NHS Fife tries to silence nurse

[Hoardasurass]

So as has been mentioned on threads about the Darlington nurses a nurse is sueing NHS Fife over its trans staff policy.
The poor nurse was forced to get changed infront of a man in the female changing facilities, when she complained about it she was 1st told to change in a cupboard if she didn't like it, then they tried to bully her into swapping shifts so she didn't work with the man in question (she wouldn't), then they wanted her to move hospital (again she refused) so then they suspended her without pay for months until her solicitor got involved and now they are trying to gag her by insisting that the court case (starts in February) must be held in secret (I wonder why) and will be in crt next month asking to restrict reporting on the case.

This case is really important in Scotland because the trans staff policy that's going on trial in this case is the Scottish government's own policy used in all public sector organisations in Scotland and works on self id. So when this case is won it will finally kill the Scottish government's self id policy in all public bodies

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/nhs-fife-fights-secret-hearings-33877891?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

Whether Dr Upton's trans status is obvious or not, the Trust was wrong to allow Dr Upton to use the female changing room. All parties in the FWS case in the SC agreed that a male person without a GRC is a man for EA purposes. So unless Dr Upton has a GRC it's a pretty cut and dried case of discrimination... And even if Dr Upton is legally female, it's still an infringement of Nurse Peggie's human rights.

Shame about the pronouns but the judge made the right decision, for the right reasons.

What consent are patients giving if they do not know* they are being examined by a man?
(*Of course they do)

Peggie argued that it was clear that Upton was a man from her appearance. Tinnion rejected this and said: “The tribunal does not find that looking at Dr Upton it is obvious that Dr Upton is a man.”

Doesn't this imply that Tinion believes that Upton is a man?

Generally speaking patients don't specify they want to be examined by a woman. I expect that if Dr Upton stands there and says "I'm Dr Upton, is it ok if I examine you?", and the patient doesn't object, that would be considered consent. Honestly I am not convinced it shouldn't - I can imagine some might disagree, though. Of course if the patient specifies a woman they shouldn't get Dr Upton, and if they object to Dr Upton they should get someone else.

I don't think you'd have to specify a woman, to believe that you are being examined by a woman.

If everyone refers to this doctor as she, and if what the judge says is true, and you can't tell, then I would've thought you haven't consented to being examined by a man.

If you genuinely thought it was a woman and you found out later it was a man, I would imagine that's highly traumatising

Edited to add, which is why I think the world and his wife knows this is a man. Misleading your patients into thinking they're being examined by a woman would be unacceptable.

If I understand the logistics right, this was a changing room for a large number of nurses, a communal changing room of some kind. So it must be relatively large. In the mentioned incident, only the TW is there as well as the complainant nurse. Why, in a large room, couldn't the TW have gone to the other end of it? With his back to the nurse? For her to have been annoyed enough to complain, it sounds like he was purposely right next to her. If he was being in-your-face about it, I can see that she was upset. (None of which is to say he had any right to be there to begin with. Just that it seems if they were the only two there, there was no need for him to be next to her.)

once again we have the concept of "passing" being used to determine if something is OK or not. I don't think this is remotely fair. Not least to those males who have cross-sex gender identities and don't "pass".
The law cannot be based upon personal appearance or individual perception, it has to apply universally.

I suspect that this will be questioned quite a lot in the public sphere over the next months.

Between this case and the Darlington nurses, it will really spring open the use of changing rooms, and consent for male health care professionals examining female people, for the UK. And I suspect it will have ramifications that will ripple around the world.

I think the dynamic of this being a Dr versus a nurse will be very interesting. It must have taken huge guts for her to take a stance on this. In the NHS the pecking order is very clear. Drs trump nurses on pretty much everything.

I have asked myself what would I do if faced with a trans identified health professional. I think if I was just supposed to pretend that a male was a woman I would find that really difficult. If we could have a convo, and acknowledge the reality of the situation, then I think I would be fine, but if the reality wasn't acknowledged I would feel I was being lied to, which is not the basis for a healthy interaction.

What is clear about this case is that there really is a belief that male people who claim to be female people are only about prioritising not disclosing their male sex and don’t respect the needs of female people.

If this male person did respect the needs of female people, then they would have sought a private space for themselves. Instead they insisted they were treated as female for the purposes of changing room. It says all that is needed to be said.

That’s a bit like saying why couldnt Isla Bryson just keep away from the other prisoners in the female prison!
Dr Upton is male and has no right to be in the changing room designated for females, no matter how far away he stands.

