Jonathan Brown AT broonjunior
One of the many issues in this case is the complete loss of institutional competence. It’s obvious this was an issue that required careful thought, and the decision maker sought advice not from, heaven forfend, a lawyer, but from a very junior equality and diversity officer.
And the “equality and diversity lead”, two years in the job, had the baseless self confidence to give a definitively wrong answer rather than saying let’s take specialist legal advice. If this was an external adviser there’s little doubt the advice would be actionably negligent.
For context, the NHS in Scotland has a very substantial and highly competent in house legal team. It also spends millions of pounds each year instructing counsel. Yet this decision ends up in the hands of the equality and diversity lead.
It’s not even cost cutting. That would at least be understandable. It’s just the wholly misconceived and hubristic idea that a bit of training in EDI and a big drive towards being “kind” and “inclusive” and hunting out the witches is a proper foundation to advise on this stuff.
In a properly ordered universe one or more people lose their jobs over this, and it shouldn’t be the Equality and Diversity person. Not her fault she was asked to advise on something clearly way beyond her competence. I fear there will be no consequences at all.
My guess is they limp to the end of tomorrow, hope the heat goes out of it a little and try to settle it in the gap between now and the continued hearing in the summer, if necessary getting separate representation for Dr Upton. What a disgraceful shambles
See I don't agree fully with this. Others should go, but if this is the case, what is the point in the EDI department? That's not a personal thing in terms of the individual but a question about why the NHS has EDI if it's causing this level of problems. Surely any such role should be under the umbrella and supervision of the Legal Bod department or the HR department. Otherwise you effectively have a doubling up on jobs, but with one department completely at odds with the interests of the trust, staff and patients whilst claiming to be very kind.
Its bonkers. Elon would wet his pants at this.
He also says
Jonathan Brown AT broonjunior
One of the curiosities of the Peggie case is that the underlying legal issue isn’t at all difficult. Is Ms Peggie entitled to a single sex changing room? Yes. Does Dr Upton’s self declared gender identity give entry to the opposite sex changing room? No. Is there a discretion? No
As for TRA saying stuff along the lines that they've always had the right to use the changing rooms, I have to say that even then I think there's an issue with sexism.
Even if it were true that they've been 'allowed', it doesn't mean its right and that they had a 'right' to. It perfectly possibly that something unlawful and sexist could have been happening for years. We know there's been cases brought over historical sexism because there's been a failure to uphold equality rights before.
It's funny how in 2025 this isn't recognised. Historical sexism just get brushed under the carpet as 'it was of its time' even when the law at the time of events said differently.
No one wants to see misogyny and sexism even when it's obvious and starring them in the face.
The whole façade of trans ideology is unfortunately sexist - it's built on the idea that if a man puts on a dress, calls himself Doris, swears blind he's female because he 'feels like one's and maybe (but not necessarily) takes hormones or has plastic surgery, he magically becomes a woman. And women must accept this no matter what and regardless of concerns about privacy and dignity and voyeurism and safety. It's all built on gender stereotypes and power and control over women - that's sexism.
If you make the point that no right to be sexist, it creates a bit of a problem here. What are you left with?
I don't think anyone is really willing to face up to and address this fundamental paradox at the heart of it all in the drive to 'be kind'.
Unfortunately how is it kind to put any woman in any of this situations or to enable a situation where the concept is that if you don't transition you agree with these stereotypes and if you don't agree with these stereotypes you should transition? And on a practical level that's what's effectively happening at school level where these ideas have been promoted and why girls no longer have short hair for fear of being labelled as gay or trans and that they should transition.
A reckoning point is approaching. Slowly and it's going to take a long while to get to this ultimate point of realising that your own beliefs can't be allowed to impact on the reality of others. That means if you wish to live in a sexist way, that can't impact on others. We can't stop you thinking like this but it's not ok to affect others. Same as we can't stop people thinking racist things but we legally can prevent them from doing things that are racist and affect others like treating them unfavorably in the workplace. Or we can't stop people having anti gay opinions but we can stop them from refusing to serve someone gay.
You can not stop being what you are. You are what you are. It doesn't change. It is constant. That's why you have the prefix trans in the first place because everyone actually recognises this reality including those who try to deny it on some level.
Males will remain male. They shouldn't be subjected to discrimination for how they present. However they still are male and that's for males to resolve amongst themselves whilst females retain their own protections around bodily autonomy, privacy and dignity and crucially how politics and lived experience stems from this bodily reality.