Allison Bailey: Law chambers discriminated against barrister with gender-critical views, tribunal rules

A leading human rights chambers in London discriminated against one of its own barristers when she expressed her views on gender, an employment tribunal has ruled.

Criminal barrister Allison Bailey has expressed what are known as “gender critical” views – namely that a preson’s sex is an unchangeable biological fact.

After her chambers, Garden Court, signed up to the Diversity Champion scheme run by the campaign group Stonewall in December 2018, Allison Bailey complained to colleagues.

She accused Stonewall of advocating “trans extremism”, claiming that it was complicit in a campaign of intimidation of those who don’t believe that a person can choose their own gender.

The following year she set up the Lesbian Gay Alliance to resist what she said was ‘gender extremism’.

This prompted complaints to her chambers that she was transphobic, and that her opinions damaged Garden Court’s reputation as a leading human rights chambers.

But today the employment tribunal ruled that Allison Bailey’s beliefs on gender.

While the tribunal did not rule on whether her beliefs were correct, it did uphold her claim that she had been discriminated against and victimised because of them.

It did not accept that she had lost work and income as a result of her views on trans rights.

And it rejected a separate claim that Stonewall had influenced her chambers to discriminate against her.

We were joined by barrister Chris Milsom.