"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 8

[ThreeWordHarpy]

Thread 1, 7-Oct to 23-Oct; pre-hearing discussion, KD (day 1 of evidence) and BH (day 2).
Thread 2, 23-Oct to 28-Oct; BH (day 2), CH, JP, MG (day 3&4), TH, SS, ST, LL (day 4), JS, AT (day 5)
Thread 3, 28-Oct to 29-Oct; AT (day 5&6), TA (day 6&7)
Thread 4, 29-Oct to 31-Oct; TA, AM (day 7) JB (day 8)
Thread 5, 31-Oct to 04-Nov; JB (day 8), SW, CG, JR (day 9)
Thread 6, 04-Nov to 05-Nov; RH (day 10), SW (day 11)
Thread 7, 05-Nov to 11-Nov; SW (day 11), closing submissions

Five nurses working at Darlington Memorial Hospital have filed a legal case suing their employer, an NHS trust, for sexual harassment and sex discrimination. The nurses object to sharing the women’s changing facilities with a male colleague, Rose, who identifies as female. The hearing started on October 20th, with evidence now complete. Submissions are being made on November 11th. To view the hearing online requests for access had to be made by October 17th. The hearing is being live tweeted by Tribunal Tweets who have background to this case on their substack. An alternative to X is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

The Judge made clear at the start of the public hearing on Day 1 that only TT or press have permission to tweet. If online observers see/hear something in the court that isn’t reported by TT, we don’t mention it until the next time there’s a break. This is a very cautious approach to avoid any accusations of “live reporting” on MN. Commentary on the content of TT tweets is fine as soon as they’re posted on X.

Key people:
C/Ns - Claimants, the Darlington nurses
R/T/Trust - Respondent, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust
J/EJ – Judge/Employment Judge Seamus Sweeney
NF - Niazi Fetto KC, barrister for claimants
SC - Simon Cheetham, KC, barrister for respondents
RH - Rose Henderson, trans identifying nurse
CG – Clare Gregory, NHS ward manager
SW - Sue Williams, NHS Trust HR
KD – Karen Danson, first claimant to give evidence.
BH – Bethany Hutchison, claimant
AH – Alistair Hutchison, husband of Bethany
CH – Carly Hoy, claimant
JP – Jane Peveller, claimant
MG – Mary Anne (aka Annice) Grundy, claimant
TH – Tracy Hooper, claimant
SS – Siobhan Sinclair, witness for the claimants, retired from Trust
ST – Sharron Trevarrow, witness for the claimants, retired from Trust, former housekeeper and wellbeing officer
LL – Lisa Lockey, claimant
JP – Professor Jo Phoenix, expert witness
JS – Jane Shields, witness for the claimants
AT - Andrew Thacker, NHS trust Head of HR
TA – Tracy Atkinson, NHS trust HR.
AM – Andrew Moore, NHS Head of Workforce Experience
JB – Jillian Bailey, NHS Workforce Experience Manager
AT – Anna Telfer, NHS Deputy Director of Nursing
SW – Sandra Watson, Matron for General and Elective Surgery
JR – Jodie Robinson, manager of Rose

I'm not sure what you're saying here.

I was agreeing broadly with nicepotoftea's assessment of the statement.

I tend to make my own mental additions:

"Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed by a sexist society. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated by sexist people with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time because it doesn't reflect each individual woman's experience.

Glad to have provided some etymological digression during the tribunal's downtime.

@BigGirlBoxers - I 'm a little bemused by your comment about 'hoist' having origins of "to raise". I'd say it still means "to raise", and don't know what else it would mean 🤷🏻‍♀️

To hoist something is to lift it up, usually quite sharply, like hoisting a flag with the jerky movements of yanking on the rope. Or so I'd always thought.

I 'm a little bemused by your comment about 'hoist' having origins of "to raise". I'd say it still means "to raise", and don't know what else it would mean

I mean that (to my ear at least), 'hoist' has the meaning of pulling something up (i.e. raising by means of pulling, rather than simply raising). That's what made it seem odd to me that it would be used to convey an explosion making someone go up into the air, in the expression "hoist by his own petard"

According to my understanding of physics (which is admittedly that of a small child) an explosion would push you into the air, not pull you.

It may well be that I am slightly overthinking this issue.

(Edited to add a comma, because pedantry isn't pedantry without fussing about commas.)

