NHS Fife Tribunal Tweets - single sex facilities case

[FayeRC]

Morning,

is anyone keeping an eye on the Fife nurse employment tribunal case? Tribunal Tweets will report from the court room but I’ll be at work today and was wondering if people could gather the most salient points here?

The case has previously been discussed on MN here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5186317-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse?page=1

I myself have a similar case going through the ET court now, to protect single sex facilities at work, hence the interest:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5159395-employment-tribunal-case-to-protect-single-sex-facilities-at-work?page=1

Thanks Faye. I'll try and keep an eye out today, although I've a few meetings.

Does anyone know if TT use any other media platforms? I haven't deactivated my twitter yet, but I'm trying not to use it if there's an alternative.

Watching with interest - no phone Ma at work so I'll be catching up in my lunch time. Thanks to all contributors

Live commentary only goes on Twitter as far as I know. An alternative to following on Twitter is to follow here, which takes the content off Twitter:

https://nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

However, sometimes it's not available.

If you want to catch-up after the event you can look here:

https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/

where you should be able to find all of the tweets from a session archived in threadreaderapp.com.

Thanks nauticant I'll go for the threadreader later on in that case.

I have a log in - what time is is due to start?

Confusion as to whether 10 or 11 - still waiting for the conference host to join!

@YellowRoom how do we join?

Email [email protected] ref Case No: 4104864/2024 (V) Peggie v Fife Health Board and ask for online access. I also put my full name and address and said i was an interested member of the public as i seem to remember having been asked my reason for another tribunal.

I don't know if it's too late to request to join but worth a try.

Thank you!

This has started off hot. Naomi Cunningham asked to enter Uptons registration under previous male name and has been effectively accused of harrassment for deadnaming. Apparently there's a previous EAT that's relevant and a note on previous registration that Upton wasnt able to practice. Naomi Cunningham would like to ask questions about it. Judge gone to look up the previous EAT and will consider accepting the registration document into the bundle.

Not to derail the thread too much, hopefully, but the trans police officer who was sacked due to their conduct on social media (harassing Fair Cop and Harry the Owl) has turned their attention to Tribunal Tweets.

https://x.com/rita_rake/status/1886349222984745124?t=pvEeSbMjNTGMMcw8JDR8sQ&s=19

https://x.com/rita_rake/status/1886349238755361036?t=zA8tuEaGXgfQuP8rlGuv7Q&s=19

he's been emailing the judge? WTF?

If the individual in the photo on twitter is indeed Dr Upton, I very much hope someone does attempt to make a citizen's arrest on anyone calling Dr Upton a man.

Dr Upton apparently has a very impressive beard.

The more visibility on this madness, the better.

I would be very surprised if he was wearing his beard for the tribunal.

You never know! If we can have woman-penises surely a beard is far less of a stretch of the imagination?

I don’t understand how the complainant could sue the tribunal. Is that what NC said?

WTF?!

This is harassment. Tribunal Tweets should contact the police.

How much more evidence do they need that this is an emotionally unstable individual who's needs locking up, can't the police section people any more?

What I don't understand is why there are open changing same sex changing rooms these days when anyone may want privacy in getting changed. There are plenty of mixed sex changing rooms in swimming pool facilities etc but with cubicles.

The time, money and weight people put on this issue can be simply solved by mixed changing room and individual cubicles. Surely everyone has the right to privacy and no judgement when getting changed irrespective of their identity?

That's presumably a lot of money though, to change all the communal changing rooms (I'm not NHS staff, so I'm just assuming here), and they might be left with less space. The NHS has better things to spend money on. And, wouldn't we have the toilet issue again? Gaps vs no gaps, safety vs privacy etc. It's all to solve a problem that only exists because males are claiming the right to use women's facilities.

But surely one private cubicle would solve the issue for these two people and a compromise on the expense. The legal fees I imagine aren't insignificant in this case for the NHS, not to mention indirect costs in respect of employee relations. It just seems to me that at minimum a private separate cubicle would at least give both parties an option. As it stands neither the woman or trans woman are able to take any action to make a compromise. The trans woman has no options available to them. If I was a trans woman I would be sensitive to women's rights and the feelings of women would want at least an option to avoid a conflict.

He can get changed with all the other men. Not our problem.

Of course the trans woman has another option - they can go in the male changing room as they are still male regardless of what they are trying to look like.

In this case, the woman was told she could change elsewhere or in a toilet cubicle if she objected and the 'non biological woman' was given permission to change in the communal area. This might solve the problem of being seen changing, but not unwillingly seeing people of the opposite sex change. When told their presence was intimidating and impacted the privacy of the women in the changing room, the 'non biological woman' was indifferent and asserted their rights. I use that term because it was used in the tribunal by the KC, and I'm using it to highlight the absurdity of it. Investing in unisex toilets across the NHS estate would be significant and hardly proportionate. This needs to be about policy. In this case, the balance wasnt right.

But if you're talking about a private cubicle within the main changing room, then the doctor would first have to check that there wasn't anyone already in the main changing room getting changed first/hang about waiting until it was completely empty(not ideal if they're rushing to start a shift) in order to walk through it to get to the cubicle.

Then even if it the main changing room was empty at that point, what happens if someone comes in while the dr is changing in the cubicle? The dr would come out and you'd still have the exact same issue as one of the occasions described by the nurse-she was part way through getting changed, the dr came in and the nurse felt uncomfortable and left.

Same if it was the other way round - nurse comes in first and goes into cubicle, doctor comes in afterwards, starts getting changed in the main area, nurse comes out of cubicle and sees the dr undressed.

Not to mention the fact that even though this nurse is the one named there might very well be other staff uncomfortable with the whole situation, from either perspective.

besides which the vast, vast majority of sexual assaults, peeping tom incidents, people recording others (either live or putting cameras in changing rooms or toilets) happen in mixed sex changing rooms with cubicles.

The best scenario/least potential for issues would be to only have multiple, completely self enclosed rooms (like disabled toilets usually are), but you'd have to have enough for everyone to get changed at the same time (very expensive given the shift nature of the NHS and takes up lots of space which is then unused for most of the day).

If you only had a few cubicles and no guidance saying who has to use them and who can/can't use the communal changing rooms, then you'd still be in the exact same position as now - with no recourse if the doctor (or any other trans member of staff) chooses not to use them (whether because making a stand/all the cubicles were already occupied and didn't want to wait or any other reason).