Female engineer 'forced to use secret toilets' after encounter with trans colleague

[IwantToRetire]

Maria Kelly is suing her employer Leonardo UK over the firm’s policy of providing mixed-sex toilets for staff and allowing workers to choose which facility to use based on gender identity.

Ms Kelly, people and capability lead for Leonardo’s electronics department, is alleging harassment and direct and indirect discrimination.

Full story here https://www.scotsman.com/news/courts/female-engineer-forced-to-use-secret-toilets-after-encounter-with-trans-colleague-5342382

Also in the Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/01/woman-forced-to-use-secret-lavatory-after-finding-trans-col/
also at https://archive.is/fhvHd

Also on this live thread for the case https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5416903-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-29th-september-10am?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

I did check, maybe too tired to see properly. Stilll having problems with the blue, although said to be toned down.

Why is it that women have to justify the need for single sex toilets? I don't have any of the issues this person does, and I don't want to share a toilet with a man.

She has a right under the law. The reason she has a right undert the law is because the law recognises that for females to participate in society on an equal basis they have to have access to single sex spaces because of the threat that males pose to them (i.e. bigger, stronger, faster and more sexually aggressive).

Its an Employment Tribunal, so the degree of hurt will be relevant to aspects of the award they make. As awful as it is, if MK didn't provide the details of the harm caused to her, including the embarrassment she suffered over and over, any monetary award would likely not be big even if (as I would expect) the court ruled in her favour and required the company to make single sex toilets available as the law states.

Thats fucking awful.

What always annoys me most about this movement is how bloody selfish it is, “I want to use the ladies toilets and I don’t care who I upset to get my way!” To the point the end up in court.

I wonder how many women there are facing similar problems at work.

You would think after the publicity given to some, thought not all, cases that some journalist would want to do a story about it.

But I suspect it is another example of how "women's issues" are still low on the agenda.

So brave women like this are having to take on their employers on their own.

Maria Kelly is suing her employer Leonardo UK over the firm’s policy of providing mixed-sex toilets for staff and allowing workers to choose which facility to use based on gender identity.

So are they neutral or gender/sex split? Can't be both.

For anyone who wants to follow the case more closely
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5420656-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-thread-2

This is one of the things I hate most about justice in the UK today.

In my view the award should relate to an appropriate amount to compensate the victim for the harm that would have been caused had the victim been the sort of person most hurt by the harmful and illegal behaviour.

If the victim happens to be very strong mentally, and suffers less than others might have, then the award should be the same, and the victim can regard any "excess compensation" they received as a bonus they received for being strong.

Same in criminal courts - it is absolutely outrageous that ictims have to stand their in front of the criminal explaining how destroyed their life has been in order to try to get a half decent sentence passed. NO. If the victim is strong and able to put the attack behind them that should make no diference.

Although it has yet to be verified, there have been complaints that the TW(s) in question is distraught b/c everyone was welcoming and no one objected to his presence: “This news has obviously terrified me. In my time working for the company I haven't actually encountered any issues with being trans even from Maria. Everyone has been polite and friendly so now I'm feeling particularly betrayed. “

But that's always been the case: lack of physical confrontation == warm, welcoming acceptance.

Where did the trans ID colleague say that, @GallantKumquat ?

It’s unsurprising, this is what happens when everyone lies to these people. It must be devastating to find out the entire department knows your sex all the time.

I read the ‘mixed sex toilet’ titke, and thought ‘I use unisex toilets at work’. Then I read up about the case and realised the difference. Mine are solid cubicles (one per floor), not ladies toilets with booths inside.

Indeed. Even though women were uncomfortable to the extent one is going to tribunal, they still treated the trans woman so well he managed to be unaware there was an issue.

So much for literally violent bigots, eh.

This was posted on reddit, trangender uk:

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1nvgvz1/comment/nh8xh77/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Another day, another reason to reassure myself I made the right decision to no longer use reddit.

Poor little flower.

It's always the way: men assuming they can do this and it will be fine, and unless there is a personally meaningful event that affects them - let's say a nurse in distress, covered in blood from a flooding period, pleading for privacy to change her clothes - they don't notice a problem.

The impact on women isn't even thought of, because it's not relevant, it doesn't affect them. And they can't get their heads around the idea that impact on women that they don't see, such as women quietly not going anywhere near facilities with men in them, either happens or matters. It's not bothering them after all.

But the moment their impact on women actually personally affects them - such as the word 'no', or publicity that they've made a woman so distressed she had to secretly try and find toilets he didn't know about and has had to go and face court to be allowed them despite the law - they're 'distraught'.

Which is essentially pity-seeking to try and turn the focus from the woman they selfishly and intentionally caused the problem to by using women's facilities. Much poor me. It's still all about him. He's not rushing to say he's sorry this happened to her or shouldn't have happened, and he would not have allowed it to happen had he known. It's how awful for him that she's voiced her impact and made him look bad. Competing with her for focus and sympathy.

I can't even be bothered to find my tiny violin.

Ah. Note in the Reddit thread he is also 'terrified'. And 'betrayed'.

I wonder why, with the many arrests, job losses, threads like this calling them appalling names, and the court cases lasting years and costing hundreds of thousands, he thinks that women who cannot use mixed sex spaces might lie and smile at men who want to use them and their space to meet their own perceived need, and don't risk honestly saying to their faces that they have reasons why this doesn't work for them and that they have needs too?

Would he have cared? Or just launched the Banarama defence as Upton and NHS Fife have when a woman did this?

He’s terrified and betrayed because he has been treated as he asked - for nobody to say that they knew he is a man?

FFS, what a whiny little prick.