Nurses who changed with trans colleague suffered harassment, tribunal rules

A group of nurses who complained about a trans colleague using single-sex changing rooms suffered harassment which violated their dignity and created “a hostile, intimidating, humiliating and degrading environment for them”, an employment tribunal has ruled.

Eight members of the Day Surgery Unit at Darlington Memorial Hospital brought a claim against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust after Rose Henderson, who was born male but identifies as a woman, was allowed to use the women’s changing facilities.

In a judgment handed down to the parties on Friday, Employment Judge Seamus Sweeney said: “The trust subjected the claimants to harassment related to sex and gender reassignment by permitting the claimants’ biological male, trans woman colleague to use the female changing room and requiring the claimants to share that changing room without providing suitable alternative facilities.”

The ruling said the trust also subjected the nurses to harassment by not taking their concerns seriously and: “This included referring to the need for the claimants to be educated on trans rights and to broaden their mindsets, the later provision of inadequate and unsuitable changing facilities for those who objected to sharing the female changing room with that colleague.”

Judge Sweeney said: “The above conduct had the effect of violating the dignity of the claimants and creating a hostile, intimidating, humiliating and degrading environment for them.”

The tribunal hearings in Newcastle last year heard evidence from the nurses, the trust and Rose before the panel adjourned the proceedings in November to consider its findings.

Darlington nurse Bethany Hutchison led the claim against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust over its policy of allowing a transgender colleague to use female changing rooms.

After the tribunal judgment in Newcastle, she said: “This is a victory for common sense and for every woman who simply wants to feel safe at work.”

Ms Hutchison said: “Women deserve access to single-sex spaces without fear or intimidation.

“Forcing us to undress in front of a man was not only degrading but dangerous.

“Today’s ruling sends a clear message: the NHS cannot ignore women’s rights in the name of ideology.

“We stood up because we knew this was wrong. No woman should be forced to choose between her job and her safety.

“This ruling is a turning point, and we will keep fighting until every woman in the NHS is guaranteed the dignity and protection she deserves.”

The Darlington nurses’ claim was supported by the Christian Legal Centre, whose chief executive Andrea Williams said: “This judgment exposes the extent to which the NHS hierarchy has been captured by extreme gender ideology and its willingness to sacrifice women’s safety and dignity in order to uphold it.

“Allowing a man into a female-only space because he claims to be a woman violates human dignity, common sense, the law of the land and biblical truth.

“The NHS and the Government should now give up their sabotage of clear judicial decisions and abide by the law which acknowledges that men are men and women are women.”

The nurses claimed that Rose stared at colleagues in the female changing rooms, repeatedly asked one of them why she was not getting changed and walked round the room in boxer shorts.

In response, Rose told the panel, “I am not the individual (the claimants) have painted me to be”, and described how “upsetting” it had been to see “hordes of people” posting insults online after the case came to public attention.

The nurses brought a claim for harassment, victimisation and indirect sex discrimination.

In its judgment, the tribunal found that Rose had not harassed or victimised the claimants.

The tribunal concluded that, “by permitting a biological male, trans woman to use the female changing room” the trust was in breach of workplace regulations “and had infringed the claimants’ right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights”.

The judgment said the trust’s policy in relation to the changing rooms “put women at a particular disadvantage when compared to men, in that women are more likely than men to experience feelings or apprehensions of, fear, distress and/or humiliation by, in effect, being required to change their clothes in front of a member of the opposite sex”.

“The claimants were all put to that disadvantage,” it said.