Ashamed

May 2026. And here we go again. Yet another employment tribunal against an employer who in letting their activist employees run rampant through the organisation also ensured the conditions were in place to hound yet another gender critical woman out of her job. This time, it is Manchester City Council, with over 8,000 employees, who have decided (arrogantly in my opinion) to take their chance in a court of law. I say arrogantly because any organisation that wants to try to defend the shenanighans that employees in Manchester City Council got up to has to be either ignorant (of the extraordinary run of wins in GC belief claims) or arrogant (in that they think, somehow they will buck the trend).

I am not going to tell the full tale of Lorna Young v Manchester City Council in this blog because, having attended the tribunal yesterday, I have been obsessing over one small exchange between two MCC employees. One was Lorna Young’s line manager, the other was someone Lorna line managed.

A bit of background context first: On 2 February 2022, the Council passed a motion called *Trans Rights Are Human Rights*. It affirmed, by unanimous vote and without an Equality Impact Assessment, that “trans men are men, trans women are women, non-binary people are non-binary and trans rights are human rights.” It then committed the Council to auditing its services for trans accessibility and supporting trans and non-binary employees.

So far, so Stonewall vibe.

Another context: This is not one of the ‘ordinary tales’ of GC harassment and bullying. This is a tale about what happens when there is a GC individual in a management position within the EDI machinery of an organisation. And it is worth paying attention to for that reason.

Okay, on with the tale. About two months after the motion was passed, Sarah Herdan, someone who Lorna Young line managed (so by definition was part of the EDI machine) made a complaint to Lorna’s boss Jo Johnston (also part of the machine) that Lorna was a witch. How did Sarah Herdan know this? From the fact that Lorna liked a few tweets.

Sarah Herdan and Jo Johnston followed up their conversation with an email exchange. What follows below I transcribed from the bundle.

[extracted from Sarah Herdan’s written complaint and specifically from the ‘impact on me’ section] …I know not everyone is fully versed on the debates around trans people, especially the ones playing out on twitter, so this may seem like I am making a mountain out of a molehill — but I have witnessed first hand how such attitudes harm people within our communities. Many trans people especially younger ones are actively engaged online and will be fully aware what those likes mean about Lorna’s views. I am ashamed to be associated with someone holding those views in the position that Lorna is on.

Before I go further, yet more context. Sarah Herdan was making a complaint about Lorna’s X activity.

Jo Johnston replied:

I just wanted to follow up on our conversation yesterday and say thank you for trusting me enough to bring this to me. What you did took a huge amount of courage and you should be really proud for raising this. I want to assure you again that MCC is an inclusive council and I will definitely support you to make sure you feel valued and that this is a place you want to be ... I’ve put this in writing so you can hold me to account for everything I’m saying without disclosing too much that might compromise the confidentiality of our conversation.

Even before we get to the cross-examination, this exchange is jaw dropping. The entire raison d’etre of both of these individuals’ jobs is the Equality Act 2010. You know, that Act that provides the framework within which gender critical views are protected beliefs? Perhaps they didn’t get the memo…..?

If the written exchange was not bad enough, the cross examination revealed so much more. Lorna Young’s barrister is Nathan Roberts. (As an aside, watching Nathan Roberts was deeply satisfying. He is clearly a barrister who is incredibly committed to the law – not as an abstract concept, but as a living thing that helps bring about justice for individuals).

Mr Roberts asked Jo Johnston a simple question. Did she think that the sentence Sarah Herdan wrote about being ashamed to work with someone “holding those views” was an awful thing to say. She says no. He asks whether it is problematic. She says no. She says this was Sarah Herdan writing about the impact on herself of [checks notes] liking a handful of tweets. Admittedly these were tweets by [shock and horror] Julie Bindel and JKR.

However, back to the hearing. Jo informed the court – without the slightest hint of irony – that Sarah had the right to say this.

Well. The next set of questions was pretty much game over.

Mr Roberts asked Jo Johnston whether she thought a sentence like “ashamed to be associated with a Muslim” was awful or problematic? No came the reply. What about a gay man? No, again.

I was fairly tired when this part of the cross examination was taking place, but I could have sworn I heard the distant sound of a trap door opening and its victim falling through the floor.

On a more serious note, it was not the first that I wondered how and why such craven bullying and prejudice is allowed to run rampant through our public institutions and organisations – and it is not Sarah Herdan’s visceral prejudice to which I refer.

Jo Johnston characterised that prejudice and malice as something to be proud of, that took courage and then gave permission to Sarah Herdan to hold her to account. What is that if it is not a promise to burn the witch.

As time was to tell, Sarah Herdan eventually resigned (along with a co-conspirator which I will blog about another day). Yet she had not quite finished with the witchhunting. She rootled out Lorna’s anonymous X account and what she found was eventually used to get Lorna sacked.

I stayed on to have dinner and drink with Lorna afterwards. I hope she won’t mind me saying this. Despite everything that has happened to her – and her story is like a montage of all the worse bits of all our cases combined into one - she remains a remarkable woman. Strong. Determined. Very centred. It is clear to me that she sees through the bullshit. She is no witch. None of us are. That’s the whole point.