The support counsellor who lost her job at a scandal-hit “trans-inclusive” rape crisis centre for expressing gender-critical views, has been awarded nearly £69,000 as redress for discrimination and constructive dismissal, as well as compensation for emotional pain and suffering (BBC, Guardian, Telegraph).
The payment is nearly double the amount previously anticipated.
Roz Adams, who has worked with vulnerable communities since 2003, brought the case claiming she suffered discrimination when her views on the importance of rape trauma and counselling services remaining single-sex became known to senior colleagues at Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC).
An employment tribunal ruled earlier this year that ERCC had unlawfully discriminated against Ms Adams.
In a blistering ruling, Judge Ian McFatridge criticised the centre’s nine month-long investigation against the gender-critical female employee, describing it as “clearly motivated by a strong belief among senior management and some of the claimant’s colleagues that the claimant’s views were inherently hateful”.
ERCC’s transgender chief executive Mridul Wadhwa, in particular, was singled out for criticism, with the judge finding she had presided over a “heresy hunt” against Ms Adam.
During the hearing, lawyer Naomi Cunningham, representing Ms Adams, claimed the ERCC mounted an “inquisition” after a female rape survivor said she would feel uncomfortable talking to a man and asked to know the biological sex of her support worker, who identified as non-binary.
Ms Adams, who worked for the ERCC from 2021 to 2023, told the hearing she was accused of being “transphobic” after suggesting in an email that they tell her that the volunteer support worker was “a woman at birth who now identifies as being non-binary”.
Adams’s suggestion stemmed from her gender-critical belief that users of the centre should be able to decide who they receive help from based on gender, because sex is binary, and “everyone is either male or female at that level”.
However, her managers insisted that it was contrary to the centre’s policy to disclose the sex of any worker to a service user, even though they could be told that no men were on its staff or volunteer team.
The panel also heard from one witness, Nicole Jones, who said there was “much talk of TERFS and transphobes” at the ERCC.
When the issue of how best to determine whether potential new hires held gender-critical views cropped up, Jones recounted that Wadhwa bluntly instructed her to terminate employment of any personnel who didn’t subscribe to gender ideology. “Firing could be as important as hiring when creating inclusive spaces,” Wadhwa allegedly philosophised.
According to the judgment handed down, there was “ample evidence” that ERCC’s transgender chief executive, Mridul Wadhwa, had “formed the view that the claimant was transphobic”, which led to “a completely spurious and mishandled disciplinary process” that was “reminiscent of the work of Franz Kafka”.
Wadhwa – a trans woman who does not have a gender-recognition certificate – has since stepped down from her role after a damning review found the centre had caused “damage” to women and girls in its care and failed to provide or protect women-only spaces. (Referrals to the centre are currently paused due to the Rape Crisis Scotland report).
In September, ERCC sent Ms Adams a letter saying it apologised for “for the discrimination you faced while working at ERCC and for the stressful process you have been through”.
However, Ms Adams argued this was not satisfactory, as it did not clear her name publicly, and that without a public apology she feared being seen as transphobic as she continued to work in the sector.
Judge McFatridge agreed, calling the apology “defective” and stating it was a fact that “nothing the claimant did constituted bullying or harassment”.
He added that Adams “was not transphobic”, and it seemed “extraordinary” that ERCC were not prepared to send referrals to Beira’s Place, an Edinburgh centre offering free sexual violence support service for women run by women set up and funded by the author JK Rowling, which is where Ms Adams now works.
As a result, the centre must also issue a public apology on its website and begin referring sexual assault victims to Beira’s Place.
In a statement, Ms Adams said that although a public apology from her former employer would be welcome, it was more important for her to see “meaningful change” at ERCC, as well as at Rape Crisis Scotland and the Scottish government.
She added: “My priority remains that all victim-survivors of sexual violence can make a genuinely informed choice about the service they seek and have confidence in who will support them. To restore that confidence, I urge these organisations to give a clear definition of ‘woman’.”
A statement from the ERCC’s board said: “We want to publicly apologise, and we understand that Roz’s actions were not motivated by transphobia, but by a genuine wish to act in the best interests of service users. We should have listened more to Roz’s concerns and never pursued disciplinary action, and for that we are sorry. Steps have already been taken to address the outcomes of both the tribunal and recommendations provided by Rape Crisis Scotland.”
