Like a pastel-version of Reservoir Dogs, five women walked into court this week ready for battle. Their legal fight will be one of the defining cases of the decade and will take four weeks to thrash out. So what can be so complicated and challenging that the justice system must be deployed to reach a resolution?

No, it’s not fair pay, or the right to keep your job if you have the temerity to get married or have a baby. Those battles were won long ago by equally courageous women who had to fight and fight and fight again. This time the battle is over whether women should be forced to get undressed in front of men.

The finest legal brains will spend most of the rest of this year trying to work out the answer to this question. Hundreds of thousands of pounds will be spent to decide this, when you, me and the postman, could settle it in the next 30 seconds.

But a group of nurses in Darlington are being forced to take the matter to the courts because their employer, the NHS, seems to think the answer should be yes. They have filed the claim on the grounds of sexual harassment, discrimination, victimisation and breaches of the right to a private life.

It follows the decision by County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust to allow Rose Henderson, who is male but identifies as a woman, to use the women’s changing facilities at Darlington Memorial Hospital.

The nurses claim Henderson has “stared at their breasts” and 'lingered too long” and asked them repeatedly if they are getting changed.

Instead of supporting the women who said they wanted a female-only place to get undressed at work, the trust sided with the man who wanted to join them.

No doubt the details of why this decision was reached will come out in the court case, but at the very least, HR and senior managers must have been involved. 

Once the case hit the headlines, the very top of the trust and bureaucrats from NHS England - about to be, rightly, closed down - should also have had their say.

But they abandoned the nurses and in some cases, attempted to make them feel like bigots.

When the row began the trust’s HR department is said to have told the employees they should “broaden their mindset”, “be educated” and be “more inclusive”.

Unison president Steve North accused Health Secretary Wes Streeting of “pandering to anti-trans bigotry” when he agreed to meet the group.

North, a bearded man in an anorak in his X picture, helpfully points out in his profile that he uses “he/him” pronouns.

To make sure nurses get the support they deserve, the women have set up their own group,  Darlington Nursing Union (DNU).

President Bethany Hutchison said the case is “much bigger than Rose”.

“This policy puts women at risk, and yet no one in the NHS or the government appears able or prepared to do anything about it, so we have to fight this battle instead,” she added.

Nurses, who the nation banged its pans in appreciation of week in week out during the pandemic should not be having to fight such battles.

But years of training and experience mean they know biology is far more important than the clothes someone wears.

North of the border, Sandie Peggie, who worked at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, for 30 years, brought an employment tribunal against NHS Fife after she was suspended following a complaint about sharing a changing room with a male doctor who identifies as a woman.

Jennifer Melle was investigated and disciplined at St Helier Hospital in Carshalton, Surrey after accidentally addressing a transgender paedophile as “Mr”.

Back to Darlington, where the employment tribunal was postponed until October after a preliminary hearing on Wednesday.

The trust said it needed more time for its internal investigation to be completed. What can possibly be left to discover? Who made the decision and why is all that matters.

Tribunal judge Stuart Robinson said the hearings will take four weeks, not the original three that had been planned, given around 30 witnesses are expected to give evidence.

He said: “These are important proceedings.

“The issues are complex.”

But there is absolutely nothing complex about whether a man should be given permission to change with women who do not want him there.

A month’s worth of human resources waffle and legal arguments will never change biology.