Social worker suspended for believing people can’t change sex wins tribunal case

A UK social worker who was suspended from her job for holding ‘gender critical’ beliefs has won a court case against her employers and regulating body.

An employment tribunal heard how Rachel Meade had been placed under a Fitness to Practise investigation after she shared a petition to the International Olympic Committee calling on biological males to be prevented from participating in women’s sports.

The 55-year-old, who has worked for Westminster City Council for two decades won her employment tribunal case after she was suspended from her position for a year because she does not believe that a person “cannot change their sex.”

She described her legal win as a “huge relief” adding that she hoped “it will make it easier for other regulated professionals to speak up without threats to their career and reputation”.

According to employment and business journalist, Jo Faragher, a Facebook friend of Meade reported her to Social Work England claiming that she had had “signed numerous petitions published by organisations known to harass the trans community, and that she had donated money to causes that seek to erode trans rights.”

“Meade had also forwarded a post from Fair Play for Women, an organisation that campaigns for sex-based rights, linking to a Private Eye satire stating: “Boys that identify as girls go to Girl Guides. Girls that identify as boys go to Boy Scouts. Men that identify as paedophile go to either.” it said. 

Westminster City Council then suspended Meade on charges of gross misconduct before issuing her with a letter of final warning. 

The City Council’s own disciplinary investigation took a year to come to court resulting in Meade – who claimed in her evidence that she had been “bullied into silence” – being suspended for the duration of that period. 

The tribunal found that Meade’s social media posts were protected under articles 9 and 10 of the Human Rights Act saying that “In particular we do not consider that the respondents struck a fair balance between the claimant’s right to freedom of expression and the interests of those who they perceived may be offended by her Facebook posts,”

Social Work England was criticised for its failure to do adequate checks on the social media history of the individual who had reported Meade’s facebook posts to verify whether or not malicious intent was a factor. 

Social Work England’s actions were described as “indicative of a lack of rigour in the investigation, and an apparent willingness to accept a complaint from one side of the gender self-identification/gender-critical debate without appropriate objective balance of the potential validity of different views in what is a highly polarised debate”.

‘We consider it wholly inappropriate that an individual such as the Claimant espousing one side of the debate should be labelled discriminatory, transphobic and to pose a potential risk to vulnerable service users” the Tribunal said, adding that this “in effect” equated Meade and her views as being “equivalent to an employee/social worker espousing racially discriminatory or homophobic views.”

“The opinions expressed by the Claimant could not sensibly be viewed as being transphobic when properly considered in their full context from an objective perspective, but rather her expressing an opinion contrary to the interpretation of legislation, or perhaps more accurately the amendment to existing legislation, advocated for by trans lobbying groups to include, but not limited to, Stonewall.'” it concluded.