Eight women who raised concerns about sharing a single-sex changing room with a man—a ‘transwoman,’ according to fashionable transgender ideology—were unlawfully harassed by their employer, an employment tribunal in Newcastle, England has ruled.
In a judgment handed down on Friday, January 16th, Judge Seamus Sweeney said County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust created
a hostile, intimidating, humiliating, and degrading environment
when it allowed a man who claims to be a woman to use the female changing room without providing a viable alternative for women who objected.
The tribunal stressed that the conduct of the trans colleague, ‘Rose’ Henderson, was not itself unlawful, but found the trust responsible for the resulting harassment.
Judges said the nurses’ concerns were dismissed—including being met with suggestions they needed “to be educated on trans rights”— which the panel ruled violated the nurses’ dignity.
One of the healthcare professionals, lead claimant Bethany Hutchison, said the ruling was
a victory for common sense and for every woman who simply wants to feel safe at work.
The case follows a series of contentious rulings after a UK Supreme Court decision clarified that, under the Equality Act, the protected category of “women” uses a biological definition.
While another tribunal last year found employers may still permit so-called transwomen to use female facilities, it warned such arrangements are “not automatically lawful” and may require alternatives when objections are raised.
As Lauren Smith commented here recently, despite legal clarity, “many institutions are still refusing to implement” the Supreme Court’s ruling:
A few legal wins cannot dismantle an ideology embedded across media, medicine, academia, and the civil service. If anything, the backlash shows how deep the capture runs and that it won’t be going anywhere without a fight.
