Custody officer job withdrawn for GC beliefs - Gribbon (SP legal team) is his solicitor

[InterrobangsArePureBias]

I wonder how many more of such actions will be launched. To adapt Jimmy Doyle’s phrase, “the spectacle of this nation’s [lanyard classes] enforcing moral auto-lobotomy as a condition of entry to [employment]”.

A prison custody officer who was sacked for saying he would not address male-born transgender inmates as ‘she’ or ‘her’ has launched legal action against one of the UK’s largest security firms.
Army veteran David Toshack, 50, was dismissed by GEOAmey during a training course only days before taking up a role as a prison custody officer (PCO) at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court.
The father of three told a safeguarding workshop that he would not be comfortable using a transgender inmates’ preferred gender pronouns and expressed his belief that a man could not become a woman.
It sparked a horrified reaction from bosses at the firm, which employs thousands of justice workers across the UK, who said his views were against the law and company policy.
…
He said: ‘I’m just a normal, working class person who’s never been in trouble with the law before, not got a criminal record, lived a good life. I’ve been prepared to go and fight and die for my country, and then I have come back here and been told that there’s certain things you can’t think or can’t say.’

https://archive.is/bxjqC

Original story about David Toshack in Daily Mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14963309/Prison-custody-officer-sacked-refusing-call-male-born-trans-prisoners-her.html

I am curious about the grounds as it seems as if Toshack was attending an induction and must have been within a probation period for employment law purposes.

However, I trust Gribbon on this matter.

Even during the induction period you cannot be sacked for having a protected characteristic - thanks to Maya being GC is a protected characteristic.

It can be illegal discrimination to not offer a job in the first place, so the discretion to let someone go during the probationary period can't be absolute, even though you don't have to give reasons. Maybe their mistake was telling him why.

A prison custody officer who was sacked for saying he would not address male-born transgender inmates as ‘she’ or ‘her’

Presumably the correct way to address an inmate in their presence is "you", or by their name?

https://freespeechunion.org/david-toshack-l/

This is a more in-depth article on what happened. I think the organisation are going to struggle with this not just because of and belief discrimination, but their lack of following proper disciplinary procedures (see the second last paragraph).

I just narrowly avoided cross-posting to say that! I wonder if there are still any vacancies in those £50K+ jobs to advise people on what pronouns to use. 😵‍💫

Yes. I’m assuming he has said he will address the 6ft 2 muscular bloke charged with gbh as Suzie if that is the name the person goes by. But he is stating he will view the person as a man won’t use she/her when speaking to others about the person.

he would treat all prisoners with respect, call them by their chosen name, and use non-gendered language where appropriate

Seems gender neutral wasn't good enough.

I identify as a Dame...can I insist I'm referred to as that?

I can understand why it would be in the interests of the prison service to refrain from deliberately antagonising prisoners, but they must be aware of the phenomenon of sudden onset post arrest dysphoria, and its use as a power play.

It's not clear why they wouldn't at least accept neutral language, particularly as third person pronouns are not generally used when the subject is present.

As an aside, why has the preview of the article got images of Sandie Peggie and JKR that aren't related to this particular case? It gives the impression it's one big group pushing for a specific point of view rather than lots of separate free-thinking individuals with the same point of view, and lends credence to the concept of a conspiracy or an organisation of TERFs of some sort.
You don't get a montage of Isla Bryson et al when another rapist mysteriously suddenly discovers they're a woman trapped in a man's body immediately post-sentencing.

Post-arrest dysphoria? Like Donald to Donna?

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5383762-chainsaw-attacker-allowed-to-id-as-a-woman

This will be interesting - can you compel someone to use pronouns against their beliefs? Watching with interest.

Yes, exactly this.

“You don't get a montage of Isla Bryson et al when another rapist mysteriously suddenly discovers they're a woman trapped in a man's body immediately post-sentencing.”

Well we do, but only in our imagination. The newspapers tend not to!

Please please don’t let him have forwarded any questionable jokes on WhatsApp. Please.

My first thought too!

I see his solicitor is Margaret Gribbon. GeoAmey should be worried. She’s been largely credited with keeping SP’s case in the press in Scotland for months on end and making sure everything NHS Fife tries to do hits the headlines. I’m sure she’ll do likewise here

Thanks for sharing.

The company changing their records... where have we seen that? They are in the shit and they know it.

As I read this case and consider the position of the company that will have to defend their actions in firing him with no due process at all (GeoAmey), this song plays in my head 😁

"You're Hitler in the bunker fuuuucked!" (I imagine a chorus line of high kicks at that point)

Since when is not calling a man - no matter how he identifies - "she" against the fucking law?
Oh well. I guess they're going to get told.

