A trans woman has won a £25,000 payout after Kingston council failed to update her name on its systems for two years.

An employment tribunal heard this resulted in the woman being 'deadnamed', the act of referring to a trans person by their pre-transition name.

Kingston Council failed to update the name of the employee, referred to only as Miss AB, on pension records, the staff directory and her door pass. The tribunal in Croydon was told her locker had a sticky note on it with her dead name crossed out and replaced with her post-transition name.

Judge Fiona McLaren ruled that deadnaming Miss AB amounted to "less favourable treatment" which had contributed to a "very significant period of ill health". She was awarded £25,423 in total, including £21,000 as compensation for injury to feelings and £4,423 interest.

Miss AB worked on highways and transport projects at the council. She told bosses she intended to transition eight months before she did on July 1, 2020. Following this, she told the tribunal she was not supported by the council and that it failed in its duty of care towards her.

The tribunal heard the dispute between Miss AB and the council began after she raised concerns in September 2020 about plans to install street lighting as she felt it was unsafe.

A manager accused her of throwing a "hissing fit" to colleagues and the judge ruled language used to describe her in emails was "derogatory" and "very unprofessional".

Following further disagreements with bosses, Miss AB emailed her line manager in December 2020 and said she felt she had been "singled out on a witchhunt" since her transition.

She said she would "not be bullied and treated in a demeaning manner". Her line manager ordered her to apologise in a response which the judge ruled was "inappropriate and unprofessional".

Miss AB was signed off sick from work on June 25, 2021, and did not return until November 1, 2021.

A letter from her GP said she had experienced a "period of huge stress and trauma as a result of being a victim of bullying".

It added she had experienced "severe and intrusive thoughts of self-harm such that the GP was considering sectioning [her] for her own benefit".

Miss AB told the tribunal she went through a "long and painful struggle" to have her name changed on the council's systems after she transitioned.

Her name was not updated and so she was deadnamed on the council's highways complaints system until February 2, 2022, on pension records until August 8, 2022, and on the staff directory until March, 9, 2023.

Her door pass was also not updated until April 28, 2022, which the judge said left her "effectively unable to access the office for almost two years".

The judge ruled the council's policies and practices at the time of Miss AB's transition were "woefully inadequate with both a failure to provide guidance to staff undergoing transition and to team managers" and said it did not appear any apology had been "offered to the claimant or other staff potentially facing the same issues".

The judge added: "We understand why the claimant felt badly let down by her employer. She was left to navigate a complex set of respondent systems with no support or even signposting from HR as to how to do this."

Sarah Ireland, chief executive of Kingston Council, said: "Discrimination in any form is unacceptable and goes against the values that we uphold as a council. We are committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment for all our employees regardless of age, disability, gender, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.

"We are very sorry for the shortcomings in the experience of our employee and for the distress this has caused. Prior to the outcome of the tribunal we had taken actions to free our workplace from discrimination. These include ensuring our managers are knowledgeable and understating of the support they need to give our employees, providing all staff with mandatory diversity and inclusion training, trans and gender diversity sessions as well as developing our Trans Equality Policy and supporting guidance for staff who start their transitioning journey whilst working for the council.

"We have improved our processes and systems to better support officers from the trans and non-binary community and also reviewed our dignity at work policy to make it easier for employees to report any incidents of discrimination. There is always more that we can do to ensure we are building equity into our culture and working practices. We are committed to doing the hard work necessary to create a workplace that is welcoming and inclusive to everyone including our trans and non-binary colleagues."