A basic expectation in any workplace is that female staff should be allowed to change in safety and privacy. 

An Employment Tribunal in the United Kingdom has now affirmed that principle in a significant ruling involving nurses at Darlington Memorial Hospital.

The case was brought by a group of female nurses who had raised concerns about having to share their changing rooms with a transgender-identifying man.

The Darlington NHS Foundation Trust dismissed their concerns and told them to “be educated” because the man “identifies as a woman”.

The Tribunal found that County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust acted unlawfully by requiring the nurses to share their changing rooms and by failing to properly address the nurses’ fears when they raised them. It held that the Trust’s approach had the effect of violating the nurses’ dignity and creating a hostile, humiliating and degrading environment.

This ruling arrives amid continued international debate about how to interpret sex-based protections, and it follows the UK Supreme Court’s April 2025 decision in For Women Scotland Ltd v Scottish Ministers, which ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex for the purposes of discrimination law in the UK.

This finding reinforces common sense: workplaces must respect lawful biological sex-based rights and certainly must not punish or sideline women who voice reasonable concerns for their privacy and safety.

In Australia, these disputes are ongoing, with HRLA client Jasmine Sussex currently defending against a vilification complaint for publicly raising concerns about the safety of men “breastfeeding”.

HRLA will continue to stand for fundamental freedoms in the Australian workplace and beyond, including the right to speak truth, to stand up for women’s rights and personal dignity, and to ensure the law is applied with clarity rather than ideology.