Kelly v Leonardo Employment Tribunal Thread 3

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Ms BM Kelly v Leonardo UK Limited Employment Tribunal – hearing Case number: 8001497/2024

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Abbreviations:
C or MK - Claimant, Maria Kelly
NC - Naomi Cunningham, barrister for C
KW - Katy Wedderburn, solicitor for C
R or L - Respondent. Leonardo UK
ST - Susanne Tanner KC, barrister for R
J - Judge
P - Panel member
GC - gender critical
GI - gender identity
AL - Andrew R Letton VP People Shared Services Leonardo - respondent witness

Tribunal Tweets coverage here

https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/kelly-vs-leonardo-uk-ltd

Thread 1 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5416903-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-29th-september-10am?page=1

Thread 2 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5420656-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-thread-2?page=1

I dont know who works there but I expect Naomi will have a pretty good idea, she's thorough. You dont know who works their either. There is at least one accessible toilet, it sounds like more than one elsewhere in the building so no-one is prevented by lack of facilities from working there. It's an argument for why the employer could have done something immediately, not saying that they shouldnt then go on to consider longer term solutions.

I supported the need for more accessible toilets and for more ambulant toilets to reduce the misuse of accessible toilets.

I don't know if Gender Dysphoria as a diagnosis would be enough to allow access to a disabled loo as a disability.

It's not that the person with a Gender Dysphoria cannot use the loo of their sex it's that they refuse to.

They have no disability that needs a disabled loo. Having a diagnosis of "something" doesn't mean they get automatic access.

Someone could have a diagnosis of Kleptomania (as an example) from the DSM but their "disability" may be in a totally different area to toilet needs.

The "not all disabilities are visible" notice on some disabled loos isn't to facilitate it for able bodied persons who refuse to use the other loos.

Sorry you feel that way Easytoconfuse, and do what feels best for you, but there have been many posts agreeing that as a matter of principle, disabled toilets are for disabled people, and it's best not to blur the lines for the sake of a cheap and easy fix.

I'm still quietly seething about it, but I think the principle-over-pragmatism argument has been given a good run-out here by other posters
Sorry you feel you have to go, take care of yourself Easytoconfuse.

I disagree with the ‘gender dysphoria’ diagnosis which I think is political to enable those with sexual paraphilias (DSM is a profoundly political manual). I raise it as Devil’s advocate - that if it is accepted as a disabling mental health condition then it is clear that it can be argued accessible toilets are necessary (as they may well also be after the mutilation that calls itself ‘gender affirming surgery’)

However, your post does show a profound lack of understanding of mental health conditions. People with mental health conditions do not choose how it impacts them. Children with profound anxiety do not ‘refuse’ to go to school. Those in an OCD crisis do not ‘refuse’ to leave their rooms. Those with depression cannot ‘cheer up’.

I think you are misunderstanding my post I am not commenting on all mental conditions I am commenting on gender dysphoria.

It isn't my belief that all people with mental illnesses chose how it manifests.

If it were a real thing that profoundly distressed them to think of themselves as their own sex (as they would argue) then they would also argue they cannot use the toilets of their own sex due to the level of distress it would cause. They are not just ‘refusing’. The fact that many are prepared (indoctrinated) to undergo serious mutilating surgeries on the NHS would support this argument. This is the argument used for why they felt they should access women’s toilets. Now it is recognised women have rights too, it falls back to accessible toilets to manage their (sometimes possibly real) disabling mental distress. The actual problem is the failure to recognise paraphilias or treat indoctrinated young people properly with therapy, rather than affirming their illness, and stop the indoctrination.

This is the problem:
Disabled people need toilets. The design for them includes being mixed sex and private.
Being mixed sex and private is the toilet design that creates most problems in out-of-home toilets. Being very blunt at it’s worst it’s where people die and women and children are raped. We don’t need more mixed sex, private toilets of any design adding to provision.

We need people to use toilets for their sex as much as possible because these toilets don’t have to have a completely private design and are better for the health and safety of the occupant. If the disabled facilities could be incorporated into single sex accommodation, then we can reduce the number of disabled people that would still require mixed sex, private facilities.

@Easytoconfuse I am a biologist and was listening to a quote from the amazing Jane Goodall (rip): Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement.

I think, more than any other time, there’s lots of women being in the position to challenge single sex spaces and the designs of toilets. I know this case will be upsetting but I am hopeful women will have better toilets because of it and it raises the awareness of what is needed for a disabled toilet. I am hopeful because disabled toilets need an overhaul too and women like you are needed when you feel you can.

