The National Health Service Trust overseeing Britain’s transgender youth clinic — which has been plagued by controversies — is facing discrimination claims after a job candidate who maintains that sex is an immutable characteristic was turned away on that basis.
Kate Grimes, a retired hospital CEO, responded to an advertisement for a chairman and two non-executive positions but was told in an email by a representative from a recruitment firm,
I have to say that your view on sex being immutable is not a view point that the trust would wish any of their non-executives to hold and as such I would not recommend that you waste time making an application for this — it will be one of the questions I will be asking candidates at first stage interview.
This is potentially illegal under British law. As the Times of London reports:
While gender-critical individuals such as JK Rowling have been denounced by activists as transphobic, a landmark ruling last year, involving the case of Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who lost her job after saying that people cannot change their biological sex, found that gender-critical views were worthy of respect in a democratic society. A High Court judge ruled that holding gender-critical views constitutes a protected philosophical belief under the Equalities Act.
Grimes has filed a complaint with Sajid Javid, the health secretary, to warn him of “indoctrination at an organizational level.” Javid must surely already know that this is happening. Most of the time, clinical activists don’t even bother hiding their ideological biases. Still, it’s heartening to see that pushback to the activist infiltration of health care in the U.K. is having some effect.
