Driving school accused in sex-change instructor row

A Muslim husband from South Yorkshire has threatened to sue an all-female driving school after he discovered his wife's driving instructor used to be a man.

The man, from Sheffield, booked a lesson for his wife with Laugh n Pass, an all-female instructor driving school which operates in West and South Yorkshire.

But the wife cut short her two-hour lesson and Joanne Dixon, the school's owner later received a phone call from the husband accusing her of being racist and claiming she had sent a male instructor disguised as a woman because he was a Muslim.

Mrs Dixon says she is giving her full backing to the instructor in question, Emma Sherdley - formerly a married dad of two called Andrew but now legally a woman.

A popular and respected instructor, Ms Sherdley has 32 female pupils on her books and Mrs Dixon says no one has raised problems over her past before.

"Emma is a popular and very well-respected instructor," she said.

"That man accused us of being racist, yet his attitude towards Emma showed prejudice of the very worst kind."

Ms Sherdley, 42, of Holmfirth, near Huddersfield, has a birth certificate and a "gender recognition certificate" to prove her legal status as a woman, although she is still waiting for final surgery to make her transition from male to female physically complete.

She says that none of her other pupils have had a problem with her sex change and she found the man's complaints "hurtful, offensive and deeply upsetting."

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Driving-school-accused-in-sexchange.4102140.jp

So if it's such a problem, perhaps Mr. "my wife can't be with any man outside the family" should teach his wife himself?

I'm surprised he's letting her learn to drive at all - she'll be able to go out in public and who knows? Maybe she'll come into contact with other men. I hear there are quite a few in Sheffield . . .

argh.

Most people who threaten to sue don't follow through. They should just give this Neanderthal a refund and tell him that, because of his abuse, they won't do any further business with him. As for the school being "racist", I wasn't aware that Islam is a race.

Relations between men and women are rarely more polarised than in a car. It could be women who are fed up with the way their partners try to teach them to drive, and think that it's a general male problem; women who feel uncomfortable driving off alone with someone they don't know, when they can't just stop and get out at any time; or women who feel that for religious reasons they must never be alone with a man they're not related to.