Did anyone see this from Kemi Badenoch ? It popped up on my Facebook. How refreshing.
It’s time the NHS stopped listening to Stonewall and started listening to the Supreme Court.
Sex means biological sex. That was never in doubt for most of us, but last year the Court confirmed it in law.
Yet we are still seeing cases of NHS employees dragged through employment tribunals for simply stating biological reality.
Jennifer Melle, a nurse in South London, was racially abused for referring to a male paedophile as a man.
She was struck off work for ten months. It took a petition led by the Conservatives to stop her being sacked from the job she loved.
A group of nurses in Darlington didn’t want to undress in front of a man each morning. They were told by their NHS Trust to ‘educate themselves’ and ‘broaden their mindsets’.
It took a £600,000 tribunal to decide those nurses had been subjected to harassment and discrimination.
In Scotland, A&E nurse Sandie Peggie was suspended from her job after she objected to sharing female changing facilities with a male colleague who identified as transgender.
She has now also been cleared.
This week I accused the now former Health Secretary Wes Streeting of neglecting his job because he was too busy campaigning to be Prime Minister.
But one of his biggest failures as Health Secretary has been not standing up for these women as they have been bullied by trade unions, NHS HR departments, and men who believe their feelings should override a woman’s dignity, privacy and rights at work.
If a Health Secretary cannot ensure the NHS complies with the law after the highest court in the country has ruled, then it doesn’t bode well for his future ambitions as a leader of the Labour Party.
But it doesn’t stop at Wes. The Royal College of Nursing did not step up to support its members when they asked for help, and the Nursing and Midwifery Council is still actively pursuing investigations against them.
How many more nurses must be silenced, threatened or left fearful for their livelihoods simply for stating biological reality or objecting to sharing intimate spaces with men?
It needs to stop now. The Conservatives will stop it. Keir Starmer hasn’t. Will the next Labour leader?