Scottish nurse wins part of her tribunal in trans doctor changing room case | Transgender

A nurse who complained about sharing a women’s changing room with a transgender doctor has won part of her employment tribunal case against NHS Fife, but her claim against the doctor in question has been dismissed.

Sandie Peggie, who has worked as a nurse for more than 30 years, claimed she was subjected to unlawful harassment under the Equality Act when she had to share a changing room with Dr Beth Upton.

In a written judgment Monday, the court upheld Peggie’s harassment claim against the health board, but dismissed the other claims. She also dismissed the nurse’s complaint against Upton, whose testimony was deemed “more reliable and materially more consistent.”

The ruling was immediately criticized by critical gender activists, calling it “disappointing” because it failed to provide employers with clarity on the practical application of the Supreme Court’s April ruling on biological sex.

The case revolved around a controversial incident which occurred in a changing room at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy on Christmas Eve 2023, after which Upton made an allegation of bullying and harassment and raised concerns about patient care, leading to Peggie being placed on special leave.

Peggie filed a complaint against Upton and NHS Fife, citing the Equality Act 2010, including sexual harassment, harassment relating to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation.

Dundee Employment Tribunal heard two tranches of evidence in February and July, before Judge Sandy Kemp.

In an interim statement, Peggie said she was “beyond relieved and delighted” at the discovery of harassment, adding that “the last two years have been distressing for me and my family.” She is expected to provide a more detailed response later this week.

The 312-page decision found NHS Fife harassed Peggie by failing to revoke Upton’s permission to use the women’s changing room on an interim basis after her initial complaint until different work rotations for the two could take effect.

It also found the council took an “unreasonable” amount of time to investigate allegations of patient care that she had abandoned a patient in order to avoid Dr Upton. Although they emerged in January 2024, it was not until July 2025 that NHS Fife confirmed Peggie had been cleared of separate allegations of serious misconduct after an 18-month internal process.

The ruling called into question the credibility of some of Peggie’s testimony, for example seeking to distance herself from offensive remarks about Pakistan flood victims, but also rejected other attacks on her professional performance, describing her “unblemished 30-year career until the Christmas Eve incident”.

Responding to comments Peggie made to Upton during the Christmas Eve incident using language that she “knew, or reasonably should have known, would be offensive”, the judgment concluded that “transphobic” was not a statutory term and accepted as “entirely genuine” the nurse’s concern “that a person she considered male was entering a space she considered private to those who were biologically female”.

A hearing to determine what legal recourse Peggie is owed will be set for a later date.

The case has been closely followed across the UK to see how the Supreme Court’s April ruling that “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer only to a biological woman and biological sex.

Kemp argued in his ruling that the Supreme Court’s decision was “not determinative” of the use of locker rooms. “It may be legal to grant permission to a trans person to use the locker room that corresponds to the sex and gender they identify, depending on the circumstances.”

He concluded that this decision did not imply that it was inherently illegal for a trans woman, who is biologically male within the meaning of the Equality Act, to be allowed to use a female changing room at work. Conversely, benefiting from the protected characteristic of gender reassignment does not mean that permission to use the changing rooms is necessarily lawful.

Peggie’s lawyer, Margaret Gribbon, described the court’s conclusion as “a huge victory for a tenacious and courageous woman who defends her gender-based rights.”

But Maya Forstater, director of the sexual rights charity Sex Matters, said that “overall we are disappointed by the court’s approach, which sought to strike a false ‘balance’ between a woman’s right to undress with privacy and dignity and the right of an employee benefiting from the protected characteristic of gender reassignment not to be discriminated against in employment.”

“The case demonstrates that employers with ambiguous policies are putting themselves in legal jeopardy. But the court has failed to provide them with the clarity they need to be sure they can simply and clearly say ‘No’ to men who want to use women’s spaces.”

Susan Smith, co-director of campaign group For Women Scotland, which brought action against the Scottish Government which resulted in the Supreme Court’s ruling, said: “The courts should not try to override the judgment of the UK’s highest court.

NHS Fife, which has been criticized for spending at least £220,500 defending the case, said it would take time to review the details of the judgment.

“We want to recognize how difficult this tribunal has been for everyone directly and indirectly involved. Our focus now is on ensuring that NHS Fife remains a supportive and inclusive environment for all employees and our patients and providing healthcare to the people of Fife,” he said.

The decision comes a week after an employee who objected to transgender women using the women’s toilet at Leonardo UK’s Edinburgh office lost her discrimination claim against the company. An employment tribunal ruled that the toilet policy was a “proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim” of creating an inclusive working environment for trans staff.

Jess O’Thomson, trans rights manager for the nonprofit Good Law Project, said both rulings contradicted the argument that the Supreme Court’s ruling automatically resulted in a bathroom ban for trans people. “The court made clear that the law now does not require barring transgender people from single-sex spaces. »