Employment Tribunal finds NB does not meet PC of GR

[DrProfessorYaffle]

https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/h-lockwood-v-cheshire-and-wirral-nhs-foundation-trust-and-others-2401211-slash-2024-and-2407178-slash-2024

"Although the claimant has taken steps to change attributes of their sex
from female, by changing their name to a name which can be identified as of
either sex, and has changed their preferred pronouns, those are not in our
view attributes which are for the purpose of moving from one sex to the other,
they are steps in the process of moving away from the female sex to a
different gender identity, ie that of non binary. The claimant is not proposing,
nor do they intend to take any steps to reassign their sex from that of female
to male.
105. We therefore find that the claimant does not have the protected
characteristic of gender reassignment."

So what if a male had asked for a male therapist, could they have given it to her, if she doesn't identify as female, who could she treat?

She's clearly the one in need of therapy, the NHS have no business unleashing her on patients who are already struggling with mental health issues, they deserve better that this person.

Upton and Rose do have the PC of gender reassignment but it doesn't apply to single sex matters, as per FWS.

So you can't sack them for being trans, even if they don't have a GRC. You can't deny them a mortgage or refuse to serve them or send them away from your hotel.

But you can say that they're men and must use either men's or gender neutral facilities.

It's a good question. Because it seems unlikely that people deliberately seek out a NB therapist, and if she is counting herself out of being the female therapist some people request, and it would not be right for the patients for her to engage with the patients who request a male either. There will still be a pool of patients for whomever the sex of the therapist they see is not an issue, but she's reducing the possible pool of staff for others. And again, if the patietn wants to know the SEX of the person they are seeing then it HAS to be that they can be truthfully told this.

The department is lucky that Yvette Dunn responded in such a restrained manner. She would have been justified in doing a Tim from The Office in retaliation IMO 😁 (images to appear after review)

This of course being what the Roz Adams tribunal revolved around.

I hadn't seen this one. Thank you for sharing.

I appreciate it's completely tangential to this thread, but it's interesting that Kings College features here. That's where the puberty blocker trial is being run from.

Streeting must have known this was going to be the case when he appeared there. I'm starting to feel very uncomfortable that Streeting has been playing a long game here and hasn't gone far from his Stonewall roots after all.

Apologies for the derail there, OP.

In an ocean of absurdity, this one stood out for me.

'I wonder if we're heading toward mandatory sterilization for trans people. That would seem to be the logical progression if we have to do x, y and x to "count".'

Literally the only people who are supporting (nay, demanding) medical interventions that sterilize trans people are... erm... trans people and their 'allies'.

There is a lot of confusion on that thread.

Oh what a tangled web he weaves, when first he practices to deceive.

It's very frustrating to read where the judgement says that because she had changed her name and asked people to use "they" pronouns the claimant was "on a journey" away from the female sex. I can see the argument that there was some small movement away from woman gender, but changing your name from Mary to Mark and your pronouns from "She" to "he" don't change your sex, or even start to change your sex, from female to male, which is the clear implication here.

Yes and I think the mention of name change is a worry too.

Because she did not change to a traditionally male name, that is mentioned as not Trans.

But I really don't believe IW is more of a woman for calling themselves India. I don't think Beth Upton and Rose had more right to be in women's changing spaces because of being called Rose and Beth.

And lots of female NB do have mastectomies. And short hair. And wear more traditionally masculine clothes. Because it seems that to be NB you have to reject femininity (if you are female)

Once-upon-a-time, not-so-long-ago the least popular person in the office was usually The-Man-Who-Made-Everything-Into-A-Double-Entendre or The-Woman-That-Constantly-Sells-Charity-Raffle-Tickets-You-Don’t-Want-To-Buy.

Now it’s Mx-Pronoun-The-Genderbased-Grievance-Goblin.

i wonder if there is someone, anyone, working in the NHS who is putting two and two together in terms of patient care and very very delicate snowflakes who will always centre themselves and their wishes.

