‘A turning point’: Female nurses score major victory in fight over changing room

An employment tribunal has handed female nurses a huge victory in their fight over their privacy in a changing room.

It seems their employer had allowed a man who simply claimed he was a woman to be there, in violation of the women’s privacy.

It is the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust that had violated the women’s privacy with its practice that allowed a man into the women’s changing room, and told the women to find an alternative if they didn’t like that.

But an Employment Tribunal in the United Kingdom said the policy “violated the dignity” of the nurses because it created a “hostile, humiliating and degrading environment.”

According to a report at the Christian Institute the ruling found the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 require employers to provide changing facilities which “include separate facilities for, or separate use of facilities by, men and women where necessary for reasons of propriety.”

Employment Judge Sweeney and Tribunal members Denise Newey and Malcolm Brain shot down the foundation’s claim that its policy was lawful.

Bethany Hutchison, president of the Darlington Nursing Union, and one of the claimants in the case said: “This is a victory for common sense and for every woman who simply wants to feel safe at work. Women deserve access to single-sex spaces without fear or intimidation. Forcing us to undress in front of a man was not only degrading but dangerous. Today’s ruling sends a clear message: the NHS cannot ignore women’s rights in the name of ideology.”

She continued, “We stood up because we knew this was wrong. No woman should be forced to choose between her job and her safety. This ruling is a turning point, and we will keep fighting until every woman in the NHS is guaranteed the dignity and protection she deserves.”

The Christian Legal Centre and its executive, Andrea Williams, supported the nurses in their case.

Williams said, “This judgment exposes the extent to which the NHS hierarchy has been captured by extreme gender ideology and its willingness to sacrifice women’s safety and dignity in order to uphold it. Allowing a man into a female-only space because he claims to be a woman violates human dignity, common sense, the law of the land and biblical truth.”