and sent to top brass – objecting to Dr Wright remaining in the Army because of his ‘anti-trans views’ .
Yet Dr Wright was never permitted to see the letter, nor be told of the extent of the allegations it contained. The accusations, and the secrecy which still shrouds them, is, he says, a ‘terrible slur on my honour’.
And, accusing the Army’s leadership of a ‘failure of moral courage’ in neglecting to back him, he says he had no option but to walk away.
‘I’m devastated by what’s happened,’ Dr Wright explains. ‘I joined the Army 14 years ago, at the height of the Afghan war, to help the young men and women who were putting their lives and limbs on the line for this country.
‘But this is no longer an organisation I wish to serve in. I’ve gone because my chain of command hasn’t got the moral courage to back me up in something like this.
‘The Army is absolutely riddled with political correctness and they are completely beholden to the trans lobby. I’ve nothing against the LGBT community, but there is a small and noisy cabal of activists that treat trans identity like a cult or religion – and woe betide anyone who offends or disagrees with them.
Dr Wright shared, without comment, a Facebook post (above) that he considered simple common sense – but which promoted an angry backlash from one of his junior officers
‘It’s no longer a chain of command I wish to be part of.’
Dr Wright was a stellar asset to the Army reservists when he joined aged 38 in 2009.
He had worked in the NHS since 1992, and was by then an intensive care consultant at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey. His decision to join the Army, he jokes, was his version of a mid-life crisis, ‘less expensive than a Porsche and more acceptable than a divorce’.
He added: ‘The Army took me back to the excitement of the emergency work, and I felt it was time to do my bit. It was some of the proudest medicine I’ve ever done.’
After completing his training at Sandhurst, he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011.
There he was placed in charge of a Medical Emergency Response Team on a Chinook helicopter, based at the UK’s Camp Bastion headquarters. Every day for three months he flew around Taliban-controlled Helmand province to attend to casualties.
‘It was harrowing,’ he recalls. ‘We were dealing with casualties who had horrendous injuries – sometimes with multiple limbs missing. I’m very proud of the work we did, resuscitating people in the field and keeping them alive until we could reach the hospital at Bastion.’
When he returned for another three-month stint the following year, it was to run the emergency department at Camp Bastion as lead consultant.
More recently, he led a team of 60 troops in 306 Hospital Support Regiment, providing vital medical battlefield training to Ukrainian soldiers to help save lives after the Russian invasion.
Dr Wright tells distressing stories of his time in Afghanistan.
Accusing the Army’s leadership of a ‘failure of moral courage’ in neglecting to back him, Dr Wright (pictured) says he had no option but to walk away
He recalls one occasion in Helmand when his Chinook, escorted by two Apache attack helicopters, landed in the middle of a battlefield to rescue a severely wounded British soldier. He said: ‘There were bullets coming in from both sides when we opened the back and had to get this poor guy on board. Fortunately we were able to get him in and saved his life.’
Another time, the Chinook landed next to an armoured vehicle that had been flipped over by an improvised explosive device (IED). One soldier had been killed and another seriously injured. It was only later they learned their landing site was heavily mined and the helicopter had actually landed on another IED which luckily didn’t explode.
While he was back on the NHS wards in May this year, his wife Nancy happened to share on Facebook a post from campaign group Fair Play for Women, quoting Ms Joyce, an activist who has been backed by Harry Potter author JK Rowling. Dr Wright glanced at it, agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment and shared it to his own network, without further comment.
‘My wife has a real interest in women’s sports, women’s rights, women’s protection, safe spaces, and so on,’ Dr Wright says. ‘So she shared this quote on Facebook about how men cannot be women. This seemed like common sense and an important issue, so as a loyal husband, I also shared it.’
But that simple act, on his personal Facebook page, prompted an inquiry. The first hint of what lay ahead came in a text message from one of Dr Wright’s junior officers, who is also one of the Army’s LGBTQ+ champions.
