The Women’s Rights Party is calling on the Coalition Government to ban public sector policies that allow males identifying as women to access women employees’ changing facilities.
On Friday a group of UK nurses from Darlington Memorial Hospital won their employment-tribunal claim challenging a workplace policy of the NHS Foundation Trust that employed them which allowed men identifying as women to use their changing rooms.
The judgment concluded that the hospital’s “Transition in the Workplace” policy was unlawful. Employment Judge Seamus Sweeney ruled that the NHS had violated the nurses’ dignity and that the trust’s conduct amounted to harassment.
He said allowing the “trans colleague” to share changing facilities had created a “hostile, intimidating, humiliating and degrading environment”.
After the nurses formally complained in March 2024 that a trans-identified male nurse accessing the nurses’ changing room was watching them getting undressed as they changed into their uniforms, the women were told by Human Resources that they needed to “be more inclusive”, “broaden their mindset” and “be educated and attend training”.
Dozens of female staff complained and eight nurses sued their employer for sexual harassment and sex discrimination in what is regarded as a landmark case following the UK Supreme Court’s clarification of the meaning of “sex” in the UK Equality Act.
The nurses also met with Health Secretary Wes Streeting to urge the Government to do “whatever is necessary” to ensure women have access to single-sex toilets and changing facilities.Women’s Rights Party Co-leader Jill Ovens says similar women-unfriendly policies are today operating in workplaces across New Zealand. The policies were promoted by the former Labour Government and embedded throughout the public service, as well as Health NZ.
The Government’s employment website provides employers with specific guidance on the use of facilities that match employees’ gender identity as being particularly important for “trans people”.
The guidance states: “An employee should be able to use facilities that match their gender identity, for example: trans women should be able to use a women’s toilet, and trans men should be able to use a men’s toilet. While a unisex toilet is a positive way to ensure facilities are inclusive (and may be more comfortable for a trans person early in their transition), a trans employee should not be stopped from using the appropriate single-sex toilet.”
The Women’s Rights Party says there is no consideration of the rights of women employees to dignity and privacy in “Gender Diversity and Inclusion” policies, which are in place throughout public service organisations, and which Health NZ inherited from the former District Health Boards.
“The policies have pitted women’s sex-based rights against rights based on ‘gender identity’. The fact is that women overwhelmingly predominate in our public services, including in the health sector and yet women’s rights have not been considered,” Jill Ovens says.
As a union rep for the midwives’ union, Jill Ovens provided feedback on DHB policies that pitted women’s sex-based rights against rights based on “gender identity”. “Trans employees” were to be given access to women’s changing rooms, among other provisions, and had the right to management support if they were challenged in any way.
Jill Ovens was roundly turned on by organisers from the PSA and NZNO, who accused her of bigotry in questioning such policies.