Mick Hartley

The employment tribunal examining the Sandie Peggie case has found that, yes, she was harassed by NHS Fife – but her other claims were dismissed. Only a partial victory, then.

First thoughts from Sex Matters:

We are pleased that Sandie Peggie has won her claim of harassment against NHS Fife, and that the hospital trust was criticised for its terrible handling of the complaint against her.

We are disappointed the tribunal sought to reach a spurious “balance” between a woman’s right to undress with privacy & dignity, and the right of an employee w the PC of gender reassignment not to be discriminated against in employment.

The idea that a woman finding herself unexpectedly or unwantedly with a man in a “female” changing room must consider questions of human rights or protected characteristics is ridiculous and unworkable.

The way an employer should protect both of their rights is to set clear rules about whether spaces are single sex or mixed sex.

The case demonstrates that employers with ambiguous policies are putting themselves in legal jeopardy. But the tribunal has failed to provide them with the clarity they need in order to be confident that they can simply and clearly say No to men who want to use women’s spaces.

It is a travesty that a woman can be judged as having expressed herself in the wrong way when she objects to finding a man in the women’s changing room because the employer gave him permission to be there.

Sandie Peggie has said: “I am beyond relieved and delighted that the Tribunal has found that my employer Fife Health Board harassed me after I complained about having to share a female only changing room with a male colleague”.

Sandie’s bravery is an inspiration, but it shouldn’t require bravery for women to be able to say to their employers, clearly and in natural language, that male colleagues – men, in other words – have no place in spaces that exist for the safety, dignity and privacy of women.

There are thousands of women like Sandie all over the country. The only way to break the pattern of harassment of women who object to men in women-only spaces is to have clear rules and expect everyone to follow them.

This problem cannot be solved by leaving individual women to upend their lives, fundraise to take court cases and then endure cross-examination and public scrutiny – all simply to win back what was a right that was beyond question until recently, and which most people still support.

It is now urgent that the Health and Safety Executive steps up and provides clear guidance to employers on workplace toilets and changing rooms. Employers cannot be expected to make complex human-rights determinations about whether particular men are allowed into women’s changing rooms, and then to wait and see if any individual women complain.

Room for an appeal?

Added: the language of the judgement is the language of trans activists.

“Assigned female at birth”; the man dresses and speaks in a feminine style….and therefore is a woman?

And doesn’t this fly in the face of the Supreme Court ruling on single-sex spaces?