How the Darlington nurses were betrayed by their union

Congratulations to the Darlington nurses! Last week, these eight women scored an important legal victory against the NHS Trust that had allowed the female changing rooms at the hospital where they worked to be used by a man who identified as a woman. The employment panel ruled that County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust had ‘unlawfully harassed’ the nurses. Being made to share what should have been a single-sex space with a ‘biological male trans woman’ violated their dignity, the tribunal found. It also said the nurses’ concerns had not been taken seriously.

This is clearly a victory for common sense. But it is worth asking why the eight women had to bring this case in the first place. The legal proceedings required time, effort and expense, as well as exacting a huge emotional toll from the nurses. Challenging their employer so directly posed a risk to their jobs. Yet shamefully, the nurses had to do all of this without the support of a trade union, despite some of them being paid-up members.

When Bethany Hutchison, one of the women who had raised concerns about the changing rooms, emailed her union representative at the start of the dispute, she did not get a reply. A month later, with a legal case underway, she discovered the truth: the union was representing the man they had complained about. Hutchison had been a fee-paying member of Unison for 35 years, but was abandoned at the very moment she needed its support.

Unison put defending one man – and the edifice of transgender ideology – above showing solidarity with female members. Indeed, Steve North, the then president of Unison, took to social media to describe the nurses’ campaign as ‘anti-trans bigotry’. This meant that, in between working and fighting a legal case, the Darlington nurses had to form their own trade union.

Sadly, the experience of the Darlington nurses is not unique. Many trade unions have put ideology above biology and betrayed female members. Sandie Peggie began legal proceedings against the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) after it failed to support her when she was suspended by NHS Fife in 2024, over claims she bullied and harassed Beth Upton, a male doctor who insisted he was trans and could use the women’s changing rooms. Peggie says that rather than defending her, the union ‘contributed to her mistreatment’. Her lawyer, Margaret Gribbon, damningly claims that if the RCN had ‘fulfilled the conventional role of a trade union, it is less likely that Sandie would have faced the ordeal of an 18-month disciplinary process’ and a lengthy employment tribunal.

Jennifer Melle is yet another nurse who has been hung out to dry by the RCN. Melle was suspended after she addressed a transgender paedophile – an inmate from a high-security men’s prison – as ‘Mr’ back in 2024. While treating the male patient, Melle told him she could not refer to him as ‘her’ or ‘she’ because it would go against her ‘faith and Christian values’. The prisoner then lunged at her and subjected her to racially and religiously aggravated abuse.

Incredibly, Melle was investigated and disciplined for ‘misgendering’ a patient. She was then referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council for breaching its code that nurses should not express their personal beliefs. Despite being a predominantly female trade union, the RCN refused to intervene in Melle’s defence. She now faces dismissal for speaking publicly about her ordeal and allegedly breaching patient confidentiality.

But it’s not just in nursing that trade unions are sacrificing female members on the altar of transgender ideology. Back in 2021, the university lecturers’ union, UCU, refused to support Professor Kathleen Stock when she was targeted by transgender activists. It seems that unions prefer to brand women ‘bigots’, and defend racist paedophiles, rather than question the shibboleth that men can become women just on their word.

Indeed, Unison responded to last year’s Supreme Court ruling that ‘woman’ means a biological female in the Equality Act, by reaffirming ‘its commitment to the trans, gender-diverse and nonbinary communities’. And when Sandie Peggie’s employment tribunal began, Unison’s Camden branch put forward a motion at the union’s national women’s conference asserting that ‘trans women are women and trans men are men’ (sic).

Even now, with the Darlington nurses and Peggie having been vindicated in court, trade unions still refuse to defend women. Neither Unison nor the RCN have taken the opportunity to reflect on their actions or row back on their previous positions. Instead, following the Darlington nurses’ judgement, Unison issued a statement insisting its policy ‘remains the same’. The union, it said, ‘stands by its beliefs in the rights of our trans, nonbinary and gender-diverse members’. The addition of the word ‘belief’ seems to be the only acknowledgement that anything has changed. The fact is, union higher-ups can ‘believe’ anything they like. But, legally, women have a right to single-sex spaces.

So congratulations to the Darlington nurses and good luck to Jennifer Melle. Together, they have exposed not just the inhumanity and misogyny at the heart of the NHS’s diversity policies but the contempt trade unions have for their female members. In shamefully refusing to support women, both Unison and the Royal College of Nursing show themselves to be worse than irrelevant. They are stabbing female members in the back in their rush to meet the demands of a tiny number of trans activists.

Joanna Williams is a spiked columnist and author of How Woke Won. Follow her on Substack: cieo.substack.com.