Employment tribunal finds Sandie Peggie was harassed by NHS Fife

NHS Fife harassed nurse Sandie Peggie, who complained about sharing a female changing room with a transgender doctor, an employment tribunal has found. 

The determination was handed down by judge Sandy Kemp and his tribunal members after weeks of deliberation followinghearings in Dundee earlier this year. 

However, the tribunal dismissed the claim made against Dr Beth Upton and all other claims made against the health board. 

Peggie, who has worked as a nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy for more than 30 years, had claimed belief discrimination, sexual harassment, and victimisation.  

She was suspended by the health board in January 2024 following a row with Upton, who is biologically male but assumed a female identity in 2022, over the junior doctor’s usage of a changing room designated for females, which had been approved by NHS Fife.  

An internal investigation by NHS Fife cleared Peggie of all allegations of gross misconduct in July. 

Reacting to the ruling, Peggie said: “I am beyond relieved and delighted that the tribunal has found that my employer Fife health board harassed me after I complained about having to share a female-only changing room with a male colleague. 

“The last two years have been agonising for me and my family. I will have much more to say in the coming days once I’ve been able to properly consider the lengthy judgment and discuss it with my legal team. For now, I am looking forward to spending a quiet few days with my family. 

“I’m so grateful to my incredible legal team, Naomi Cunningham, lead counsel, Dr Charlotte Elves, junior counsel, and my solicitor Margaret Gribbon. There are many others I would like to thank and will do so in the coming days.” 

Gribbon described the judgment as “a huge win for a tenacious and courageous woman standing up for her sex-based rights”. 

She added: “This has been an extraordinarily lengthy and complex legal case. After hearing evidence for over a month from some 21 witnesses and considering just under 3,000 pages of productions, the tribunal has today delivered a 318-page judgment. 

“Due to the length of the judgment and the fact the legal team only received it this morning at 10am, we will not be in a position to make substantive comments on it today and will do so later this week.”

Maya Forstater, CEO of sex-based rights charity Sex Matters, said she was “pleased” Peggie won her claim of harassment against NHS Fife and that it was “criticised for its terrible handling of the complaint against her”.

However, she said: “Overall we are disappointed in the tribunal’s approach, which sought to reach a spurious 'balance' between a woman’s right to undress with privacy and dignity, and the right of an employee with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment not to be discriminated against in employment. 

“The idea that a woman finding herself unexpectedly or unwantedly in a 'female' changing room with a man must consider questions of human rights or the protected characteristics is ridiculous and unworkable. 

“The way that an employer should protect both of their rights is to set clear rules about whether spaces are single sex or mixed sex. 

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

“It is a travesty that a woman can be judged as having expressed herself in the wrong way when she objects to finding a man in the women’s changing room. It should never come down to a question of 'he said, she said'; there should simply be clear rules that protect women’s privacy and dignity.

“Sandie’s bravery is an inspiration, but it shouldn’t require bravery for women to be able to say to their employers, clearly and in natural language, that male colleagues – men, in other words – have no place in spaces that exist for the safety, dignity and privacy of women.”

She added: “It is now urgent that the Health and Safety Executive steps up and provides clear guidance to employers on workplace toilets and changing rooms. Employers cannot be expected to make complex human-rights determinations about whether particular men are allowed into women’s changing rooms, and then to wait and see if any individual women complain.”

Scottish Labour MP Joani Reid said: “What happened to Sandie Peggie was a disgrace. 

“Her harassment has been enabled by a warped NHS culture and fostered by a Scottish Government that refused to listen to women’s concerns. 

“It allowed the ideology of a small group of unrepresentative activists spread like wildfire through our institutions.

“Those in NHS Fife who played any part in this must be accountable and I struggle to see how they stay in post. They have wasted masses of NHS money on their trans rights crusade and enough is enough.”

Scottish Conservative shadow equalities minister Tess White said: “NHS Fife shamefully tried to silence a nurse who stood up for women’s rights, then squandered a fortune of taxpayers’ money defending their harassment of her.

“The health board have serious questions to answer – and so does John Swinney and Neil Gray who backed the discredited management team at every turn.

“This whole shameful saga stems from the SNP imposing their reckless gender self-ID policy across Scotland’s public bodies – a policy which the Supreme Court deemed unlawful.

“John Swinney should apologise for his abject failure to protect women and girls and finally issue an unequivocal instruction for all organisations in Scotland to follow the law.”