British nurses awarded nearly $250K after transgender bathroom dispute

A court awarded a group of British nurses nearly $250,000 in damages for having to share female-only changing rooms with a man. The nurses sued Darlington Memorial Hospital after it required the nurses to use the rooms with a man who identified as a woman. Then in January, an employment tribunal found the hospital had unlawfully discriminated against the nurses. The monetary award marked another landmark victory for the women, Christian Legal Centre said Wednesday. These nurses refused to back down despite pressure from Britain’s national health service to “trample over biological reality,” said Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the center, in a statement.

The outcome was a vindication of privacy, dignity, and common sense, said Bethany Hutchison, one of the nurses involved and the president of the Darlington Nursing Union, in a statement. It will help protect women across the U.K. from feeling unsafe in their workplace, she said.

The $246,000 payout did not include legal costs, which are to be decided at a later hearing, Christian Legal Centre said.

How did the hospital discriminate against the nurses? The tribunal ruled that the hospital’s requirements created a hostile work environment for the nurses. The nurses first raised concerns about the hospital’s policy in 2023, and then sued in 2024, according to Christian Legal Centre. The women said that sharing the bathroom with a man violated their privacy and negatively affected nurses who had experienced abuse. But the hospital brushed aside their concerns and told the nurses to be more inclusive, Christian Legal Centre said.

Following the January ruling, the hospital has formally apologized to the nurses, according to Christian Legal Centre. The medical center also said that the use of changing rooms would be based on sex going forward.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report on when a U.K. tribunal ruled in favor of the nurses in January.