Toilets used to be designed by men, for men in pubs. In fact disabilities arising from returning WW2 got the momentum going on disabled toilets. Then there’s this man who’s wife was instrumental for women’s provision to get better:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/may/31/selwyn-goldsmith-obituary

There are a few fabulous female toilet academics and designers out there but I think there’s never been a better time for women to make a difference just by sheer numbers interested and engaged. That’s why I have hope.

Would you mind sharing the names of the female toilet academics? If you have them to hand?

Just finished reading TT thread substack NC was indeed on fire. She has taken the whole institutional capture to task, including the Judiciary and laid the defence to waste.

What a powerful advocate we have <swoons>

Then they don't need an accessible toilet, do they? Serious question and trying to understand your viewpoint. Are you saying that some people having mental health issues mean that those caring for people with learning disabilities and dementia and physical issues should have facilities effectively removed because they'll be available to more.

The way I see it is that this government will be looking for a cheap fudge. The transgender activists have already made it clear that they won't use accessible toilets, so the answer will be to tell women who are concerned about privacy to use them instead, as happened in Kelly v Leonardo. There are more of them, and they won't provide extra facilities, so that's the people who have no choice but to use an accessible toilet shoved out, just like the women who didn't want to share with men have been.

Lots of public toilets were closed during Covid and never reopened. They never got around to removing the signage for a couple of years in some of the loos around here.

@Easytoconfuse

Your view may appear to be a minority one among people who express an opinion here, but you are doing a valuable job expressing your view and maybe convincing the uncommitted. And certainly my local hospital has a number of unisex toilet rooms which are smaller than and additional to accessible toilets marked with the wheelchair sign.

I understand the benefits of cubicle toilets and the safety, but anyone thinking a wheelchair accessible loo could go in that multiple occupancy space really needs to get in a chair and go and try it. I often find even the disabled loos aren't that well designed to easily get a chair in and out of, particularly to manoever to get the door open, get through it and get the door closed behind you again, and these are much easier (and wider) doors than the heavy swing doors that are on the entrace to most multiple cubicle loos. To try and manoever through that, and into an area full of women, not running over anyone's feet, get to sinks and dryers and mirrors at the right height, would be a raging nightmare. It's very often the case that 'accessible provision' has been designed and set up by someone who isn't actually a chair user and has never tested it out, it's quite common for chair users to have to go and point out the issues to the site owners!

It would need a very different and much larger, wider design of the entire area, at some point in the future when all the doors are wider and set to be accessible. Not to mention it would be very normal in that situation for women to just use it as another cubicle if it was free, and to then be waiting to get to the right height sink/mirror/etc etc because those would be used too. Bearing in mind we often need more time to move and organise, and that getting in other people's way isn't always met with patience and tolerance, I'll stick to the current provision type thanks and suck up the additional risk involved. It's worth considering what ambulant disabled cubicles would look like: are ambulant disabled people needing access to the sink? the rails? wider spaces? Additional time and privacy?

I'd suspect for quite a few the heightened privacy issue would be there.

You do matter, please don't let that be the main message you're hearing.

My most recent office had one set of toilets on each open-plan floor. Women's (4 cubicles and 4 shared sinks), Men's (Urinals and 2-3? cubicles plus shared sinks) and a single room gender-neutral toilet large enough for a wheelchair to turn round in. Signage used the typical symbols of a woman in a skirt, a man, and a person using a wheelchair.

On my floor, we had one employee who used a wheelchair. No-one was openly transgender, but we did occasionally have visitors for stakeholder meetings that appeared to be trans women.

So assuming the situation was similar on its other 5 floors, it seems reasonable for this building's policy to be trans men and trans women have the choice of using the toilet for their biological sex or the gender neutral/disabled toilet.

I agree this must always be site-specific when finding a solution that is fair to everyone. All the public sector and large corporate offices I've worked in, have had a similar ratio of toilet provision. Precisely because disabled people do matter. Of course they do!

Thanks, but the message is clear across a couple of threads. It'll be a hollow victory when I say I told you so when the government announce that women who don't want to share their facilties with men can use the accessible toilets because that won't upset the transgender folk. Trying to think positive, they may take the mops and stuff out so they can actually get in, but there won't be extra loos so the simple logic is that more people will use them so it'll be harder for people who don't have a choice what they use.

