Asking transgender worker about her underwear was discrimination

A transgender worker has won her claim of gender reassignment discrimination after she was asked by her manager if she wore underwear. The employee worked as a catering assistant at the Northern General Hospital.

• Claimant was questioned by manager if she wore underwear at work.
• “V” also suffered abuse from her co-workers.
• Manager argued there had been concern about V being naked in changing room.

A transgender worker has won her claim of gender reassignment discrimination after she was asked by her manager if she wore underwear at work. The employee, whose identity cannot be revealed for legal reasons and is referred to as V, worked as a catering assistant at the Northern General Hospital, run by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She claimed she suffered abuse from her co-workers and was asked by a female manager ‘if she wore underwear at work’ or ‘if she wore it in general’.

V took legal action claiming she was being discriminated against because of her gender reassignment. The manager explained to the Employment Tribunal that she asked the question because there had been ‘concern’ among staff that V was ‘naked from the waist down’ in the communal changing room and had made a ‘light-hearted’ comment about being so hot at work she took her pants off. However, the judge ruled in V’s favour, saying: “A concern about the woman’s state of undress in the changing rooms was likely to be connected with the fact that she is a transgender woman. This was a communal changing room with a shower cubicle. It did not seem to the Tribunal likely that there would have been a concern about a cisgender woman in a state of undress while changing in such a changing room.”

A remedy hearing will be held separately. 

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