The worker who was born a man

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February 22, 2026

A ruling that an NHS manager discriminated against a transgender employee by asking if they took off their underwear in a women’s changing room has “deeply worrying” implications, an MP has said.

The worker, who was born a man, successfully sued Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for gender reassignment discrimination in July. Employment judges heard that a manager had questioned the employee after concerns were raised that ~~they~~ had been naked from the waist down in the women’s changing room.

HE! That HE had been naked from the waist down. Don’t pander to this shit in the very act of reporting on it.

Sarah-Jane Davies, the tribunal judge, said in the ruling: “This was a communal changing room with a shower cubicle. [It did not seem] likely that there would have been a concern about a cisgender woman in a state of undress while changing in such a changing room.” The ruling means the trans woman will be entitled to damages, which will be allocated later.

God almighty are people simply melting their brains down with blowtorches? Of course women have “a concern” about men getting naked in such a changing room while not having the same concern about women doing so.

Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, wrote to Kirsten Major, the chief executive of the hospitals trust, pointing out that she had a “narrow window” of time to appeal against the ruling. The trust chose not to appeal, however, and Cates told The Times that “the implications of this judgment, and the failure to challenge it, are deeply worrying”.

In her letter to hospital bosses, Cates said it had emerged during the hearing that the trust had “instructed” biological women employees that they had “to deny reality in order to be inclusive and keep their jobs”. She asked: “Why are women being re-educated to suppress their natural and understandable discomfort about being forced to share intimate facilities with a man?”

Because trans ideology.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission said it was aware of concern about the tribunal judgment. “We are interested in clarifying the law where rights between different protected characteristics overlap,” the commission said.

“Trans” shouldn’t be a protected characteristic. It just shouldn’t. If it is, it obliterates women’s rights, and that’s not a good outcome. When trans rights=men get to be in women’s spaces and get naked whether the women like it or not, that’s not a good outcome.

Comments

9 responses to “The worker who was born a man”

Artymorty

Feb 22, 2026 3:42 AM

Why do these people always pretend that the man-pretending-to-be-a-woman doesn’t know that he’s a man? He knows full well that he’s got a penis; he knows full well what he’s doing. The judge seems to think that if she pretends hard enough not to know that he’s a man, then he himself won’t know either.

Whenever I hear about cases like this the first thing that comes to mind is, I hope someone’s scouring the local fetish apps and online spaces for this guy’s profile, because there’s a less-than-zero chance that he’s bragging about what he’s doing to a group of fellow fetishist men somewhere online.
Alan Peakall

Feb 22, 2026 8:51 AM

Note this news story is from 2022. I was only alerted to that by the thought that it seemed very implausible for an incumbent Conservative MP to have held on in Penistone and Stocksbridge in 2024.
maddog1129

Feb 22, 2026 9:17 AM

A more than zero chance?
Ophelia Benson

Feb 22, 2026 9:33 AM

Ah the value of local knowledge.
guest

Feb 22, 2026 10:54 AM

The way I think Sex Matters explains it, ‘protected characteristic’ means that a person can justifiably be said to be discriminated against if he/she is treated differently than someone without that protected characteristic. So a man with the ‘protected characteristic’ of gender reassignment should and must be treated the same as a man without that protected characteristic – not the same as a woman, which he is not and has no claim to be. (This does set aside the question of whether in general a man with the ‘protected characteristic’ of gender reassignment is suitable for client-facing roles, can be expected not to lie about other things, is able to maintain emotional regulation, won’t be overtly or inappropriately sexual at work or around others, etc. – but those are separate issues.)
Ophelia Benson

Feb 22, 2026 11:16 AM

Except in practice they’re not separate at all.
guest

Feb 22, 2026 1:44 PM

You’re legally not allowed to discriminate against a man with a gender reassignment protected characteristic, but you don’t have to hire (or presumably rent to) a man who’s weirdly offputting or unpredictably violent.
Laurel

Feb 23, 2026 3:17 AM

“[It did not seem] likely that there would have been a concern about a cisgender woman in a state of undress while changing in such a changing room.”

Maybe not a concern worth reporting, but I believe the other women might well be a bit concerned or uncomfortable. I’ve never been in a locker room or bathroom where women behave the way men seem to think we do: giggling, comparing nail polish, strolling around with our pants off.

Do men get ALL their ideas about women from porn?
twiliter

Feb 23, 2026 6:42 AM

Born a man? How about born a male, or IS a man. At least they avoided the ‘assigned at birth’ crap.