Transwoman awarded £9k for sex discrimination

[jadefinch]

A transwoman has been awarded £9k after claiming they failed to get a job at Debenhams because they're trans (and used sex discrimination legislation!).

The only evidence they had of discrimination was an 'anonymous email'.

Their story doesn't make much sense - who asks to see a birth certificate at an interview? Other comments they've given to the media about people in a canteen gawping seem to contradict their claim that there was no transphobia during the interview, and Debenhams paid on the basis that they accept 'no liability'.

There's also claims on Facebook that this person was recently caught on CCTV stealing.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7894413/Transgender-woman-Ava-Moore-Newry-Northern-Ireland-gets-9-000-settlement-Debenhams.html

The narrator seems very unreliable. There's a claim the "atmosphere changed" when the birth certificate was produced, with the implication that no one clocked them before that. I've just seen a photo and that seems highly unlikely.

Yes I understand what you wrote. And this would have been a valid reason to not employ them and also to not even interview them. Any decent company will have a zero tolerance policy to verbal abuse of their staff.

But that would have been in breach of the policies advised by the Equality Commission. Which is that the recruitment can only be based on the application and interview, nothing else.

Earlier you were saying that the proper procedure should be followed, and now you're saying it should be disregarded.

I’m not familiar with the guidance. But it could be that you are interpreting it wrongly. I’m fairly sure that any guidance would not mean that people coming for interviews can “verbal assault” staff and then get a job because they perform well at interview.

Using sex discrimination rather than never reassignment is interesting to say the least

They argued they were sidelined because they are a woman presumably.

Which makes a bit of a nonsense of the whole thing as women are sidelined due to sexism which mostly links back to our biology and assumptions about us around that

Well if you think it's being interpreted incorrectly, despite not being familiar with it, you should let all the big employers, and particularly the public sector employers, in N Ireland know about it. Because that's the way they, and their employment solicitors, interpret it.

They argued they were sidelined because they are a woman presumably

That can only be argued by GRC holders. The legal sex of non GRC holders is the sex they were born. Since the birth certificate apparently "revealed the gender history" it presumably says male and the person does not have a GRC.

If that's the case, sex discrimination in this case would therefore rest on the claimant being of the male sex - so if Datun's speculation is correct, the case would be that it's discriminating against men to not employ them in the lingerie section.

Because nobody can use clear language, reporting on this stuff is always poor and opaque. The case may not have rested on sex discrimination at all and may have actually been on gender reassignment, which non GRC holders would use. It wouldn't surprise me if the papers have the protected characteristic wrong - and, like I say, all the published articles seem to be churned off the first one.

I thought it seemed low too - even for a minimum wage job. I presume by settling for that amount it means they weren’t confident of winning.

You could, of course, make this assumption about either side. But as someone who actually represents employers at tribunal, I know they often make offers just to avoid the cost and hassle which can go on for years.

Luckily for my clients, I'm pretty cheap, so we rarely settle, the last settlement I did was for £2k, on a £26k claim. If they'd not settled we'd have gone to the hearing.

The settlement probably did have a non disclosure clause by the way, and this person may well have breached it, but Debs are unlikely to sue them as it just exacerbates the situation.
It is possible they left it out though, it's not in the ACAS standard agreement so you do have to ask them to add it.

If that's the case, sex discrimination in this case would therefore rest on the claimant being of the male sex - so if Datun's speculation is correct, the case would be that it's discriminating against men to not employ them in the lingerie section.

Which would be unlawful discrimination.

Which would be unlawful discrimination.

Unless, of course, it included fitting services or changing room duties. Per:

Examples of how the occupational requirement exception may be used include some jobs which require someone of a particular sex for reasons of privacy and decency or where personal services are being provided. For example, a unisex gym could rely on an occupational requirement to employ a changing room attendant of the same sex as the users of that room. Similarly, a women’s refuge which lawfully provides services to women only can apply a requirement for all members of its staff to be women.

www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/employercode.pdf

But of course, the case was settled so we don't know any details and all this is mere speculation.

But, but......all changing rooms are for all imaginary genders now!

But, but......all changing rooms are for all imaginary genders now!

LOL! Well, quite! Sadly, since it's been settled out of court, we'll never know what actually transpired.

