United Kingdom: gender-fluid and non-binary employees protected by anti-discrimination law (judgment)

The decision – labelled significant by LGBT+ associations – was made by an employment tribunal that ruled in favour of an employee of Jaguar Land Rover, who had worked at the automotive group for 20 years. The person, who decided to identify as gender-fluid in 2017, brought a complaint against her employer for harassment and discrimination, having been subjected to mockery by colleagues when she came to work wearing a dress. After receiving no support from the company’s management on the issue of toilet facility access, she ended up resigning in 2018 before taking the issue to court. Jaguar Land Rover argued that since the engineer was gender-fluid, she was not afforded protection under the Equality Act, which only protects those who have officially changed genders. However this posture was contradicted by the tribunal, which considered it “appropriate to award aggravated damages in this case because of the egregious way the claimant was treated and because of the insensitive stance taken by the respondent in defending these proceedings”. On 2 October, the tribunal will decide the sum to be paid in damages. Dave Williams, executive director of human resources at Jaguar Land Rover, says: “On behalf of Jaguar Land Rover, I would like to apologise. We continue to strive to improve in this area.” The manufacturer may appeal the decision.