The employment tribunal brought by a NHS Fife nurse who objected to sharing a changing room with a transgender woman has adjourned ahead of closing submissions to be heard in September.
Sandie Peggie, who has worked as a nurse for more than 30 years, is claiming she was subject to unlawful harassment under the Equality Act when she was expected to share a changing room with Dr Beth Upton.
The tribunal heard a further two weeks of witness evidence concluding on Tuesday. It is being watched closely for how it may be influenced by April’s landmark judgment by the supreme court, which ruled the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who held gender recognition certificates. The ruling has been publicly welcomed by Peggie and her supporters.
In earlier evidence, Peggie said she had felt “embarrassed and intimidated” when Upton started to get changed alongside her, leading to a heated exchange on Christmas Eve in 2023, the details of which are disputed.
NHS Fife has previously described Peggie’s action as “unnecessary and vexatious”. Upton is also disputing it.
Recalled to give evidence a second time on Tuesday, Peggie told her lawyer Naomi Cunningham that a number of other women shared her concerns about Upton but were reluctant to come forward because of the “very toxic” situation with the health board. She named 13 NHS Fife workers including receptionists and a consultant who agreed that a transgender woman should not be using the women’s changing rooms.
Peggie was also questioned about allegations made by colleagues who previously gave evidence that she used racist slurs in chat messages and described Upton as a “weirdo”. Defending comments about flooding in Pakistan as “dark humour”, she also admitted she had used racial slurs but said she was “brought up like that”, and that it was not a “politically correct way”.
She said when she asked for a photograph of Upton and used the phrase “that weirdo”, it was a picture from a night out “where he looked like a man in a dress”. Under questioning by Jane Russell KC, representing Upton and NHS Fife, she denied “waging a hate campaign against Dr Upton”.
Peggie told the tribunal: “I don’t have any bad feelings about trans people, I just don’t believe they should be in the women’s changing room. I still believe a trans woman is a man and shouldn’t be in the female changing room.”
Peggie was suspended after she complained about having to share a changing room with Upton at the hospital on Christmas Eve in 2023. She was then placed on special leave and later suspended after Upton made an allegation of bullying and harassment and cited concerns about “patient care”.
At the start of the second evidence hearing, NHS Fife confirmed Peggie had been cleared of the separate gross misconduct allegations after an 18-month internal process.
Earlier in evidence, Gillian Malone, the head of nursing at NHS Fife, told the tribunal she could not recall seeing the risk assessment that led to Peggie’s suspension.
Last week, the two senior lawyers clashed after Russell argued that Peggie’s legal team were “confusing” those giving evidence by referring to the doctor as “he” and “him” and “creating a hostile environment for my witnesses”.
In January, the employment judge Sandy Kemp rejected an NHS Fife request to impose an order preventing the use of male pronouns or terms to refer to Upton, concluding it was “unfair” to ask Peggie and her lawyers to use terms they consider “inaccurate”.
