Two NHS nurses have told GB News they had "no other choice" but to sue their hospital trust employer after allowing a transgender colleague to share a changing room with female employees.
Bethany Hutchison, Lisa Lockey, Annice Grundy, Tracey Hooper and Joanne Bradbury - known as the Darlington Five - have launched legal action against the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust after raising concerns about sharing a changing room with the individual.
The female staff claim the 26-year-old trans woman, named Rose, stared at their breasts and lingered in the room as they were getting changed.
They also made clear that Rose has "not undergone any physical or medical transition" to become female - they only identify as a woman verbally.
Bethany Hutchison and Lisa Lockey are among a group of NHS nurses taking legal action against the hospital
GB News / Google Maps
Discussing their case on GB News, Lockey and Hutchison told Camilla Tominey: "Initially, we were just told that they were discussing it, that it was a sensitive issue, and then we just would hear nothing. And so more and more girls would keep complaining about it, and it just went on.
"We would never hear anything back, until Bethany actually got in touch with the Christian Legal Centre, who helped us draft a letter to complain, to say that we weren't comfortable with the situation and just expressed our concerns in writing to them.
"Which then set the ball rolling - we had a meeting with HR after that, and things progressed from there."
Offering a pro-trans argument to the nurses, Camilla claimed that Rose would argue that it is "his right to claim that he's a woman, and therefore can use the changing facilities".
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Five nurses from Darlington Memorial Hospital launched a legal case against their employer
Google Street ViewResponding to the claims that they could be labelled as "transphobes", Hutchison told Camilla: "It's absolute nonsense, we aren't transphobes at all - we are happy to nurse transgender patients, and we give them dignity and respect, as we would with any other patient.
"But when it comes to changing facilities however, we do not want to get changed in front of a biological male and we don't want to see them either in that state either. And actually, this person has undergone no transition, there's no medical transition, there's no physical transition - they just identify as a woman, and that's actually unlawful.
"This is posing a risk to women. We don't know who are the goodies from the baddies, let's say. And it's causing distress amongst the female nurses in the hospital."
When questioned by Camilla on why the nurses have taken their case "all the way to the courts", the women claimed that they had "no other choice" after being "ignored" by the trust.
Hutchison and Lockey told GB News that they 'do not want to get changed in front of a biological male'
GB News
Lockey explained: "We've had to because we were just being ignored, and there's a definite silence from the trust, they don't want us to discuss it. We really felt like we didn't have any other choice.
"The number of times that we'd been to the trust and tried to get them to listen to us, we were just ignored. So when Beth told me that she'd sought legal advice, I was absolutely delighted. I thought finally they might actually sit up and listen.
"But unfortunately they're still sort of dragging their heels, and they're just really hoping that we're going to shut up and it'll go away."
A spokesman for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust said: "The trust is committed to providing a safe, secure and respectful working environment for all colleagues operating within the law and adhering to national policies.
"The trust has processes in place for listening to and responding to concerns raised by any of our colleagues. We take all concerns raised seriously and investigate them thoroughly.
"An internal investigation continues to take place while the legal proceedings also continue."