More recently, Dr Wright led a team of 60 troops in 306 Hospital Support Regiment, providing vital medical battlefield training to Ukrainian soldiers to help save lives after the Russian invasion
‘The text was giving me a lecture on transgender people, bullying and harassment, and saying that he was disconnecting himself from my Facebook posts,’ Dr Wright explained. But if the medic felt bewildered, worse was to follow.
‘The next thing I knew, I had a phone call from my superior saying, ‘You’ve upset a lot of people, you’re in a lot of trouble, we’re going to have to investigate you.’ Dr Wright now understands his bosses had received the seven-page letter from LGBTQ+ activists within the Army, at least one of whom had trained as a man but now identifies as a woman.
The only thing Dr Wright knows about its contents is that it objects to him remaining in the Army because of what he shared online.
He was told he faced a disciplinary process and he was asked for a statement. It is understood that one of the Army’s concerns was that Dr Wright’s Facebook profile picture features him in uniform, but his posts do not include a disclaimer that his views were not a reflection of the Army’s. This kind of minor transgression would usually be dealt with quickly, with a warning and advice on future conduct.
Dr Wright says: ‘I didn’t know what I was responding to. They never showed me the full complaint.’ Four weeks went by with no further contact from his superiors.
Increasingly, as Dr Wright saw it, the Army was in a Catch-22 situation. ‘The Army is afraid of the backlash if they do the obvious thing and find me not guilty. But neither can they declare me guilty and recommend a sanction because that would be ridiculous. They’re just doing nothing, unwilling to commit themselves. I’ve just had this thing hanging over me, this terrible slur on my honour.
It is understood that one of the Army’s concerns was that Dr Wright’s Facebook profile picture features him in uniform, but his posts do not include a disclaimer that his views were not a reflection of the Army’s. (file image)
‘It felt like I was being forced out, so I resigned.’
This was not a decision Dr Wright took lightly. He was only six years from retirement and he remains ‘very proud’ of his service. But it indicates not just his frustration at the ‘cabal’ of activism in the Army but how deeply the accusations – and his subsequent treatment by top brass – have wounded him.
‘It’s such a shame the Army has allowed itself to become tangled up in this crazy trans ideology,’ he said. ‘The one positive thing to come out of it is the outpouring of support I’ve received from soldiers I’ve never ever met, many of them women. On my last day, some of them came in from home to salute me and thank me for my service, which was very moving.’
Dr Wright – who now works at King’s Mill Hospital in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and lives in the sleepy village of Cuckney nearby – is now taking legal advice.
Just last week, women’s rights campaigner Maya Forstater was awarded more than £100,000 compensation after a tribunal found she faced discrimination and victimisation over her ‘gender critical’ views at the Centre for Global Development think-tank, where she worked as a researcher.
It is not, however, financial compensation that Dr Wright is seeking. ‘This is about honour, my good name and the slur that’s been put on it,’ he said. ‘If I don’t get some form of redress for how this process has been completely mishandled, this slur will remain on me forever.
Dr Wright has sought help from the Free Speech Union, which offered to support him. Pictured: Toby Young, the group’s general secretary
‘That’s why I want them to come to a verdict, so more poor schmucks won’t have to go through this in the future.’
Asked if he would consider re-joining the military if he is formally cleared of wrongdoing, he said: ‘No, that ship has sailed. I’m not one of these people who resigns or throws their toys out of the pram to get what they want. They had their chance over six weeks to treat me properly and sort this out.’
Dr Wright has sought help from the Free Speech Union, which offered to support him.
The group’s general secretary, Toby Young, said: ‘It beggars belief that the Army would treat any of its soldiers in this way.
‘If people risk their lives to serve our country they should be given medals, not placed under investigation for defending women’s rights. Our armed forces are turning into a woke joke.’
An Army spokesman said: ‘We are aware of a post shared by a service person to their own personal social media account which may have caused offence. We are not prepared to comment further as this is an ongoing internal matter.’
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