Gender-fluid engineer wins discrimination case against Jaguar

A gender-fluid engineer who endured insults and jibes from fellow workers has won a discrimination claim against Jaguar Land Rover.

The case involved Ms R Taylor who had worked for Jaguar for 20 years and had initially identified as male. She began identifying as gender fluid in 2017 and started dressing in women’s clothing.

This resulted in her being subjected to abusive remarks from colleagues and facing difficulties accessing toilet facilities at work.

She resigned in 2018 and brought claims of harassment, discrimination and unfair dismissal because of her gender reassignment and sexual orientation. She also claimed victimisation because the company had refused to let her retract her resignation.

Jaguar submitted that being gender fluid or non-binary, did not fall within the definition of a person who had undergone gender reassignment, a protected characteristic under the Equality Act (2010).

Ms Taylor’s barrister argued gender fluid people were protected and the government had referred to a gender “”spectrum”” during parliamentary debates about the Act.

The Employment Tribunal dismissed Jaguar’s defence as “totally without merit” and found in favour of Ms Taylor.

Employment Judge Hughes awarded aggravated damages “because of the egregious way the claimant (Taylor) was treated and because of the insensitive stance taken by the respondent (Jaguar) in defending these proceedings”.

“The claimant’s compensation shall be uplifted by 20% because of the respondent’s complete failure to comply with the Acas Code of Practice in relation to the claimant’s grievance about short-term measures to assist her transitioning.”

The level of compensation was scheduled to be decided at a separate hearing.

A spokesman for Jaguar said: “”On behalf of Jaguar Land Rover, I would like to apologise to Ms Taylor for the experiences she had during her employment with us. We continue to strive to improve in this area and we respect the outcome of the case.””

Please contact Sorcha Monaghan if you would like more information about the issues raised in this article or any aspect of employment law.

Gender-fluid engineer wins discrimination case against Jaguar

R Taylor and Jaguar Land Rover

Employment Tribunal

September 2020

Judge Hughes