There is a large question mark over whether Kemi Badenoch will be able to properly revive the Conservative Party which she now leads. But she has taken a step in the right direction—albeit one which ought to be taken for granted—by throwing her weight behind a group of nurses pushing for a ban on male transgender NHS workers using women’s lavatories and changing rooms.
The eight women who work at Darlington Memorial Hospital in County Durham are suing their employer after they were forced to change into their work clothes in front of a “sexually active male, who identifies as a woman called Rose.” They have also drafted proposed new guidance for the NHS that would ban transgender people from female single-sex spaces.
After meeting Tory frontbencher Claire Coutinho on Monday, one of the nurses said they were “encouraged” by what had been said, particularly by the fact “we were told that Kemi Badenoch backs our case.”
Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting also met with the women earlier this year, saying he was “horrified that they’ve had to resort to legal action,” and reportedly telling them he agreed that sex is biological.
But the Tories clearly want to make this their issue, and have said they will “push” Streeting to translate rhetoric into action. Their support for the nurses prompted journalist Jo Bartosch to joke: “Remember when it was unions, not Tory leaders, who stood up for workers?”
Andrea Williams, who is chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, described this as “a highly constructive meeting, with clear views expressed that equality and diversity policies need to be entirely revisited in the NHS and in workplaces across the country.”
Campaigners have highlighted that this is hardly a controversial issue. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling wrote earlier this year, for example, that “it isn’t a female changing room if it includes trans-identified men,” adding:
I hope the Darlington nurses know how many millions of women stand with them.