It may well be that I am slightly overthinking this issue.

But you aren't alone. 😄

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/125357/why-hoist-in-hoist-with-ones-own-petard/221049#221049

If any gentleman 'friends' do manage to hoist their CR companions with a manly petard, then I insist that NC is the counsel of choice for the tribunal. Imagine the cut-glass accent and deadpan expression we would delight in on final submissions day!

The DSU manager (the one with the physically open door) said that room looked out over the department, and I had wondered if DSU-visiting Rose might have hoped to see the nurses humiliated by the risk of being seen mid-change? I don't think that particular risk was mentioned but the fear of it seemed implied, esp since the shifts began and ended close together but not usually overlapping.

Pretty please, can I have a back row seat if someone ever decides to tell any of the Scottish regiments that they're actually men who think they're women? I don't think the front would be very safe.

I suppose I'd say that gender is a patriarchical construct designed to enforce a set of rules. Nice girls don't. A proper woman does. Your value is in how you look. That's enabled the whole trangender movement so it needs to be challenged with the simple question 'Who are you to tell me what I should be and how I should act?' And that goes for men too.

Gender is less about the qualities that people have and more about the qualities they are measured against.

Ironically, in this case it is very clear that the hospital's treatment of RH was informed by their gendered expectations of men.

'Who are you to tell me what I should be and how I should act?'

But that is the point of analysing gender. It's the expectation that women should act in a certain way, regardless of their personal qualities, so in a marriage there is 'wife work' and women who tell people what to do are strident and bossy, whereas men are authoritative and commanding.

I have no idea why anyone thinks it's progressive to identify with any of this, but it is still useful to have a word to distinguish between the material consequences of sex (women need specific rights because of their sex) and societal expectations of femininity.

I would like to thank all the people who reported on here from TT, an amazing job. This is compulsive reading, I have just ploughed through 17 pages and feel absolutely knackered. I think yesterday was possibly a good day for NF, the BBC reporting is a complete turnaround and the "manrage" outburst from IW absolutely hilarious and outing with regard to their horrible persona.

You are articulating some of my thoughts on gender. If i travelled around the globe would I magically change gender depending upon where I was at any particular moment? Even if I supported gender as a useful, positive concept it seems a strange way to categorise the use of prisons, hospital wards etc

Iiuc, Shakespeare may have been alluding to farts, but also that the metaphorical sapers were undermined and were blown (bomb and all) to the moon. Literally 'with their petard'. Although 'hoist' still seems a weird choice to me, I'm not arguing with Shakespeare.

So, the fragrant Rose's holes may have been vents.

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200418202809/www.who.int/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20200418202809/www.who.int/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1

old definition:

Gender refers to the roles, behaviours, activities, attributes and opportunities that any society considers appropriate for girls and boys, and women and men. Gender interacts with, but is different from, the binary categories of biological sex.

Strangely, the definition has changed on the WHO website. It used to refer to what society ‘considers appropriate’, not qualities, and referred to the harm caused by gender norms..,

🤔

Naomi is doing her stuff on the Sara Morrison v Belfast Film Festival.

Thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4991660-sara-morrison-vs-belfast-film-festival

We're assuming Pete might make an appearance any time now.

If i travelled around the globe would I magically change gender depending upon where I was at any particular moment?

No, what would change is the rules you are judged by.

So your conformity or nonconformity would change depending on each society's gender norms, but your gender wouldn't change.

My late MIL used to refer to a 'lift' (in a building) as a 'hoist'.

If i travelled around the globe would I magically change gender depending upon where I was at any particular moment?

Old WHO definition, no.

New WHO definition, yes.

Better view from the front

@SixthWorstOption I am also one of the silent majority who is follow all of these cases and gardening where I can. Hoping the madness will stop.

But would the facilties I could use change if the rules I am judged by change?

a boat in reverse is much harder to steer, but my friends, i am confident we are at that point.
I hope this does not sound barking

barque-ing perhaps, but not a bit barking - full of wisdom and hope and we need boatloads of that, so thank you!

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/24628298.darlington-trans-nurses-set-new-union-amid-legal-action/

This article contains a photo from inside the locker room.

So he, and any other bloke walking down the corridor, could have seen plenty if he was in the right place when the door was opened.

This was in response to a post which I can't see any more.. did I hallucinate it?🙁