Kemi Badenoch has warned that more healthcare workers could experience the same treatment as Christian nurse Jennifer Melle for affirming “the basic truth of biological sex”, unless action is taken.
The Conservative Party leader met Melle and the Darlington nurses in Parliament, describing them as dedicated professionals who had been subjected to a “state-sponsored witch-hunt” by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), according to the Daily Express.
Melle was reported to the nursing regulator as an alleged “risk to the public” for indirectly misgendering a transgender paedophile patient. She was disciplined and threatened with dismissal after the incident, in which she was racially and physically abused.
Melle was reported to the NMC again for speaking about her treatment. She returned to work in February, ten months after being suspended.
Four of the Darlington nurses are still subject to NMC investigations after talking to the media.
The meeting followed a parliamentary roundtable attended by Melle, Darlington nurses Bethany Hutchison, Lisa Lockey and Annice Grundy. Their cases have been supported by the Christian Legal Centre, with its chief executive Andrea Williams also in the meeting.
Melle said: “Meeting with Kemi Badenoch was encouraging as the Government needs to finally listen to what nurses on the ground are facing. No nurse should ever be forced to use compelled pronouns or punished for holding respectful, lawful beliefs about sex and gender. Yet I have been reported to the Nursing and Midwifery Council simply for staying true to my conscience.
“This situation is unsustainable. We urgently need clear national action to protect nurses from ideological pressure in the workplace. No healthcare professional should fear losing their career for declining to use preferred gender identity terms. What has happened to me must not happen to anyone else.”
Williams said the Christian Legal Centre is calling for an “urgent overhaul of policy so that what has happened to Jennifer is never repeated".
“Compassion and professionalism must not be redefined in a way that forces healthcare workers to deny their faith or convictions, submit to compelled speech on pronouns, or risk losing their licence to practise,” she added.
Christian Concern has warned that NHS trusts are “applying inconsistent policies” on single-sex changing spaces, almost a year after the Supreme Court ruled that the definition of “woman” in law means “biological woman".
Updated guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission is yet to be published.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told the Daily Express: “We have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex.
“The Supreme Court ruling was clear, and we expect all NHS trusts and hospitals to follow the clarity the ruling provides.”
Bridget Phillipson, women and equalities minister, told Melle in a previous meeting that all must be free to hold their beliefs in the workplace and that she should not have been subjected to the racial abuse she received.