A group of eight female nurses has won a significant employment tribunal case against their NHS employer after a judge ruled they were subjected to harassment over the use of single-sex changing facilities by a transgender colleague.
Trust Created 'Hostile and Intimidating' Environment
In a ruling delivered on Friday, Employment Judge Seamus Sweeney found that the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust violated the nurses' dignity and fostered "a hostile, intimidating, humiliating and degrading environment" at Darlington Memorial Hospital. The case centred on the nurses' objections to sharing the women's changing room with their colleague, Rose Henderson, a trans woman.
The judge stated that the trust subjected the claimants to harassment related to sex and gender reassignment by permitting their "biological male, trans woman colleague" to use the female changing room and requiring the nurses to share it without offering suitable alternatives.
Concerns Dismissed and Inadequate Solutions Offered
The tribunal heard that the trust further harassed the nurses by failing to take their concerns seriously. Judge Sweeney highlighted that this included suggestions that the nurses needed "to be educated on trans rights and to broaden their mindsets." The subsequent provision of alternative changing facilities for those who objected was deemed inadequate and unsuitable.
During the hearing in Newcastle, the nurses gave evidence that included claims Ms Henderson had stared at them, with one alleging she was asked three times if she was going to get changed. In her defence, Ms Henderson said, "I am not the individual [the claimants] have painted me to be," and described the public fallout from the case as "upsetting."
Broader Rulings on Discrimination and Rights
The tribunal panel also upheld the nurses' complaint of indirect sex discrimination. It agreed that women were more likely than men to experience fear, distress, or humiliation if required to change in front of a member of the opposite biological sex.
Furthermore, the trust was found to have breached health and safety regulations and to have infringed the claimants' right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Following the judgment, Bethany Hutchison, the nurse who led the claim 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."