"If you genuinely thought it was a woman and you found out later it was a man, I would imagine that's highly traumatising"

I think this brings us back to consent issues and consent by deception.

Why would someone who claims to empathise with women force themselves into a situation which is clearly distressing for the woman/women involved?

The only reason I cam come up with is that they don't actually empathise or identify with women at all....it is all about them and their own utterly self focused and narcisistic needs. Actual women become competitors to be disregarded and pushed aside. They are not seen as whole human beings but as privileged meat suit wearers ( to coin a Mary Harrington phrase).

(A meat suit is the term she has coined for the end result of the dissociation between the mind and body. The body is just an item one can put on or take off and which can be altered at will)

When the judge says it isn't clear to him that the Dr is a man, he isn't saying that he isn't clear he is a natal male. This may boil down to his working definition of the terms male/female and man/woman.

I find it interesting that this has gone to court due to her wanting privacy to change away from men and then the NHS decides that they want privacy from public scrutiny. Privacy when it suits men but not women.

The only reason I cam come up with is that they don't actually empathise or identify with women at all....it is all about them and their own utterly self focused and narcisistic needs. Actual women become competitors to be disregarded and pushed aside

Women are not competitors and are not disregarded. They are tools for validation, to be used. He didn’t want a private space as he wanted the women in the space.

I have asked myself what would I do if faced with a trans identified health professional. I think if I was just supposed to pretend that a male was a woman I would find that really difficult. If we could have a convo, and acknowledge the reality of the situation, then I think I would be fine,

The reality is you are being used as part of their fetish/fantasy.

The right decision.

I like the understated way the judge says that it is likely many of Dr Upton's colleagues know he is a man. Well yes, the women have probably all been forced to look at his knob in the changing rooms (I'm assuming more women have been affected but are too intimidated to complain for very good reason).

And yes, is gardening needed here?

Unless I’m mistaken, Sex Matters have posted on X about this, I think it will be public Let me find it.

I see what you’re saying, but I don’t think it necessarily implies that. If the nurse incorrectly stated she thought a female doctor was obviously a man, the tribunal could make the same comment. If “the tribunal” ( or presumably effectively, the judge) used the same or similar wording to the original claim, they are merely denying that claim and not commenting on its actual truth.

That said, these kind of judgments would be better left out of the discussion. The opinion of the nurse must presumably have come from some kind of challenge someone made. It sounds defensive. The judge should have risen above it and stated it is irrelevant to the case.

If it comes down to a matter of opinion over whether someone’s sex is easily discerned by looking at them, then we have a problem. How can this be judged objectively? Should it be put to a public vote by people looking at photos? Does one person’s opinion override the other? Or are we into the “through the looking glass” grounds that, as some men have a GRC and are legally women, that we can no longer judge anyone as looking like a man or woman on appearance, because some men literally are women?

And of course, this leads to immediate speculation over the appearance of the doctor. How many people will now want to see for themselves so they can judge whether they agree with nurse or judge? That should not be the focus and immediately places what could potentially be seen as undue publicity on the doctor. It could lead to future judges agreeing that such cases should allow privacy for these men who are causing problems by using women’s spaces.

This is the Equality Act so Woman is defined as ‘a female of any age’ and the court of session has established that a man with a protected characteristic of gender reassignment (like this Dr) without a GRC is a man. Whether a man with a GRC is considered ‘female’ for the purposes of the Equality Act is currently awaiting judgement from the Supreme Court. But even if he does have a GRC the Act still allows him to be excluded. NHS Fife cannot tell us if he has a GRC.

Surely this could have all been resolved easily, cheaply and in the first instance by building a third changing room?
I wonder if they had built a trans changing room would they still have faced legal action, this time from the transwoman about discrimination for being excluded from the women's changing room.
Now that is a legal case I'd really really love to see. Transwoman demanding access to female changing room with undresseding women.
I'm not sure how this case will go though. What this nurse wants is the transwoman out of the female changing room, she was offered an alternative place to change, it wasn't in there with the transwoman or nothing.

Link to Sex Matters post. Mistaken, picture of Dr not there, but latest update.

It does seem a shame that it wasn't possible for the judge to rule for the proceedings to be in public but with the names of the parties withheld. I imagine there must have been sound practical reasons for that, but it is going to be gruelling for both the woman and the transwoman for their names to be present in all of the vociferous discussion of this case.

I understood quixote9's observation to relate to good faith, or the harassment aspect of the case.