Gender f luid engineer gets £180k payout from Jaguar
Bullying case will bring about real change, says judge
A GENDER fluid engineer who was bullied when she started wearing women’s clothes at work has been awarded £ 180,000 after winning a landmark discrimination case.
A judge said yesterday she hoped the case would bring about ‘real change’ for equality and compared the claimant to race campaigners such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.
Rose Taylor, 43, from Birmingham, was teased by colleagues at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) after she began identifying as nonbinary in 2017, having previously presented as male. An employment tribunal was told one worker referred to her as ‘it’ while another told her: ‘You have cracking legs.’ A third worker asked her: ‘So what’s going on? Are you going to have your bits chopped off?’
And a female colleague described her as ‘not normal’ when she announced she was transitioning. She was also told to use the disabled toilet. Individuals who are gender fluid feel their gender changes over time, while being non-binary means someone does not identify exclusively as male or female.
Ms Taylor, who prefers to use the female pronoun, had been a navigation engineer with JLR for more than 20 years. When she began regularly wearing women’s clothes, she suffered insults and abusive jokes from colleagues at the factory in Coventry and resigned in 2018.
She said she did not receive support from management and won her constructive dismissal claim against the Midlands manufacturing giant last month.
Yesterday, an employment judge ruled she should be awarded compensation. Ms Taylor wiped away tears as she told the judge: ‘It’s still all sinking in.’ Judge Pauline Hughes told her: ‘Hopefully your case will bring about real change. That is what we would all wish to see. The response has been extremely positive. Everyone in the room can think
‘Response has been extremely positive’
of a person who has made a difference in their life.
‘The entire history of equality and the equality movement has individuals such as the claimant who have made a difference. The likes of Rosa Parks, Doctor Martin Luther King, Harvey Milk, Baroness Jane Campbell, Viv Anderson, Baroness Hale and Notorious RBG.
‘In our opinion Rose has made a difference. Because she brought the case hopefully what happened to her will not happen to anyone else again at JLR. I can see JLR has taken the findings seriously. That is a positive thing.’ The claim, thought to be the first of its kind, threw into question whether being gender fluid/nonbinary was a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.
Previously, there was uncertainty over whether Equality Act protections covered those who fell into those categories. As the case was at an employment tribunal it does not technically establish a legal precedent but is likely to be influential in similar future claims.
Employment Judge Hughes ruled it was ‘clear that gender is a spectrum’ and that it was ‘beyond any doubt’ that Ms Taylor was protected. The original judgment ruled ‘the claimant has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment’ and the allegations of harassment were ‘well-founded’.
Ms Taylor is now working as an engineer with another firm. She will receive the payout within seven days. A further costs hearing was scheduled to take place in December.