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A group of nurses who complained about a trans colleague using single-sex changing rooms at work suffered harassment, an employment tribunal judge has ruled.
The judge found the nurses’ dignity was violated and they encountered “a hostile, intimidating, humiliating and degrading environment” at work.
The eight female nurses work at Darlington Memorial hospital and brought a claim against their employer, County Durham and Darlington NHS foundation trust.
It stemmed from their objection to another nurse, Rose Henderson, a trans woman, being allowed to use the women’s changing facilities.
In a judgment handed down to the parties on Friday, Judge 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. “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.”
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 nurses claimed during the tribunal hearing in Newcastle that Henderson stared at them, and one of the nurses alleged that Henderson asked her three times if she was going to get changed.
Henderson, in her evidence, said: “I am not the individual [the claimants] have painted me to be.” She described how “upsetting” it had been to see “hordes of people” posting insults online after the case came to public attention.
After the judgment, the nurse Bethany Hutchison, who led the claim which was backed by the Christian Legal Centre, said: “This is a victory for common sense and for every woman who simply wants to feel safe at work.”
The tribunal also upheld the nurses’ complaint of indirect sex discrimination in that women were more likely than men to experience fear, distress or humiliation if they were required to change in front of a member of the opposite sex.
The panel ruled that the trust had breached health and safety regulations and “had infringed the claimants’ right to respect for private life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights”.
The trust said: “We are taking time to review the judgment carefully and will comment further once we have had the opportunity to consider it in full.”
