In a huge victory for common sense, a tribunal has ruled that NHS chiefs discriminated against eight nurses who complained about sharing female changing rooms with a transgender colleague.
By requiring them to get changed in front of Rose Henderson, a biological male who identifies as a woman, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust ‘violated their dignity’ and created a ‘hostile, humiliating and degrading’ environment.
Their punishment for objecting to Henderson’s presence was almost Kafkaesque. The nurses would be ‘educated’ by a trans woman (a man) to ‘broaden their mindsets’.
That they were forced to take legal action against the hospital trust to ensure the privacy they are entitled to under the Equality Act 2010 is shocking.
The nurses were not marching, placard-waving revolutionaries. They simply wanted a place where they could undress and change clothes without fear of a male invading it. This was hardly an unreasonable request.
Surely the solution would have been for bosses to provide separate changing facilities for those who are transgender. It beggars belief that this was considered impossible.
After yesterday’s excoriating judgment, the NHS trust’s credibility is in tatters and serious questions remain about its inept leadership.
Coming after nurse Sandie Peggie’s victory in an almost identical case in Scotland, the Darlington verdict must signal the end of extreme gender ideology in the workplace.
Bethany Hutchison (centre, in pink) is one of the claimants who took on a health trust claiming sexual discrimination and sexual harassment because nurse Rose Henderson – who was born male but identifies as a woman – was able to share the female changing room
The tribunal was shown this image of Rose Henderson after Ms Danson was asked if it was representative of how Henderson presented at the time of the incident
Join the debate
Do you think the tribunal ruling was fair?
A landmark Supreme Court ruling last April confirmed what we’ve always known to be true: ‘sex’ means biological sex. It cannot be altered by a piece of paper. It seemed then that sanity had been restored.
But recent tribunals have highlighted the extent to which trans ideology has taken root in the NHS. Corporate policies have been written by dogma-driven diversity extremists and anyone with the audacity to raise concerns, however politely, faces being taken to task – or, worse, sacked from their job.
The Labour Government says it accepts the Supreme Court verdict. So why is it dragging its feet over implementing it? This heightens the probability of yet more costly legal action at the expense of taxpayers.
It’s time ministers showed some spine and issued guidelines on single-sex spaces to protect women’s safety, privacy and dignity. It’s time they stopped running scared of the militant trans lobby.
Focus on the real foe
Emotions are still running high as the fallout continues from Robert Jenrick’s bombshell defection to Reform.
In a bitter exchange, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch branded her former front-bench colleague a ‘liar’ and claimed her party was stronger since he jumped ship.
Biting back, Mr Jenrick said the Conservatives were ‘arsonists’, who had helped cause many of Britain’s most serious problems, but were incapable of fixing them.
It’s understandable passions are running high, but it serves no one except the Left for the Tories and Reform to be so antagonistic towards one another.
It should be possible to have a civil debate about the way forward for Right-of-centre politics in the UK without descending into childish name-calling. If they become irreconcilable enemies, they’ll lose focus of the real foe: the Labour Government.
Britain simply can’t afford another five years of destructively high taxes, ballooning debt, mass immigration, job losses and wokery.
To avoid that nightmare, the Tories and Reform may have to reach some agreement so they don’t cancel each other out at the next election to the benefit of the Left. Common sense must prevail.
