Mick Hartley

A profile of lawyer Naomi Cunningham, from Julie Bindel in the Telegraph:

Cunningham, 59, became more widely known in 2023 when she represented Rachel Meade, a social worker suspended by Westminster City Council for private social media posts that included “gender-critical” beliefs.

Meade’s was a pivotal case, as it was the first in which both employer and regulator were found liable for discrimination in relation to someone’s gender-critical beliefs. Meade’s former colleague had submitted a dossier containing 70 of her Facebook posts as evidence that her views (that there are only two sexes, for instance) meant she was unfit to practice. Meade was suspended on charges of gross misconduct for a full year before receiving a final written warning.

In January 2024, Cunningham won. The tribunal subsequently ordered professional regulator Social Work England and Westminster City Council to pay Meade more than £58,000, including aggravated damages.

Looking back, it’s hard to believe this actually happened. It’s thanks to women like Cunningham that it’s been exposed for the nonsense it clearly is.

In 2024, she represented rape crisis centre worker Roz Adams in her employment tribunal case against Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC), after Adams was subjected to what the judge called a “heresy hunt” for believing that those using the service should be able to know the sex of staff. The centre was found to have unlawfully discriminated against and harassed Adams, forcing her constructive dismissal. The tribunal awarded her £68,900, and ordered the ERCC to issue a public apology.

The Adams case came a few months after the Isla Bryson scandal, which Cunningham believes fuelled empathy for Adams. Bryson was a double rapist who only began identifying as a woman after being convicted, and here was a woman hounded out of her job for wanting to reassure rape survivors that they could access a women-only service.

“I think Isla Bryson is one of the real heroes of our movement,” says Cunningham, wryly. No other case in the public eye had laid the problem so bare. The Adams case was also the first in which Cunningham used correct-sex pronouns (he/him) to describe a trans-identified man.

According to Cunningham, the taboo around using accurate language has been so successful (and so “viciously” policed) that lawyers have been cowed. “We’ve seen offensive absurdities like rapists being referred to in court as she,” explains Cunningham. “So when I did it in Adams, it felt like quite a big deal.”

Her most high-profile case yet is that of the nurse Sandie Peggie, against the Fife Health Board. Needing to get changed because of a very heavy period, Peggie, now 50, had gone into a hospital’s female-only changing room on Christmas Eve 2023 – where a biological man who identifies as a woman, Dr Beth Upton, was using the facility. Peggie’s complaint to the doctor in question at the time saw Upton accuse her of a hate crime, for which Peggie was suspended from work, and put through two years of hell.

How did she get involved in all this?

In early 2021, Cunningham was asked by Maya Forstater, director of the Sex Matters campaign group, to write a short piece on why sex matters in the law. Researching it, she was “shocked rigid” to discover that the Crown Prosecution Service was a Stonewall “Champion”, meaning that they actively support and promote the rights and inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals. Digging deeper, she discovered that almost every police force in the country, as well as the legal institutions, Ministry of Justice, the judiciary, and all the big law firms were also signed up. In the end, she wrote a much longer piece on the topic….

Today, Cunningham is confident that change is on the way. “There’ll be some remnants of [extreme gender ideology] left but… I think it’s on its way out,” she says.

I’m sure she’s right – but there’s a way to go yet.