Prison officer who refused to use trans pronouns loses appeal against sacking

If it solved a problem where an officer had a religious or moral objection to using "wrong" pronouns, I cannot imagine a situation where it could be deemed disrespectful. The original solution, of just writing the prisoner's initials in the orisoner escort record, would appear to have been a reasonable one, and would have added a degree of clarity where this can sometimes be lacking.

Thank you for joining this thread and adding a perspective from within the prison service.

We are advised to use preferred pronouns as a matter of respect

In your opinion, would your prison management consider it "respectful" to use no pronouns at all when referring to a TW?

This is not prison service policy. It may not even be official GeoAmey policy. We are advised to use preferred pronouns as a matter of respect, but its not out of fear of prisoners becoming violent. We always try to avoid prisoners becoming violent, because we don't want to live and work in violent prisons!

I currently have transgender prisoners in my establishment. We use best efforts for preferred pronouns, but if someone forgets, it isn't a huge deal. My current efforts are focused on not requiring female staff to search TW prisoners who have had breast implants.

In the evidence, one of the other managers states it’s important to use pronouns to stop prisoners escalating and becoming violent.

This should have been pulled apart in cross examination as it's completely illogical.

It's entirely possible that if he was using sex-based pronouns, the prisoners could get violent and agitated - similar to the angry prisoner in hospital who became abusive to Jennifer Melle after overhearing her speaking to the doctor on the phone and saying "he". But if he's using no pronouns at all, how would the prisoners even know? I can't imagine any prisoners getting violent because someone is not saying something.

(Thank you @SternJoyousBeev2 for confirming that He said he would avoid using pronouns altogether and instead refer to the prisoner by name.)

Also this (see my italics below) should have been challenged:

His bosses argued this was not acceptable and a lot of the arguments came down to a specific form used to handover prisoners being transported from court to prison and the fact that the prisoner could request access to the form. They also argued that it would take too long to write the prisoners name or initials instead of using she/her.

It's complete bollocks that it takes longer to write someone's initials on a form than it does to write pronouns.

Sorry, sent too soon

so if the vegan was prepared to handle the meat, they would be perfectly employable and their beliefs would be immaterial

in this case, if the chap had been prepared to follow the policy, his GC views wouldn’t have mattered. There were other GC employees who passed probation despite their beliefs. It’s the fact that his GC views prevented him undertaking the work in the prescribed manner that lead to his dismissal, not his GC views in themselves

Bring on the EAT. Binding judgements are far more useful.

Im not sure that’s quite it, though?

If the policy was “safely transfer prisoners” then I think the RA he requested would be completely fine and they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

In this case it seems the policy is “safely transfer prisoners while making them feel respected and validated” and there is emphasis on use of preferred pronouns. In the evidence, one of the other managers states it’s important to use pronouns to stop prisoners escalating and becoming violent. So refusing to use pronouns as directed in the policy, means the RA he requested changes the role, and his belief means he cannot do the job.

And in the original analogy, I don’t think the cafe could decline to employ the vegan person, that would be unlawful. But they could insist that an essential part of the role was to serve/handle meat and that if the person was unable to do this, even with RAs (gloves or whatever), they could be dismissed on capability grounds

Yes, policies can't be unlawful.

However how is anyone supposed to know that a man is a man and put him in male prisons if the paperwork says "she"

It would be like someone who was a strict vegan on religious grounds applying to work in a cafe then refusing to handle or serve meat. You wouldn’t be able to do the role even though there was nothing wrong with being vegan.
i think most people with strong beliefs of any kind would prefer to choose a job where those beliefs didn’t have to be compromised, rather than expecting the job to bend around them, wouldn’t they?

I've been struggling to think of comparisons, so thank you for this one, AndSoFinally.

I agree that it would be acceptable for a café that serves meat to decline to employ someone with an ethical objection to meat. I don't think that's unfair discrimination, it's identifying a candidate's unsuitability to do the job, That seems fair enough.

I'm a vegetarian, and there's no way I'd go for a job where I had to deal with the dead bodies of slaughtered animals.

So I'm with you so far.

But this man's job was to carry out the safe and secure transfer of people from Point A to Point B, not 'Transfer transgender people from Point A to Point B'.

Was 'prioritising transgender prisoners' preferred pronouns over the beliefs of employees' prominent in the job description when this man applied for the job? If it was, that would be like a vegan applying for a job in a steakhouse.

But if it wasn't, and just appeared later as a footnote in training, that would be like a vegan applying for a job in a vegan restaurant only to be told during training 'oh by the way, we sometimes serve fish dishes - you're OK with that? No?Sorry, there's the door.'

I'm not 100% confident that analogy works, I'm sure posters will rightly pick it apart if it doesn't.

IANAL but I think they’ve been somewhat clever with this. They aren’t saying there’s anything wrong with his beliefs, they’re just saying this isn’t the right role for you if you hold them.

if he’d applied for an admin job in the same company that would be fine, because his beliefs wouldn’t be in conflict with his role.

It would be like someone who was a strict vegan on religious grounds applying to work in a cafe then refusing to handle or serve meat. You wouldn’t be able to do the role even though there was nothing wrong with being vegan.

i think most people with strong beliefs of any kind would prefer to choose a job where those beliefs didn’t have to be compromised, rather than expecting the job to bend around them, wouldn’t they?

If you can’t do the job as it stands then you would be subject to a capability assessment. Even if you weren’t able to do the job because of disability or some other protected characteristic. Subject to reasonable adjustment of course, but that RA wouldn’t change what the job involved, just the way you went about doing it. It does look like the RAs requested here fundamentally changed the role. If the policy says you must use pronouns (🤦🏻) and you offer a work around that seems ok to us but doesn’t involve using pronouns, you have fundamentally changed the role if the goal was pronouns themselves and not outcome.

I actually hoped he would win this, but I can see the point they are making

I think they helped him, sure I saw a fundraiser from them.

I hope he has contacted the Free Speech Union. It was set up for exactly this purpose.
https://freespeechunion.org

Most trade unions are subservient to gender ideology and have totally failed to give gender-realist members the support they need and pay their unions for.

I don’t think you can put on anything if it’s against other laws.

I expected him to win, I hope he appeals and then wins in the higher court.

No.

IANAL but I think this has been deliberately engineered by the court to send it to appeal, when binding decisions can be made. GeoAmey are a shitshow of a company anyway, I hope they end up getting their arses handed to them over this. They do some prisoner transfers for us and they are absolute clowns.

I don’t get the outcome either.

So person breaches their terms of employment and gets sacked after employers followed correct procedures and policies.

Employee chooses not to comply with employment terms and conditions.

I know this is a bit nitpicky, but Mr Toshack wasn't a prison officer. He was a custody escort, moving prisoners between prison and the courts. He wasn't working for either HMPPS or SPS.

I would definitely contribute to an appeal.

I will happily contribute towards funding an appeal.

A Scottish case so des not suprise me.