Miriam Cates criticises employment tribunal findings in NHS case.

[Imnobody4]

I hadn't heard the outcome of this case - the transwomen won.
Good to hear stong reacton from Miriam Cates.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/aa6e4686-378a-11ed-84dd-c16384999350?shareToken=a78810890876a8946ffd6413e27fbb00

Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, wrote to Kirsten Major, the chief executive of the hospitals trust, pointing out that she had a “narrow window” of time to appeal against the ruling. The trust chose not to appeal, however, and Cates told The Times that “the implications of this judgment, and the failure to challenge it, are deeply worrying”.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission said it was aware of concern about the tribunal judgment. “We are interested in clarifying the law where rights between different protected characteristics overlap,” the commission said.

I hadn't heard the outcome of this case - the transwomen won.

There were two long threads when the judgment was first released, one in FWR, one in AIBU.

Thanks for the article OP, didn't spot it on Monday, cowardly Times turned the comments off

Miriam Cates is excellent.

I poked my head above the parapet at work today to show some of my colleagues the pictures of the Canadian teacher with the comedy breasts. It generated some further discussion from proud rainbow lanyard wearers. It seems there is a trans man working in a different department who uses the men's changing rooms as the person feels that because they are a lesbian their presence may offend other women. However they also use the women's toilet as they feel they might make the other men uncomfortable.
The men who use the changing room this person uses are unhappy about "her" presence. (I am quoting the pronoun from a male colleague).

I showed the teacher shot to a colleague recently too. She almost fell off her seat laughing and we pondered shoving a draught excluder down our trousers to see what happens.

“We are interested in clarifying the law where rights between different protected characteristics overlap,” the commission said.

SO FUCKING DO IT PLEASE

Well indeed, as it's their job and ultimately their fault (under the previous head) for allowing this bollocks to spread throughout our public institutions, academia, schools and hospitals. Apparently they were working on their updated statutory guidelines - the sooner the better!

Amen to that!

but these claims were dismissed by the panel, which said she had a tendency to misremember detail.

They basically admitted the claimant lies but they still won?!

I showed the fake boobs teacher to my kids and they were howling with laughter at the sight of them. They know a clown when they see one.

Perhaps we all need to start writing to the new Minister in charge of Health, to ask her to get a grip on the anti-woman madness that has taken over the NHS?

To get rid of all the D&I hires who are pushing this agenda. Get rid of the anti-woman Inclusion lanyard schemes.

The change has to come from above, the NHS are too captured to change from within.

They basically admitted the claimant lies but they still won?!

The trust mounted a very poor defence. They accepted, for example, that the claimant had heard some female members of staff making transphobic remarks, even though no one else had heard those remarks.

I think if they had mounted a more effective defence, it would have entailed admitting that they had erred in allowing a male-bodied person to use the women's changing rooms, and perhaps that would have opened them up to legal action from the women themselves.

I agree with Royal. The whole thing was a car crash from start to end.

If it's the case I'm thinking of then the whole case was based on using the wrong comparator.

There's an excellent blog on the Legal Feminist.

Agree we need really really clear clarification (from government for the courts?) that woman is not the correct comparator for a trans identified male.

www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2022/08/07/false-equivalence-a-guest-blog-by-barrister-anya-palmer/

Can someone say what case is about - the gist in a few words please?

Can someone say what case is about - the gist in a few words please?

There was a lot to it - the TW was a complete nightmare employee and had about 50 different ludicrous discrimination claims they put to the Tribunal. They lost on all but one.

The point the Trust lost on was to do with the "transwoman" pulling female employees aside and into empty rooms to tell them about their underwear and all the problems they were having with their underwear and how they'd had to take their underwear off because their underwear was so wet.

This resulted in a question being asked at the TW's disciplinary meeting along the lines of "do you usually wear underwear to work?" It seemed like pretty much their supervisor was trying to find a way to ask "what the fuck is with all the underwear talk?"

The judge found against the Trust for that, because the judge thought an actual woman wouldn't have been asked about her underwear. The point people are making about "comparators" is that it's in dispute whether you should compare a TW to a man or a woman in deciding whether anti-trans discrimination has occurred. I agree with the people who say that the comparator should be a man.

But ironically, it seemed like tiptoeing delicately around the actual issue - sexual harassment of female employees by the TW - caused the finding against the Trust. I don't think either a regular man or a woman would have been asked that fatal question, they'd have been disciplined for sexual harassment.

Thanks for the explanation, TastefulRainbowUnicorn, about sexual harassment. Employment tribunal decisions are based applying the law to the particular facts of the case before them and do not set binding legal precedents for other employment tribunals to follow as to interpretation of the law, although that won't stop various people and organisations citing the decision or reading things into it.

It would have needed an appeal on a point of law to the Employment Appeal Tribunal to challenge and / or overturn an interpretation of the law by the employment tribunal. At least the EHRC is aware of the decision and is producing some guidance.