The narrator seems very unreliable. There's a claim the "atmosphere changed" when the birth certificate was produced, with the implication that no one clocked them before that.

I noticed that too - if the complainant is telling the full story I can only think that their birth certificate says "female" which mean they are legally female, hence the sex discrimination rather than gender reassignment discrimination?

I’m not familiar with the guidance. But it could be that you are interpreting it wrongly. I’m fairly sure that any guidance would not mean that people coming for interviews can “verbal assault” staff and then get a job because they perform well at interview.

That is the second time you have changed what the person wrote, this time with quotation marks around what they did not say to create verisimilitude.
It didn't work.

Sorry that was an accident. I apologise for writing assault when the word was abuse. What was the other instance of me changing what was said please?

But actually my argument stands whether the word is assault or abuse. But I should have been more careful to quote accurately.

I mean it’s not like verbal abuse is something to be taken lightly is it?

www.cps.gov.uk/verbal-abuse-and-harassment-public

I used to meet and greet interview candidates in one place I worked and run their practical tests prior to interview. My boss felt I was just as much part of the interview panel as the people actually asking questions of the candidate and he always asked my impression of them and how they'd behaved with me. I had a score sheet to feed into the others.

And also, score sheets are manipulated to get the candidate the panel wants. The preferred candidate will always come out on top. An arrogant tosser who has exemplary qualifications and experience will be marked down on something like attitude or articulacy. It's fine not to recruit someone who you can just tell won't be a good fit with the existing team. That's a quick way to lose good existing staff.

I don't doubt all that, and I think that's a very sound idea. But the point is that here, you can't give the receptionist a score sheet, you can only give it to the people on the interview panel. So if the person turns on the charm in the interview and comes across as friendly and affable then those are the opinions that carry weight. It's because of the historic situation here with discrimination in employment, it was all brought in to prevent exactly the scenario you're talking about. So that the receptionist can't say to the interview panel 'I know that guy from school, his dad is a member of Sinn Fein/DUP (delete as appropriate) on the local council' and then the interview panel think 'I don't want someone like that working here'. That's why everything is so rigid, so that the employer can at any time produce the notes of what the person said in the interview and say 'here's why they were the winning candidate'.

You've misunderstood. I was part of the interview panel, just not part of the questioning of the candidate. I wasn't the receptionist.

I understand your concerns about the ability of a receptionist to judge someone they already know and pass on a biased opinion, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about my job being part of the panel and my professional opinion of each candidate, not my personal knowledge of said candidate. Just like everyone else who is part of the interview process.

Yes, sorry, I did misunderstand. When you said that your boss thought you were just as much part of the process as those who asked the questions, I had thought you meant that you weren't actually on the interview panel. It's perfectly normal here too, to have one or more members of the panel who are note takers and score givers, without actually asking questions. I've never had an interview where there wasn't someone like that on the panel. But all I was trying to say was that it's still not possible to give them points based on how they interacted with other staff etc, that all has to be left at the door.

I had an interview a couple of years ago (with a large, UK wide charity) where it got to the end and I was asked if I had any questions, and I took some (bad, as it turns out!) advice that I had read online about using the opportunity to sell myself more. I started to say that I just wanted to add a bit more information that they hadn't asked about in the interview, to show that I had researched etc. The chair of the panel stopped me immediately and said that I couldn't do that, as no other candidate they had interviewed had been asked for further information, they could only base their decision on the questions asked, and that it was not acceptable to try to circumvent the interview process. The interview had gone really really well up until that point, but needless to say I didn't get offered the job.

Interviews are so hard aren't they? I didn't go into the room with the candidates when they were being questioned by the boss, the project manager and HR, I collected them from reception, ran their practical tests and briefly showed them round the facility, but my input on their interaction with me and other staff was valued just as much as the three people they sat in front of. Different input, valued the same. It was a really good employer. Once, however, one candidate was just so arrogant and I didn't take to him at all. He wasn't rude but I just felt He didn't think I was important at all. The female project manager also didn't particularly take to him, but the male boss liked him. The candidate only lasted four months as he was a sexist pig who treated less senior members of staff with total disrespect, especially the older female ones. The boss listened much better to me and the PM after that!

Ask to see the receipt. I bet I could claim in trans and get 9k too