The biological sex of counsellors at a rape crisis centre have been "illegitimately" hidden, an employment tribunal has heard.
Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre - run by a trans woman - has been accused of using "disciplinary processes to enforce its extreme and uncompromising version of gender identity theory".
Roz Adams, a former support worker at the charity, underwent a nine-month disciplinary process after being accused of "transphobia" - a claim she denies.
When she joined the rape crisis centre, Adams welcomed its trans-inclusive policies but a dispute erupted when she spoke to colleagues about a rape victim who had asked if her counsellor would be a "man or a woman".
The biological sex of counsellors at a rape crisis centre have been "illegitimately" hidden, an employment tribunal has heard
Google Maps/ Getty
The victim said she would feel "uncomfortable talking to a man".
After Adams consulting staff, a non-binary member of the centre’s staff copied chief executive, Mridul Wadhwa into an email chain.
The charity then launched investigation into Adams’s conduct.
Her barrister, Naomi Cunningham said the centre's procedure was unacceptable, The Times reports.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
She said: "If [the centre] is trying to justify using disciplinary processes to enforce its extreme and uncompromising version of gender identity theory, the tribunal has to ask: what is the aim? Is the aim legitimate and are the means chosen proportionate?
"It is for the tribunal to decide on that objective basis whether the aim of keeping the sex of support workers working with victims of rape secret from those service users is legitimate. I say it is clearly not a legitimate aim. It is hard to imagine an aim that is more illegitimate."
David Hay KC, defending the rape crisis centre, said there was no evidence of service users being disappointed by its services.
However Cunningham hit back with a case cited by Adams - who now works at a centre offering sexual violence support funded by JK Rowling - about a 60-year-old woman who was abused as a child and only "just begun [to] talk about it".
Roz Adams, a former support worker at the charity, underwent a nine-month disciplinary process after being accused of "transphobia" - a claim she denies
PAThe woman turned to the crisis centre about group work and asked: "Can you reassure me it is just a woman-only group?"
She was repeatedly told that such meetings were "trans-inclusive".
Cunningham - who is also chairwoman of Sex Matters, an organisation campaigning for clarity about sex in language, policy and law - said: "The tone of the conversation changed and a few days later she got an email saying: ‘You are not suitable for our services'."
Both Wadhwa and Nico Ciubotariu, the centre’s former chief operating officer who led the internal disciplinary procedure, were not called to give evidence.
The tribunal will release its findings "in due course".