(LifeSiteNews) — In the United Kingdom, the transgender movement is on the back foot after a series of high profile legal and legislative losses. But after a decade of embedding gender ideology into the country’s institutions, transgender activists have many methods of making their opponents pay.
Four nurses – Bethany Hutchison, Lisa Lockey, Annice Grundy, and Tracey Hooper – have discovered this fact once again. As we reported, the nurses had previously complained about being forced to undress in front of “Rose” Henderson, a transgender-identifying male colleague (who had not undergone any “sex change” surgeries).
In response to their complaints, the nurses were told to be “more inclusive,” to “broaden their mindset,” and were even offered re-education in order to get comfortable changing in front of a transgender-identifying male. Hutchison stated that transgender policies at the Darlington NHS Foundation Trust and Darlington Memorial Hospital were “putting women at risk.” The four women are suing the trust for discrimination and sexual harassment.
Transgender activists, however, are striking back. The Sun reported earlier this week that the four nurses “are facing a misconduct probe after complaining about sharing a changing room,” with the nurses stating that “the complaints are ideologically driven and amount to unlawful victimization” and that “their concerns and actions are protected by the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act.”
“Supported by the Christian Legal Centre, the group say they complied with the NMC code and were acting in good faith,” The Sun noted. “The Nursing and Midwifery Council has since written to the nurses and confirmed it will still be probing whether their actions require a full investigation. According to The Telegraph, it said it will ‘assess whether the concerns raised require a full NMC investigation.’”
This is the same playbook that transgender activists used when nurse Peggy Upton complained about a transgender-identifying male using female-only facilities; suddenly, Upton found herself facing a wide range of misconduct allegations. Upton was cleared of those allegations in June. The warning being sent is clear: If you complain, we will come for your reputation, your job, and your good name—and we will drag you through court to do so.
In other words: Shut up and change in front of the men if you know what’s good for you, ladies.
Claire Coutinho, the shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, excoriated the move. “It is beyond belief that these four remarkable nurses may now be dragged through another vexatious process simply because they stood up against radical transgender ideology in the NHS and defended their right to single-sex spaces,” she said. “Our institutions have been captured by an ideology that wants to pretend that biological sex isn’t real and puts the feelings of transgender women above the rights of women to get changed in dignity, privacy, and safety. The Government needs to get a grip and intervene to make sure the Darlington Nurses are not punished for believing women are women.”
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, concurred. “It’s quite something … these nurses are being disciplined for believing in biology; that men are men and women are women,” she said. “We need to be clear it now takes extraordinary courage just for speaking obvious truth. They are not being targeted for misconduct, but for standing up for basic rights and safeguarding. These complaints should be dismissed without delay. Millions of people across this country and around the world support the nurses.”
But transgender activists have support higher up as well. Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, came out this month to state that he is concerned about “transgender rights” in the UK after the Supreme Court decided in April that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 refers to actual women, not those who merely identify as women.
O’Flaherty sent a letter to that effect to the respective chairs of the UK parliament’s joint committee on human rights and the women and equalities committee. O’Flaherty insisted that portraying “trans rights” as threatening women’s rights builds “on prejudice against trans people and portray upholding their human rights as a de facto threat to the rights of others.” He continued:
Such a zero-sum approach risks certain inferences being drawn from the UK supreme court judgment that could lead to widespread exclusion of trans people from many public spaces. This, in turn, may severely infringe on their ability to participate fully and equally in society. This is particularly the case, as discussions about how access to services and facilities will have to be regulated following the judgment have tended towards the exclusion of trans people.
By “public spaces,” then, O’Flaherty is referring to private spaces—that is, female-only facilities that bar men, including trans-identifying men. Like all trans activists, he is utterly unconcerned about the plight of actual women who are forced to change in front of trans-identifying men in these “public” spaces—he is only concerned with the recent losses faced by the transgender movement in the UK.
Meanwhile, women are forced to continue the fight against their own institutions, unions, employers—and men like O’Flaherty. Fortunately, they seem to be winning.
