Trans boss of Scottish rape charity led ‘heresy hunt’ against feminist employee

‘Tragic my views had ended at tribunal’

Welcoming the ruling, Ms Adams said: “This is a victory for all people who have been subjected to sexual violence who need a choice of worker, and group support on the basis of sex in order to feel safe. For me it validates and makes worthwhile three years of struggle.”

She thanked her family, friends and legal team and said she hoped the Scottish Government, which funds ERCC and Rape Crisis Scotland, would “feel emboldened by this judgement to safeguard this important choice for survivors, as part of ensuring services are welcoming to all who need them”.

Ms Adams said it was “tragic” that her views over gender had “ended in tribunal” and argued that it should instead have been resolved with “fearless, respectful, well-informed dialogue”.

In December 2020, shortly before starting work at the centre, Ms Adams went for a walk with Maggie Chapman, then the centre’s chief operating officer and currently a Scottish Green MSP.

The ruling said this was the first time Ms Adams had heard what she described as the “mantra”, that “trans women are women”.

“She felt concerned that there was no real definition or clarification associated with this statement. She felt it was odd,” the tribunal said.

Ms Adams “became aware early on that people who wrote into the organisation raising the issue were classed as bigots and that emails from them were stored in a folder called Hate emails”.

‘The centre’s view that sex did not matter was wrong’

ERCC staff were told in April 2021 that Ms Wadhwa had been appointed chief executive – a transgender woman who “did not have a gender recognition certificate and was thus legally male”.

Ms Adams was “initially happy” with the appointment “as she felt it would be helpful to have staff representing the range of service users using the service”.

However, she felt those attending should have a choice over which ERCC staff they dealt with as “98 to 99 per cent of sexual violence was perpetrated by male people however they identified”.

“She believed that all victims of sexual violence would almost certainly wish to speak to a female person”, the tribunal said, and that the centre’s “view that sex did not matter was wrong.”

It added: “She also disagreed with their view that it is only one’s personal preference which matters in relation to gender identity and that if someone says they are the opposite sex or non binary everyone should treat them that way.”

Ms Adams became aware that the centre “would not as a matter of policy ever refer people to Beira’s Place or even advise them of its existence”. Funded by JK Rowling, it is a woman-only support service for victims of sexual violence and Ms Adams now works there.

Ms Adams also “envisaged a situation where a service user would enter into a therapeutic relationship with a counsellor who she believed to be female and later discovered that the counsellor was in fact biologically male”.

After Ms Wadhwa took up office in May 2021, she held a three-hour meeting with Ms Adams during which “there was some discussion on trans inclusion and trans people where a frank sharing of views took place.”

‘Ms Adams responded in a perfectly reasonable way’

The dispute began after ERCC received an email from an abuse survivor asking if her counsellor was a man or a woman “because as a woman I would be very uncomfortable talking with a man”.

Ms Adams wrote to her line managers suggesting that they respond that the counsellor was “a woman at birth who now identifies as non binary”. However, she was chastised for the proposal, with her managers arguing it would breach the counsellor’s “right to privacy” and the Equality Act.

Ms Wadhwa sent an email to the counsellor saying Ms Adams’ actions had been “humiliating” and promising “no more contact with her.” Ms Adams was later invited to an investigation meeting but the tribunal found that “none of the emails” she wrote “could in any way be regarded as constituting any kind of disciplinary offence”.