Trans woman wins sex harassment payout after being “harassed for being female”.

Good to see bullying being called out, but I suspect a bit of male privilege here. So many women suffer that kind of harassment but never get to court, let alone receive compensation. Women's complaints are so often dismissed or belittled that most give up before they get that far.

I agree with @thirdfiddle and the others here, and thanks to @eatfigs for pasting in the relevant paragraphs of the SC judgment. It's nice to see that one way or another people are legally protected against being bullied for behaviour or appearence that doesn't conform to the usual stereotypes about their sex.

And that "trans" people are well protected by the Equality Act 2010 both before and after the SC judgment.

I think Cole has got the bit about being "listed as a female victim" wrong, that's not how the Equality Act works, but then again Cole isn't a lawyer (and neither am I).

But it doesn’t say which sex.

Reading the Supreme Court judgement would have been advisable in case it was relevant.

It isn’t clear the harassment and discrimination related to sex was because they thought Sophie was a woman. It could have been because they knew Sophie was a man. In fact the odds of several colleagues grabbing at a woman in sight of others are extremely low. Sexual harassment of women at work is generally subtler. I would imagine the men thought what they were doing wasn’t sexual abuse, but ‘just’ bullying. (Teasing, banter).

Yes, I did. And it was as clear as mud.

I’m curious about this: Cole said one colleague would “mimic” her voice in a falsetto tone. It suggests to me that he was being bullied for putting on a ‘feminine’ voice. In which case he would be being harassed for being trans, not for being perceived as female.

I wonder how many of his colleagues actually perceived him as female? I wonder whether they were asked directly? I wonder whether, if asked, did they think that saying they perceived him as female would cause them less backlash than being honest about recognising him as male.

It’s wrong to bully anyone for being different. But I find it extremely difficult to believe that Cole was bullied because people thought he was female. Far more likely that he was bullied for his transness.

Also underlines a GRC is not needed to take such a case (as was suggested in Goodwin I believe). Its well established that perception of a PC is as valid as actually possessing, and was rightly emphasised in the SC ruling.

Would be interesting how a similar case applies to a transman who tbf are more likely to pass to complete strangers at work. I've seen actual men belittled in a similar way in the workplace, usually not fitting in some way. It couldn't even unconsciously be based on biological female sex?

Sounds like the lawyers brought both bases tayto - there are also some points won on gender reassignment. Makes sense to argue it both ways then they can neither defend with "but we didn't know he was trans" OR "but we didn't think he was a woman"

It sounds awful what happened to him. No one should face that in the workplace. I suspect he was actually abused for being trans rather than being perceived to be female, but either way, it should not have happened. If Royal Mail had wanted to vigorously defend this tho, all they would have to do is demonstrate that the perpetrators knew that he was male and the case would have fallen apart. Dangerous legal tactics

This is a good outcome for all.

From my perspective I’m delighted that ‘but I didn’t know she was female so it can’t be sexist’ doesn’t stand up.

Of course transwomen who pass are just as likely as a female to be the victim of sexist abuse that targets females. Transwomen who don’t pass wont be, but are likely to encounter abuse for being trans - because within our misogynistic culture, a man who ‘lowers himself’ to try and be classified as female is deemed worthy of ridicule and contempt. Transmen are also deemed worthy of contempt as they have ideas above their station, but are deemed less ridiculous as it’s only natural to aspire to be a man.

Agree with all the above but I guess this is maybe where employers may feel they need good legal guidance. A man can win a tribunal for being harassed as a woman but that doesn’t mean the employer has to treat him as a woman in all circumstances (eg if it overrides women’s rights). I have to say, I can see why there is confusion about this – and how that confusion has been exploited.

Needless to say, nobody should be treated like that at work. This worker should be and is protected.

Nice to have a little demo of the Supreme Court (as advised by Ben Cooper) being exactly right about there being no impact on TW's protection against discrimination. Related to sex here could be either perceived as or associated with the female sex couldn't it? Main thing discrimination has been correctly dealt with and the Supreme Court ruling as expected provided no barrier to that.

Happy that he got his judgement, but you have to wonder how much he suffered if he's so thrilled to have been harassed "as a female" (as he sees it, not saying his description is legally accurate). If that's the part that is important to him, the cynical me wonders if he found it validating to some extent.

We don't have a lot of information, and the claimant's account is likely to be unreliable. But the fact that the Judge had to seek clarification on the SC ruling suggests the plea was based on (female) sex.

From the report:

Cole said the judge ruled that “if an individual ‘deemed’ me to be a woman when they harassed me, I could be listed as a ‘female victim’”.

The 'deemed' language suggests perceptive discrimination. The last eight words are nonsense though.

His sex is male though and as far as I can see the judgement doesn’t contradict that?

So unless I’m missing something he won on sex discrimination in the same way as any other man would have done? ‘Touching’ was mentioned as part of the harassment which would presumably apply to men as well?

I’m glad he won his case of harassment, spitting on someone is absolutely vile. However as I’ve seen it reported there’s nothing ground breaking in the judgment, SC also confirmed transwomen could still claim sex discrimination based on perceived sex.

He succeeded on sex discrimination/harassment grounds - see attached image (link to full judgment posted upthread).

From the examples given in the article it appears that he was bullied on grounds of his sex being male while he presents as a female so maybe that counts as grounds for harassment on grounds of gender reassignment.

Despite his clear desperation for it to be true I don’t believe any of it was anything to do with him being ‘female’ or even perceived as female. The behaviour sounds like it would have been unacceptable for any other male to undergo and the only references in the article to the judgement being because he was perceived as female was from him - there are tellingly very few verified details of the judgement.

I'm glad to see that the employment tribunal system is providing redress to the victims of workplace bullying, as it should. As prior posters have commented, a person may be the victim of discrimination on the basis of a perceived protected characteristic and the law rightly protects them.

I hope that Sophie Cole enjoys his payout.

Yes, you don't need to be the target group to qualify. I posted on another forum, about 7 years ago, about homophobic abuse I got. (I'm not gay). I simply had the temerity ro be carrying my daughter's multicoloured umbrella to a school pick up, a car with two youngish couples pulled up and they shouted at me.

I shrugged it off, bemused. A couple of legal posters advised me that it was a homophobic hate crime and to report it. They explained why it was so, even though I'm not what they thought I was.

I bet if he had been a transman, she would have got bullied both for being transgender and as a member of her true sex. Because of who was doing the bullying.

I think this is a misinterpretation - or ideologically based spin by mx Cole - because they didn’t win a case ‘in their perceived gender’. Their gender was irrelevant. They won the case because they were harassed and bullied on the grounds that some tosser perceived them as female and the Royal Mail did nothing to address it. Not because they perceived them as being transgender.

It was a kindness of the Judge not to mention perceptive discrimination, nor indeed does it matter. Claimant was harassed and discriminated against both for being transgender (colleagues aware) and for being a transgender woman. It doesn't make him legally biologically female.