NHS bosses \u00ab\u00a0penalised\u00a0\u00bb female nurses complaining about a transgender woman using their changing room, an employment tribunal has been told.<\/p>\n
Eight nurses are challenging a policy which allows the single-sex room at Darlington Memorial Hospital to be used by Rose Henderson, a biological male who identifies as a woman.<\/p>\n
In closing submissions, the nurses’ barrister said they had suffered indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation due to County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust’s Transitioning In The Workplace policy.<\/p>\n
The trust said the nurses had \u00ab\u00a0demonised\u00a0\u00bb Rose and the policy conformed with guidance and laws at the time.<\/p>\n
The tribunal in Newcastle has heard Rose, an operating department practitioner, had used the changing room since 2019 before complaints were first made by female nurses from the day surgery unit (DSU) in August 2023.<\/p>\n
The trust’s policy allowed a person to use the single-sex space that conformed with their gender identity, and anyone of that sex who objected could change elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Some 26 nurses signed a letter complaining of Rose’s use of and conduct within the changing room, with Rose telling the tribunal the allegations, which included staring at women getting undressed, were \u00ab\u00a0false\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
In his closing submission to the tribunal, the nurses’ barrister Niazi Fetto KC said the policy was \u00ab\u00a0unjustifiably treated as sacrosanct\u00a0\u00bb by managers and \u00ab\u00a0prescribed the disadvantageous treatment of biological females\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
He said the claimants’ complaints about the \u00ab\u00a0harmful effects\u00a0\u00bb were \u00ab\u00a0shunned and ignored\u00a0\u00bb before the nurses were \u00ab\u00a0penalised and buried\u00a0\u00bb in an \u00ab\u00a0oppressive and ineffectual investigation process\u00a0\u00bb carried out by the trust.<\/p>\n
Mr Fetto said the policy allowed people access to single-sex spaces \u00ab\u00a0based on self-declared gender identity alone\u00a0\u00bb and there was no consultation with staff about its implementation.<\/p>\n
The trust was prioritising the right of trans people over the women’s \u00ab\u00a0right not to have to change in front of a member of the opposite sex\u00a0\u00bb, Mr Fetto said.<\/p>\n
The trust converted a storage room adjoining a meeting area into a changing room for those women who did not want to share the female-only space with Rose, but that was \u00ab\u00a0wholly inadequate and unsafe\u00a0\u00bb, Mr Fetto said.<\/p>\n
He said there was \u00ab\u00a0no right in law\u00a0\u00bb for a person with the \u00ab\u00a0protected characteristic of gender reassignment to use a single-sex changing room corresponding with their adopted gender\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Mr Fetto also said the words \u00ab\u00a0men\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0women\u00a0\u00bb referred to in regulations were based on biological sex, as confirmed by the UK Supreme Court earlier this year.<\/p>\n
He said multiple women had complained of Rose’s conduct in the changing room and it \u00ab\u00a0defies belief\u00a0\u00bb that every claimant was \u00ab\u00a0mistaken, lying or making it up\u00a0\u00bb, adding there was a \u00ab\u00a0high level of corroboration\u00a0\u00bb from \u00ab\u00a0diverse sources\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
The trust’s response was \u00ab\u00a0determinedly not to grapple with the substance\u00a0\u00bb of the complaints while at the same time \u00ab\u00a0trivialising them and stigmatising those who raised them\u00a0\u00bb, Mr Fetto said.<\/p>\n
Simon Cheetham KC, for the trust, said the nurses’ \u00ab\u00a0central issue\u00a0\u00bb was Rose using the changing room which meant they had \u00ab\u00a0chosen to interpret\u00a0\u00bb anything Rose or the trust did \u00ab\u00a0in a negative way\u00a0\u00bb and through a \u00ab\u00a0negative prism\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Their single-minded pursuit of this issue has clouded their judgement,\u00a0\u00bb Mr Cheetham said, adding Rose’s \u00ab\u00a0very presence was seen as provocative\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
He also said the nurses’ decision to speak to the media was \u00ab\u00a0unattractive\u00a0\u00bb and they had made repeated allegations without \u00ab\u00a0cogent evidence\u00a0\u00bb and disclosures about Rose’s private life, which had led to Rose being publicly cast as a \u00ab\u00a0highly predatory character\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Mr Cheetham said the nurses’ treatment of Rose had been \u00ab\u00a0unkind and unjustified\u00a0\u00bb, with their allegations about conduct \u00ab\u00a0exaggerated\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
The nurses had unnecessarily \u00ab\u00a0demonised\u00a0\u00bb Rose and were fighting a \u00ab\u00a0public campaign\u00a0\u00bb about policy and the \u00ab\u00a0trust’s treatment of them as a group of women\u00a0\u00bb, Mr Cheetham said.<\/p>\n
He said staff were only given access to single-sex spaces if they had \u00ab\u00a0declared they were living their life fully in that gender\u00a0\u00bb, which was a \u00ab\u00a0higher threshold\u00a0\u00bb than the nurses claimed.<\/p>\n
Mr Cheetham said the policy also \u00ab\u00a0accorded with relevant legislation and guidance at the time\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
He said the trust had some 8,000 employees and had to balance the \u00ab\u00a0competing\u00a0\u00bb rights of those with the \u00ab\u00a0protected characteristics\u00a0\u00bb of biological sex and gender reassignment.<\/p>\n
Mr Cheetham said the \u00ab\u00a0reality\u00a0\u00bb the trust faced at the time was that there were various sets of guidance that were \u00ab\u00a0not consistent\u00a0\u00bb with each other.<\/p>\n
The tribunal judges will make their judgement on a future date but said it was unlikely to be reached before Christmas.<\/p>\n
Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NHS bosses \u00ab\u00a0penalised\u00a0\u00bb female nurses complaining about a transgender woman using their changing room, an employment tribunal has been told. Eight nurses are challenging a policy which allows the single-sex room at Darlington Memorial Hospital to be used by Rose Henderson, a biological male who identifies as a woman. In closing submissions, the nurses’ barrister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}