The long march of feminism has taken many forms, but has any other historic victory been celebrated with a cheeky Nando’s, before a dash home to relieve the babysitter?
Somehow, it feels fitting that this one was. The seven nurses who won a landmark tribunal against their NHS bosses on Friday – with supporters hailing them as modern-day Suffragettes – tell me they ended their momentous day in a way that any off-duty nurses in Darlington might do: with chicken wings and chips, before heading home to their families.
There may well be a few glasses of wine downed over the weekend (‘or a Disaronno in Karen’s case’, they laugh, teasing the once most vulnerable member of their little army), but the mood today is of relief and utter exhaustion. They admit they’d like to sleep for a week.
‘We are over the moon. We feel vindicated,’ says Bethany Hutchison, 36, the youngest of the nurses and their commander-in-chief. ‘At last, common sense prevails. But it has been all consuming.
‘This was something we knew we could lose our jobs over, and we were prepared for that. We still are because it’s not over yet.’
We will return to the issue of why it’s only the battle that has been won – not the war. But what a battle these women have waged.
It has been 18 months since this group of nurses resolved to have a ‘quiet word’ with bosses about feeling uneasy over being forced to share a hospital changing room with a ‘fully intact’, as they put it, male colleague who identified as a woman.
They expected that their superiors would, in turn, have a quiet word with Rose Henderson, the trans nurse in question, whose presence in ‘their’ changing room, in holey boxer shorts, had made them feel uncomfortable.
They were confident the matter would be resolved without kerfuffle. However, instead of their legitimate concerns being listened to, the nurses were effectively told to put up and shut up. Rose’s rights trumped theirs – and how absolutely dare they make a fuss.
When they stood their ground – pointing out that it was the law, not them, that said single-sex spaces should be sacrosanct – they were called bigots and told by bosses they needed to be ‘educated’ and should ‘broaden their mindset’.
All of which was unlawful, we can say, unequivocally. The tribunal ruled that County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust created a ‘hostile, humiliating and degrading environment’ for the nurses, ‘violating the dignity’ of these women at work.
The ruling has huge implications not just for these nurses, or their colleagues in Darlington, but for all NHS trusts, who could be left open to legal action.
That these women had to go to court – and they admit there were times they felt on trial themselves – to establish that women have the right not to have to undress in front of men at work is scandalous.
As JK Rowling, one of their highest profile supporters, who dubbed them ‘heroines’, put it: ‘Twenty years ago, that sentence would have been a statement of such obviousness that people would have laughed at you for saying it aloud. Now it’s a matter of celebration.’
The Mail on Sunday has been alongside the women for every step of their journey – it was this newspaper that brought their legal action to public attention.
What’s striking, as the nurses reflect on their ordeal, is not their anger (which is still palpable), but the sense of disappointment they carry. These are women who have had the scales fall from their eyes.
Despite being able to boast, collectively, more than 100 years of loyalty to the NHS, they discovered a terrible truth during the tribunal process: that the NHS did not care one jot about them.
It makes the idea of pitching up for work next week – as most of them will – bittersweet.
‘To be honest with you, it does leave a bad taste, the whole experience of going up against the trust,’ Lisa Lockey, 52, says. ‘You don’t feel looked after. We feel they don’t give a stuff about any of us. They just don’t care.
‘They don’t care about Rose either. If the tribunal showed us anything, it was that they were all about protecting their own jobs. It does leave you feeling a bit flat, the idea of working for them knowing how little you mean.’
Bethany nods. ‘The other thing that we found difficult to take was watching the people on the big bucks show themselves to be completely incompetent.
‘Nurses aren’t paid very much but we work our backsides off, but discovering that your HR department is run by people like that was insulting.
‘For me, one of the most unbelievable parts was when they were being asked about where their policy [to prioritise trans rights] came from. They kept saying ‘the trust’. But who is the trust? No one would say, or take responsibility.
