The finding in the Darlington nurses' case that Rose Henderson did not personally harass the claimants is fascinating. Harassment is made out if there has been unwanted conduct related to a relevant PC (sex or gender reassignment, here) which had the purpose or effect of violating the claimants' dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humilating or offensive environment for them.

Final 🧵(for now) on the Darlington Nurses judgment. Rose continued to use the women's changing room knowing that a significant number of his female colleagues objected to his use of it.

Apologies for the hiatus while X was down and other work had to be done. A third 🧵on the Darlington Nurses judgment, skipping now to the conclusions. The tribunal accepts the statements of the obvious of which @JoPhoenix1 gave evidence:

Second 🧵on the Darlington Nurses judgment. It's a mystery no-one has ever been able to clear up. What is it, to "live as a woman?" (Are the Legal Feminists doing it right?)

Excellent news.

First impressions on a read-through coming up.

https://twitter.com/CConcern/status/2012121321677746363

Very first impression: just for clear and concrete language and straightforward, comprehensible reasoning, this judgment is a breath of fresh air.

Congratulations to the English Blackball Pool Federation on doing the right thing, and being vindicated in a searingly unequivocal judgment. 🧵

https://twitter.com/WomensRightsNet/status/1951222221147349131

Harriet Haynes, a man who says he is a woman (and holds a GRC), sued the EBPF for excluding him from women's competitions and teams. He complained of discrimination because of gender reassignment.

A new version of the Equal Treatment Bench Book is out. Definite improvements to Chapter 12 "Trans People". The new version is to be found here.
judiciary.uk/wp-content/upl…

There’s an astonishing quantity of nonsense being talked about the Supreme Court’s FWS judgment, still, including by otherwise reputable lawyers who should know better. So let's get a few things straight.

Some comments in response to this disappointing piece by employment solicitors @traverssmith


There’s still a lot of misguided and inaccurate advice being disseminated by lawyers about the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland. It’s a worry.traverssmith.com/knowledge/know… 1. There are only complex questions now because employers have been unlawfully operating self-ID policies for years.

There will be a great deal of this, and it will be infuriating. More employees will lose their jobs for trying to persuade their employers to comply with the law.

https://twitter.com/cathy_ahf/status/1919825603605250151

A few thoughts about how to put pressure on your employer while minimising the risk to your job.

The Legal Feminists have been reading the judgment of the Supreme Court in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers with some interest. 🧵

thetimes.com/uk/society/art… It's a long judgment, and there will be plenty to digest, so this is just a first impression of some of the key points.

A short🧵 on @barstandards' proposal to require barristers to "act in a way that advances equality, diversity and inclusion" (proposed new Core Duty 8). "Gender-critical" barristers have expressed anxieties that the proposed new duty will be used to suppress dissent from fashionable orthodoxies, including gender identity theory.

This is a fascinating and important contribution to the thinking about FWS v Scottish Ministers, coming up in the SC next month.

https://twitter.com/michaelpforan/status/1847775931521187923

It's quite technical, so here's a shot at a short summary.

A @Waterstones employee tweets "Ooh I'll enjoy tearing your books up and popping them in the bin today" at an author who expresses support for @SEENPublishing. She is promptly sacked.

Is this the first dismissal for gender identity belief? Well, no. If the essential facts are as above, it's nothing of the sort.

The Legal Feminists have been reading this blog by Melanie Field,@EHRC's former Chief Strategy and Policy Officer linkedin.com/pulse/do-we-ne… The blog starts with the usual expressions of regret about the "tone" of the debate — and the usual implication (often spelled out, though not here) that both sides are to blame.

Follow this link for a quick reminder of the truth on that: sex-matters.org/posts/updates/…

This is a sufficiently widespread error that we can perhaps use it as a “teachable moment”.

https://twitter.com/ShirleyMclean45/status/1805323138231865729

Broadly speaking, the protection from discrimination on grounds of the different protected characteristics provided by the EqA is the same.

But the exceptions work very differently, and that reflects what very different kinds of things the PCs are.

McCloud says if FWS win their appeal: "I would be female for some things, like death and marriage, but I would be forced to be treated as male by employers, shops, goods and services".

This is wrong, and obviously so.

independent.co.uk/lgbt/pride-lis… A GRC deems the holder's sex to have changed for some limited purposes. The words of s.9 of the GRA are wide. ("all purposes"), but that's necessarily confined to those fairly few purposes for which the law distinguishes between male and female; and there are exceptions.

Yesterday's thread on Rachel Meade's case concentrated on damages, but the recommendations made against Social Work England and Westminster City Council are also significant.

crowdjustice.com/case/unlawful-… WCC must train all its managers and HR staff on freedom of expression and protected belief, to include the implications of the EAT judgment in Forstater. It must share full details of that training with Ms Meade, including details of the trainer and any slides, handouts etc.

Social worker Rachel Meade has been awarded £40,000 for injury to feelings against @SocialWorkEng and @CityWestminster, aggravated damages against both, and exemplary damages against SWE.

thetimes.co.uk/article/social… Exemplary damages are awarded to punish conduct that is "oppressive, arbitrary or unconstitutional". They are rare.

It's important and significant that @HadleyFreeman uses masculine pronouns for Scarlett Blake and Barbie Kardashian in this piece. Well done @thetimes.

thetimes.co.uk/article/indulg… It's important because the myth that people who assert a trans identity have a legal right to have others "respect" it by using their preferred pronouns has been so widely spread. That's nonsense, but many people believe it.

Demands for preferred pronouns and article 8 - a short 🧵 It seems to be widely assumed that a the claim of a trans-identifying person in the workplace to have others compelled to use his or her preferred pronouns is based on article 8.