A group of female nurses in the United Kingdom (UK) have filed a lawsuit against a National Health Service (NHS) Trust, claiming their hospital’s priority of embracing gender ideology led to a male nurse harassing them in the changing room.
The eight nurses work at Darlington Memorial Hospital of the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. Their lawsuit argues that, by allowing men in the women’s changing room, their employer has allowed an environment that fosters sexual harassment and sex discrimination, Sky News reported June 28.
The women explain they are required to change in and out of their scrubs twice a day. They say they feel unsafe undressing in the presence of a man, a situation that continues despite their having raised concerns with hospital officials – who simply told the women that they need to be “re-educated.”
“There’s been occasions where I’ve been in the changing room alone with this colleague who looks very masculine,” said claimant Bethany Hutchison, “and that was a real shock because you feel you want to challenge them, you think, ‘Oh there’s a man in the changing room’ but you can’t because of the trust’s policy.”
Nurse Lisa Lockey also told Sky News that, for her, encountering a man in an enclosed space where people are undressing triggers Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms as a result of sexual abuse she experienced earlier in her life.
“We’re just ordinary nurses,” she said. “Is it too much to ask for a private changing room where you feel comfortable?”
The case has drawn national attention, with famed Harry Potter author JK Rowling – a critic of gender ideology – posting on X in support of the nurses:
“The nurses who are suing County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust for letting a trans-identified man watch them change,” Rowling wrote. “The women and girls being robbed of sporting opportunities. It’s endless.”
The Christian Legal Centre is also backing the lawsuit. The organization’s Chief Executive Andrea Williams said the nurses’ case and the recent blockbuster report by British pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass both “demonstrate how transgender ideology has led to a public health crisis, not only for vulnerable children and for patients on wards, but now also for NHS staff who are just trying to do their job.”
Lockey told Fox News the nurses are “thrilled” with the support they have received.
“All we want to do is just defend our right to a female-only space,” she said. “We don’t want to attack trans people. We know that there’s a lot of really good trans people out there that wouldn’t mean any harm to anybody.”
The County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust said in a statement that they are “committed to providing safe and compassionate, inclusive and respectful care for our patients and visitors as well as an inclusive and respectful work environment for all colleagues,” but at the same time they “need to adhere to legal requirements and best practices”:
At this stage the claims being made need to be fully investigated and reviewed. This work continues through our internal processes. Alternative arrangements and adjustments have been put in place … We are committed to working together with all parties to find a constructive solution that respects the rights and dignity of all individuals while maintaining the highest standards of professionalism and fairness.
In an opinion piece at The Telegraph, Brexit supporter Allison Pearson wrote she “salutes” the nurses “who took a stand against this women-have-penises nonsense.” Pearson also provided further details about the case:
The male operating department practitioner, who, it is said, openly admits he does not take female hormones and is trying to get his girlfriend pregnant, nevertheless insists that he is called “Rose”. The nurses claim that Rose has walked around the female dressing area wearing only tight boxer underpants while allegedly staring and initiating conversations while female nurses are getting changed.
Denouncing calls for “compromise” and further “inclusiveness” to resolve the situation, Pearson shot back:
What kind of compromise you are supposed to reach around a sexually-active biological bloke who is around you when you get your kit off in your workplace may only be clear to those in the advanced stages of gender derangement.
According to Pearson, Hutchison commented on the extent of the fear about speaking out against gender ideology:
This should not be something women even need to think about. However, the extreme transgender ideology that is putting us at risk is so ingrained and has gone so far that we and other women have no choice but to speak out. Other nurses are terrified of sticking their heads above the parapet. We are speaking out for us and for those who are too afraid to. This cannot be right, and we want a change in policy, not only at our hospital but across the NHS and wider society. I am a Christian, but these policies are and will impact every woman from every background.
Within the context of the center-left Labour Party’s win in the recent UK election, Pearson added that “Labour has apparently concluded that it’s better for the party’s prospects to pander to aggressive members of the trans superminority than to consider the safety and wellbeing of millions of women and children.”
As Sky News reported, new Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK’s Equality Act of 2010, which states it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of “sex” – a word that is interpreted differently by different groups – does not need clarification. However, Starmer has committed to protecting single-sex spaces.
Pearson, nevertheless, is not buying into Starmer’s “commitment”:
Like the hapless Joe Biden, Keir Starmer will be swept along on the deluded progressive tide to buy off the shrill far-Left of his party. That much we can foresee. The good news is he will increasingly appal [sic] decent people, especially the working class, once so important to Labour, now a socially-conservative, commonsense, only-men-have-penises embarrassment.