You'd think and hope so

And looking at their policies which encourage and facilitate this behaviour, raise expectations, make everyone else the baddies and the main character the endless victim

I haven't yet read the whole judgment but I did snigger a bit about the IT problems: paragraph 19: "...the claimant noticed that their deadname continued to appear in the Microsoft Teams appointments in their outlook calendar and when sending emails." That issue seemed to have been resolved when the claimant's laptop had been rebooted.

It reminded me of Roy's standard response in The IT Crowd: Have you tried turning it off and on again.

As for Haech: I keep reading it as in hic, haec, hoc - Latin for "this", where "haec" is the singular feminine or plural neuter.

Do you think it's just pronounced H like H from Steps?

And she could just have said, 'My name is Heather but I go by H" and people would have caught on and called her H and ....

If you wanted to keep an eye out, you could check the BAILII recent case decisions page for the UK employment tribunal and employment appeal tribunal. The listing gives an indication of what each case was about so you can identify which ones you want to open for a closer read.

https://www.bailii.org/recent-decisions.html#uk/cases/UKET

https://www.bailii.org/recent-decisions.html#uk/cases/UKEAT

That is exactly why the judgment goes on to consider whether there would have been a case to answer for harassment even though they didn't have to consider it - and they found there was no harassment etc anyway.

How surprising that posters on the sub are ignoring that inconvenient fact as they froth about "harassment" of trans people supposedly being legalised.

I would not be at all surprised if the claimant is active on that sub.

All good points and perhaps prescienct of the panel to cover that off in the judgement

Where do you see the conflict between outlawing discrimination on the grounds of GR and women's rights to be?

Given that nobody actually needs to have the PC of GR to be protected from discrimination (as in discrimination by perception) we are all protected on that ground. So to answer your question as to whom that means - it means everyone.

Outlawing discrimination on the grounds of GR doesn't require allowing men to use women only services so I don't see that it means very much at all for other protected characteristics.

Well Professor Yiffle I’m so very glad you did find it, it whiled away a boring Ryanair flight for me, 30 pages of incredible nonsense. My mirth caused by this very thread didn’t discommode my fellow passengers enough for them to put up paper curtains to screen me from them thankfully. One wonders though that out there in the real world people at work are taking offense about ‘how’ a colleague says ‘hi’ to them.

Me neither.

Glad to be of service!

I think it's fairly common for some people to be very sensitive and sometimes wonder if others are being off with them. But usually we sit on those thoughts and allow things to move on, and are pleased to find we were mostly wrong, later on!

I can't imagine making even the most awful colleague a named respondent in an employment tribunal because of how I felt about a situation that occured almost entirely inside my head!

I have worked with some absolute horrors over the years, who were genuinely rude to people they didn't like, but I'd never heard of individuals being named in an ET before Dr Upton this year, and it took quite a while before that made sense to me.

I'm pretty sure that Haech must have been strongly encouraged to bring the case in the way she did. She sounds like a terrible colleague, but also extremely fragile to have taken this all the way to tribunal. She must have had a team around her (the union?) telling her what she wanted to hear instead of what she needed to hear. I hope she has learnt from the very harsh lesson of exposure, and doesn't let herself get led down the road to an appeal that will almost certainly be extremely hard on her, even if there are potential gains to be made for her 'side'.

And what a sentence to misgender on!!

"This incident had nothing to do with the events in October which
centred around the claimant’s belief that she had been misgendered."

133. In respect of the incident on 31 January when the claimant says Ms Dunn failed to acknowledge them and turned away, it is clear that Ms Dunn did acknowledge the claimant. She said “hi”. This was three months after the original incidents and having seen each other in between without any apparent problem, it was not reasonable for Ms Dunn’s innocuous conduct to have had the effect upon the claimant’s environment which they allege. In any event we are not satisfied that any conduct was related to the claimant being non binary. This incident had nothing to do with the events in October which centred around the claimant’s belief that she had been misgendered.

I imagine these temporary blinds could become essential office drawer kit for the more sensitive redditors affected by this case. (Images to follow pending review).

They are free of any sharp fittings so would also be ideal for sensitive air travelllers. In two handy colours: white semi-opaque for a first offence, and complete blackout for tribunal-pending situationships.