UK Government<\/a> has yet to publish or sign-off on guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), it states single-sex spaces should be provided for on the basis of biological sex.\n<\/p>\n\n In the Peggie and Darlington cases, the Supreme Court judgment was heavily considered, but the influence it had over the tribunal rulings were significantly different.\n<\/p>\n
\n In the Peggie case, employment judge Sandy Kemp and his tribunal panel interpreted the Supreme Court ruling as not making it inherently unlawful for a transgender woman to use the female changing rooms at work.\n<\/p>\n
\n Equally, it stated the Supreme Court ruling did not, however, make it inherently lawful.\n<\/p>\n
\n The four counts of harassment by NHS Fife related to failing to revoke the permission for Dr Upton to use the changing room on an interim basis while different working patterns were arranged, taking an unreasonable length of time to investigate, making reference to patient care allegations and instructing her not to discuss the case.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Peggie\u2019s legal team intend to appeal, arguing the ruling was incompatible with the judgment in the UK\u2019s apex court.\n<\/p>\n
\n Read more:\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Kemp also did not consider that the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, which has provisions as to the toilet and changing rooms at work, assisted in constructing the Equality Act.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Peggie judgment stated there had not been a \u201chierarchy of rights\u201d created by the Supreme Court judgment, whereby the protected characteristics of a sex was placed above the protection of gender reassignment.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhat it did was to define the terms, not how the protected characteristic of sex was to be assessed in relation to other protected characteristics where they are applied,\u201d the judgment said.\n<\/p>\n
\n In significant contrast, the Darlington ruling is clear on the Supreme Court ruling. It follows on the basis that sex is defined explicitly by biology and therefore female changing rooms should be single-sex.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Darlington judgment described the complaints of harassment as \u201cwell founded\u201d, adding that by requiring the female nurses to share a changing room with a \u201cbiological male trans woman\u2026 the [health trust] engaged in unwanted conduct related to sex and gender reassignment which had the effect of violating the dignity of the claimants\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n Judges based this argument specifically around the Supreme Court judgment \u2013 a clear nuance with the Peggie case.\n<\/p>\n
\n The judgment stated that the Darlington hospital\u2019s policy to allow trans colleagues to change with female colleagues was \u201cnot lawful\u201d, and clearly refers to the Workplace Regulations of 1992.\n<\/p>\n
\n It also found women were at \u201cno greater risk\u201d in changing rooms with the presence of trans colleagues.\n<\/p>\n
No harassment from trans colleagues<\/p>\n
\n In both the Peggie and Darlington cases, tribunal judges dismissed complaints made against the transgender doctors.\n<\/p>\n
\n The eight Darlington nurses complained about their transgender colleague \u2013 Rose Henderson\u2019s \u2013 conduct in the changing room. They claimed harassment however the tribunal panel found these claims were “unfounded” and therefore dismissed.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Rose was simply doing what the Trust permitted Rose to do, to act as, and to be treated as a trans woman which for all intents and purposes meant regarding Rose as a woman,” the panel said.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Whether Rose ought to have made more insight into the effect on female colleagues of having to change to their underwear in the presence of a biological male is another matter.”\n<\/p>\n
\n The judging panel concluded the perception that Henderson was “staring or taking longer than normal” was a symptom of a biological male being in such close proximity, with the anxiety and concerns from women heightening these fears.\n<\/p>\n
\n While Dr Upton was also found not to have harassed Ms Peggie in the NHS Fife case, the reasoning by employment judge Sandy Kemp and his tribunal panel differ.\n<\/p>\n
\n Judge Kemp was clear that some of Ms Peggie\u2019s comments \u2013 referring to chromosomes and an alleged link to transgender prison policy \u2013 amounted to \u201charassment\u201d against Dr Upton, and said the nurse had clear \u201cbreached the privacy\u201d of her medical colleague.\n<\/p>\n
How will that impact the appeal?<\/p>\n
\n The legal team for Ms Peggie has confirmed it will appeal the judgment against NHS Fife and following the Darlington ruling, the nurse said that has strengthened her determination to have it overturned.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, the judgments have no baring on each other so it technically does not compel the tribunal judge or the appeal court to alter its judgment.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Judicial Office has published certificates of correction to alter aspects of the lengthy document to fix “errors, mistakes and omissions” but it seems significantly unlikely there will be any changes to the judgment conclusions.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is for the appeals court to determine whether to uphold Ms Peggie’s legal challenge, and while there is no legal rule requiring them to consider the Darlington case, the high-profile nature of the case makes it more likely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In both cases, the health boards were accused of harassment, victimisation and discrimination. But the judges were in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-374214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}