Hertfordshire council apologises for ‘distress’ after misgendering incident
East Herts Council caused an “injustice” by “inadvertently” misgendering a transgender person, an ombudsman has found. The complainant, referred to as Mx X, went to the Local Government Ombudsman after complaining that they had been “consistently” misgendered while appealing a penalty charge notice (PCN).
They said they had complained “to prevent other trans people from experiencing the same types of incidents” and because they felt the council “had made no attempt to learn from its mistakes”.
However, the ombudsman found that the council’s “misgendering” had been “inadvertent rather than deliberate” and that there had only been a “single instance” of it. It said the council had caused “an injustice in the form of distress” by failing to allow Mx X to select a title that “reflected their gender identity” while filling out the form to appeal a PCN.
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The gender-neutral title Mx was not on the form, so Mx X selected ‘Ms’, which the council then used in a letter to them. The council’s head of communications apologised for the omission of Mx from the form and said they would recommend to the relevant team that the title field be removed completely.
Since the complaint, the council has added Mx as a title on its PCN appeal system, and “shared with … staff [the] importance of being aware of pronouns”.
The ombudsman concluded that the council’s apology and actions were an “appropriate remedy” for the complainant being misgendered.
It noted that the complainant had “referred to themselves as female in [their] appeal submission”, and accepted the council’s explanation that the member of staff who dealt with the appeal “would not have been aware of [Mx X’s] preferred title”.
Mx X had also complained to the council that the civil enforcement officers she interacted with after being handed a PCN had been “homophobic and transphobic” towards them.
However, a council investigation found no evidence that the officers had discriminated against Mx X.
The ombudsman found the investigation, which had involved reviewing body worn cameras and GPS officer tracking data, had been “robust and balanced”.
It said a misspelling of Mx X’s name in a letter about their complaint to the council had been a “simple typographical error” and recognised that the council had apologised for the mistake.
The Ombudsman also dismissed an allegation from Mx X that the council had “refused” to use their title in its initial complaint response and that this “demonstrated transphobia”.
It found that no title had been used in the response and that the council “had no way of knowing” Mx X’s preferred title because they had not mentioned it until after the council’s complaint response had been sent.