You seem to be failing to understand that long term mental ill health IS a disability (and no, not addiction or kleptomania which are specifically excluded under the equality act). Mental ill health can be incredibly disabling and sometimes fatal (eg anorexia, depression etc). Are you saying someone with schizophrenia, agarophobia, OCD, or severe anxiety should not leave the house because they may need to use a facility that someone with learning disability also uses?

I'd think the answer to that is to get some kind of poll created to identify how many women do not want to have to get undressed in an enclosed space with any random man who fancies it. That has never been done. It would be very easily evidenced that women who do not want to massively outnumber men with trans identities.

Which would rip the veil off the fact that no one wants to say no to men.

I agree! I had a very interesting discussion with a town planner recently. She explained that conflicts between important and very sympathetic groups of people were common in her job.

As an example if you use a wheelchair you may prefer the edges of wide pavements to gently slope down to allow a straight across crossing whenever/wherever there is a suitable pause in traffic.

If you rely on a guide dog this would be potentially lethal. Dogs have worse eyesight than humans, they see only shades of yellow, blue and grey-to-black. Bright red appears a dull murky-grey. The dogs (and their humans) want an unmistakeable border where the safe pavement stops and the dangerous road begins.

When dealing with public authorities, it is nearly always very wise to appear as concerned for other impacted groups (almost!) as much as your own.

In specific cases where the provision of gender neutral/disabled toilets in a particular building ARE significantly above that required by the number of employees/visitors with any disability that requires their use, it is a sensible compromise to also allow these to be used by trans women and trans men employees/visitors.

KitWyn it is a sensible compromise to also allow these to be used by trans women and trans men employees/visitors.
Even more sensible for them to use the men's and women's, respectively.

Ideally, yes! But some trans men (after a long time on testosterone) have beards, noticeable male pattern balding, and deep voices, so may alarm women if they use the women's toilets. The recent Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act 2010, specifically references this potential problem.

The large majority of trans women are very obviously male (from a woman's perspective), so I agree their use of the men's toilets should be encouraged. But men seem, on average, much less able to 'spot' a trans woman. And if I were a man I would hate an apparently female colleague to see me using a urinal. Mortifying!

It IS an awkward, imperfect compromise. But we should probably consider allowing - on a specific site basis - both trans men and trans women to choose either the toilet for their own biological sex or the gender neutral/disabled facility.

We will need to monitor the impact on all users, to check, of course, that this is working for everyone. It may need to become standard to have toilets that are: Men's, Women's, Disabled and a separate Gender Neutral self-enclosed room.

But that's for a possible future change to building/major refit regulations!

Male violence against men
is not for women to solve.
If non conforming men feel unsafe in male spaces
that is not for women to solve.

Proper single sex toilets that include
at least one wide door cubicle
and at least one lower height wash basin
and at least one red toilet seat
and braille signage

will make EVERY large workplace or venue compliant

while allowing all forms of disability
to make use of them

I've used (and taken a wheelchair user into) a toilet where there was an accessible toilet inside the womens toilets. I assume there was also one in the mens although I didnt check. It would have been ok had the main door into the toilets not been really heavy and impossible to open if you were an unaccompanied wheelchair user. But you can put a push button to open the door near such doors. It's not impossible and other women using the toilets tend to stay out of the way. You do also need a lower hand drier or paper towel dispenser.

In specific cases where the provision of gender neutral/disabled toilets in a particular building ARE significantly above that required by the number of employees/visitors with any disability that requires their use, it is a sensible compromise to also allow these to be used by trans women and trans men employees/visitors.**

If this were not the case, would it be better to build more ‘gender neutral’ toilets or more accessible ones?

I do wish someone would set up a separate thread on the suggestion that disabled toilets should not be used as by people who don't like their sexed bodies.

i am grateful that the issue, and strength of feeling has been brought to my attention, but feel irritated that the issue is overtaking the primary concern about women’s rights to single sex spaces.

it is an issue in of itself.

In many work buildings – modern offices – men's toilets are exactly the same design as women's. No urinals. This isn't usually much of an issue as usage is spread fairly evenly through the day, unlike in pubs and entertainment venues, where there is constant high demand or spikes of demand at intervals and end of performance and urinals are so much more efficient. The requirements depend very much on the clientele; as has recently been pointed out on FWR, a paralympics event would have a much higher than usual requirement for accessible toilets.