MistyGreenAndBlue arguably if doing so was ruled to be in breach of Section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/22

GENDER RECOGNITION ACT 2004
EXPLANATORY NOTES

Section 22: Prohibition on disclosure of information

88. Subsections (1) and (2) establish that it is an offence for a person to disclose information he has acquired in an official capacity about a person’s application for a gender recognition certificate or about the gender history of a successful applicant. This information is termed ‘protected information’ under this Act. Subsection (3) explains what is meant by ‘an official capacity’.

89. Subsection (4) sets out exceptions to the general prohibition on disclosure. For example, disclosure will not constitute an offence where the person to be identified had consented to the disclosure or where the disclosure is for the purposes of proceedings before a court or tribunal. Subsections (5) and (7) make provision for the Secretary of State to prescribe further circumstances in which disclosure does not constitute an offence. Subsection (6) provides that this power is exercisable by the Scottish Ministers, rather than the Secretary of State, where the provision to be made is within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.

90. Undersubsection (8), a person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/notes/division/4/22

ps. #RepealTheGRA

I guess it might be fun to see someone attempt to use section 22 of the GRA to argue this, but as there's nothing in either article to suggest that the GRA was even mentioned, it seems a real stretch!

I agree about hoping he's never shared racist jokes...but my first thought was that if he has, as a male ex-serviceman, he'll benefit from a double standard about whether it matters.

betterBeElwinNextIGuess I should have clarified that I was responding to this question rather than to the particulars of this case:

"Since when is not calling a man - no matter how he identifies - "she" against the fucking law?"

However, in terms of circumstances such as those described in this case, I reckon that a Breach of Section 22, or at the very least an expressed intention to Breach Section 22, might be arguable.

Hypothetically, if a Custody Officer were made aware in an official capacity that a prisoner had been awarded a GRC and they then referred to the prisoner by pronouns that tangentially disclosed their "gender history", then it might be argued that they were in Breach of Section 22. Whether that argument would be successful in court is a different matter.

If all that the hypothetical Custody Officer were told was that a prisoner was "trans", or if they just used their eyes and ears, or if they only heard down the pub that the prisoner had a GRC, I assume that they could not conceivably be in Breach of Section 22? That is, they had not obtained or been given the specific information in their official capacity that the prisoner had a GRC.

The Employment Lawyers Association's 2018 submission to the Government's Consultation on reform of the GRA sets out the many problems with Section 22 and proposed that the best solution would be to Repeal Section 22:

GEO consultation on reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004
Response from the Employment Lawyers Association
19 October 2018

Extracts:

Question 9: Do you think the privacy and disclosure of information provisions in section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act are adequate? If no, how do you think it should be changed?

1. In short, “no”. They are inadequate for two key reasons:

a. first, breach of section 22 Gender Recognition Act (‘GRA’) 2004 should not be a criminal offence. It is wholly unjustified and may explain the lack of prosecutions;

b. second, as currently drafted, section 22 GRA 2004 is not workable in practice and is likely to have unintended consequences.

1. These responses are set out in further detail below.

A. It is inappropriate for the disclosure of information to amount to a criminal offence and as such section 22 as currently in place is in adequate

Proposed solution

29. ELA’s proposed solution is simple: repeal Section 22 GRA 2004. Concerns about malicious disclosure can be amply dealt with by the harassment provisions contained in the Equality Act 2010, which also have the advantage of meaning that the injured person can receive compensation.

30. Alternatively, section 22 2004 be amended to ensure that only disclosures that are malicious, or intend to do harm, and are not reasonable, are covered. In addition, the existing exemptions need to be expanded to address the situation set out below

B. Section 22 GRA 2004 is not workable in practice and is likely to have unintended consequences

https://www.elaweb.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/ELA%20Response_GEO%20consultation%20on%20reform%20of%20the%20Gender%20Recognition%20Act%202004_19Oct18.pdf

An even better solution: #RepealTheGRA

So the people in charge of this company lack not only no common sense, but basic reading comprehension and have not been able to inform themselves of the actual law.

Should be a walk in the park for his lawyer. I’m wondering if I should retrain as a lawyer if cases like this are going to keep coming in - it shouldn’t be too challenging.

It doesn’t sound like the company have handled this well.
This will surely be a case of a direct clash of protected characteristics? Gender reassignment (with potentially right to privacy with a GRC) versus right to believe sex is binary and immutable.
This probably does need argued in court.

Telegraph coverage similar to Daily Mail. Via another poster

archive.ph/ozZOD