‘In fact, they blamed each other. They tried to throw each other under the bus. It was quite cringe, actually, embarrassing.’
And all of it could have been avoided, they say. ‘None of this was necessary,’ Annice Grundy says. ‘If they’d just gone to Rose at the start and said: “Look, a few women have complained, how would you feel about using a different room?”
‘But no one was willing to even approach Rose because they’d become so captured by this trans ideology. It might have been a difficult conversation, but they are getting paid a lot of money to do their job.’
‘No nurse should face disciplinary action for raising legitimate safeguarding concerns,’ says Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which has backed their case from the beginning.
‘What has happened to them exposes a culture within the NHS that has lost its way, where protecting staff and patients is sacrificed to appease extreme gender ideology.’
Astonishingly, while no heads have (yet) rolled over how the nurses were treated, they tell me their positions are still not secure. ‘We are still under investigation by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, who have the power to remove our pins,’ Bethany says.
‘We discovered it was a male colleague who reported us, not Rose. That was a difficult moment, but it’s still hanging over us, which isn’t a nice position to be in.’
These women didn’t know each other that well before the changing room incident that left Karen Danson – a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her father – shaking.
The 46-year-old would never have undressed in front of a man, but in 2023 she found herself alone in the locker room with Rose, who was wearing boxers. When Rose asked, ‘Are you getting changed?’ she froze.
Karen confided in Bethany, who had heard similar concerns from other women, so she had that ‘quiet word’ with her manager, never believing it would unleash the war that has waged since.
Of the 26 women who signed a letter to their bosses complaining about the policy, only eight pursued the matter to tribunal.
One nurse bowed out of proceedings due to ill health, leaving seven to face career uncertainty, threats from trans activists and public vilification.
What a tight unit they are now. They tell me that when they can sort out childcare, they have pizza nights (‘and wine nights’), mostly at Lisa’s house. A sisterhood has developed.
Between them, they have nine daughters, and say they were always mindful of this when they put their careers on the line. ‘And not just for our daughters, but for all women,’ Annice, 56, says.
How high the stakes were, though. Lisa tells me that her stance put her in direct conflict with her 26-year-old son, who has friends in the LGBT community.
‘But when the ruling came he sent me a text saying he was over the moon for me, which is a relief,’ Lisa says. ‘I think people can see we always had a point.’
Not everyone, though. While the tribunal judge eviscerated the trust, the nurses have a long list of people who let them down. They sat down with Wes Streeting early in this ‘mess’ (Lisa’s word). They believed the Health Secretary when he said he was in their corner. ‘It was just lip service,’ says Bethany. ‘He let us down.’
Ditto the unions. Some of the nurses were members of the Royal College of Nursing. No longer. ‘Put it this way, in the first meeting we had [with managers], the RCN rep sat down and said: ‘I’m only here in an observing capacity,’ says Bethany. ‘These are union reps who are supposed to advocate for members.’
Those who were members of Unison had an even more brutal awakening. ‘I emailed my Unison rep and he never replied,’ Lisa says. ‘A couple of months later I learned he was representing Rose. I guess he picked his camp.’
The women have now set up their own union, but they are finding potential members to be ‘terrified’. ‘They operate in an atmosphere of fear that they are going to lose their jobs if they rock the boat,’ Lisa says. ‘Even being seen to agree with us – which so many people do – is a risk.’
Will their victory change this? ‘I hope so, but now the Government has to act.’
The first thing it can do is publish the guidance on single-sex spaces for firms looking to implement the Supreme Court’s clarification last year that the Equality Act 2010 referred to a person’s biological sex, not gender identity.
Bridget Phillipson, minister for equalities and women, has said she has a responsibility to deal with the matter ‘thoroughly and carefully’.
What message do the nurses have for her? ‘Get on with it,’ says Lisa, bluntly. ‘I could have had a baby since the Supreme Court ruling. What exactly is she waiting for?’
