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Judges have decided that office gossip about a gay person’s sexual orientation is not necessarily unlawful discrimination.

They held that if the person had already ‘come out’ as gay to colleagues, then gossip is likely to follow, but as long as what is said is not ill-intentioned, the remarks are not discriminatory.

The Court of Appeal was referring to the case of Phil Grant who worked for the Land Registry in Lytham St Annes from 2003.

After a while working there, he revealed to colleagues he was gay.

In 2006, he was promoted to another Land Registry office in Coventry where his line manager was aware that he had ‘come out’ in Lytham.

He complained to an employment tribunal that his line manager made a “limp wrist” gesture at him while joking with colleagues and warned a single, female colleague: “Don’t go fluttering your eyelashes at him, he’s gay.”

Mr Grant won the tribunal arguing some of the discriminatory comments were harassment. The Land Registry appealed.

At the Court of Appeal,  Lord Justice Elias found that the manager meant no harm by her remarks, so discrimination or harassment.

Lord Justice Elias emphasised that even if Mr Grant was upset by the disclosure, the effect did not amount to harassment, and tribunals ought not to allow trivial acts to be caught by the concept.

“Nothing in this judgment is intended to minimise those concerns or cast doubt on the accuracy of those statements.  The circumstances here, however, where someone has chosen widely to reveal his sexual orientation, puts the case into a different category,” said the judge.

The Equality and Human Right Commission (EHRC) intervened in the appeal to explain that breaking the confidence of a gay person to tell others of their sexual orientation could lead to discrimination.

The court held that Mr Grant had already revealed his sexual orientation within the organisation and should have realised that even if he told no one at his new workplace that he was gay, it was likely they would find out.

This article  is filed under: Discrimination, LGBT

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