A consultant has told a tribunal that a transgender doctor involved in a dispute with a nurse over single-sex spaces is “chromosomally male”.
Nurse Sandie Peggie was suspended after she complained about having to share a changing room with trans medic Dr Beth Upton at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife, on Christmas Eve 2023.
She was placed on special leave after Dr Upton made an allegation of bullying and harassment, and cited concerns about “patient care”.
Ms Peggie has lodged a claim against NHS Fife and Dr Upton, citing the Equality Act 2010, including sexual harassment; harassment related to a protected belief; indirect discrimination; and victimisation.
At an employment tribunal in Dundee on Tuesday, emergency department consultant Dr Maggie Currer was cross-examined by Ms Peggie’s lawyer, Naomi Cunningham.
The consultant said she did not advise staff that Dr Upton would be allowed to use female changing facilities as she “did not think it was reasonable to violate someone’s confidentiality”.
The consultant disagreed this made it harder for staff to object.
She rejected a suggestion that terminology such as the word “bigot” was used in the department regarding attitudes towards gender.
Dr Currer also said it was an “error” that she wrote in an email to colleagues that Ms Peggie had been referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council on January 5 2023, and added: “I was aware she hadn’t been so that is indeed an error.”
She added: “In hindsight I could have checked with medical staff whether or not they were going to be comfortable with Dr Upton using the female changing rooms.
“No concerns were raised with me at the time; there are other spaces which people can use to change.
“I’m still not sure that advertising Dr Upton’s trans status would have been the right thing to do.”
Ms Cunningham said: “Someone had to be the first to object, this was an environment where senior staff were insisting that trans women were women and only a bigot would deny that. Objecting is going to take real courage isn’t it?”
Dr Currer said: “I don’t think that terminology was ever used – that only a bigot would deny that.”
Ms Cunningham put it to her that “Dr Upton is quite simply biologically male”.
Dr Currer said: “She’s chromosomally male, as far as I’m aware.
“Although I’ve not examined Dr Upton she’s also in terms of genitalia male, but I have not examined her.”
The tribunal continues.
