Mick Hartley

Michael Foran on an important judgement – The right to be gender critical:

An Employment Tribunal yesterday held that a social worker was harassed on the basis of her protected gender critical beliefs when Social Work England and Westminster City Council subjected her to a protracted disciplinary process and described her expression of gender critical beliefs as transphobic. This case affirms the law protecting employees in their holding and manifestation of gender critical views and should be seen as a stark warning to employers not to embrace a culture war narrative that gender critical views are by definition transphobic.

Rachel Meade had worked at Westminster City Council since 2001. She had a private Facebook page where she posted messages to about 40 friends, including some colleagues. On the 15th of June 2020, one of those colleagues, Aedon Wolton, complained to Social Work England that Rachel had made transphobic comments on her account, signed petitions “by organisations known to harass the trans community” and donated money to causes “which seek to erode the right of transpeople as enshrined in law”. 

This complaint was investigated. The Facebook posts that were of particular concern to Social Work England included a link to a petition to the International Olympic Committee that male athletes should not compete in female sports and a link to a petition that women have the right to maintain their sex-based protections in the Equality act, including female only spaces.

Rachel was notified that there was a realistic prospect that her fitness to practice would be found to be impaired by virtue of being “conduct of a morally culpable or other disgraceful kind”….

The Tribunal concluded that the disciplinary process Rachel was subject to constituted harassment. This was exacerbated by investigators describing her Facebook posts as transphobic. Importantly, it was also held that this independently constituted harassment, a finding that should be taken very seriously by employers in describing gender critical views.

Rachel’s suspension was “wholly excessive and undoubtedly constituted an act of harassment”. The suggestion that she might pose a threat to vulnerable clients, children or adults was an act of harassment….

The Tribunal was heavily critical of the investigators for their clear failure to do due diligence to ensure that the complaint against Rachel was not malicious. This should be seen as a warning to employers not to unquestioningly investigate every complaint made by hard-line activists. Some complaints should be dismissed out of hand.