{"id":304254,"date":"2025-07-30T15:40:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T15:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/304254\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T15:40:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T15:40:19","slug":"nhs-tribunal-involving-nurse-in-trans-changing-room-row-adjourns-until-september-nhs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/304254\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS tribunal involving nurse in trans changing room row adjourns until September | NHS"},"content":{"rendered":"

The employment tribunal brought by a NHS<\/a> Fife nurse who objected to sharing a changing room alongside a transgender woman doctor has adjourned ahead of closing submissions to be heard in September.<\/p>\n

Sandie Peggie, who has worked as a nurse for more than 30 years, claimed she was subject to unlawful harassment<\/a> under the Equality Act when she was expected to share a changing room with a trans woman, Dr Beth Upton.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s landmark judgment<\/a> 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 since been publicly welcomed by Peggie and her supporters.<\/p>\n

In earlier evidence, Peggie said she had felt \u201cembarrassed and intimidated\u201d when Upton started to get changed alongside her, leading to a heated exchange on Christmas Eve in 2023, the details of which are disputed.<\/p>\n

NHS Fife has previously described Peggie\u2019s action as \u201cunnecessary and vexatious\u201d. Upton is also disputing it.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cvery toxic\u201d 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\u2019s changing rooms.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cweirdo\u201d. Defending comments about flooding in Pakistan as \u201cdark humour\u201d, she also admitted she had used racial slurs but said she was \u201cbrought up like that\u201d, and said it was not a \u201cpolitically correct way\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said when she asked for a photograph of Upton and used the phrase \u201cthat weirdo\u201d, it was a picture from a night out \u201cwhere he looked like a man in a dress\u201d. Under questioning by Jane Russell KC, representing Upton and NHS Fife, she denied \u201cwaging a hate campaign against Dr Upton\u201d.<\/p>\n

Peggie told the tribunal: \u201cI don\u2019t have any bad feelings about trans people, I just don\u2019t believe they should be in the women\u2019s changing room. I still believe a trans woman is a man and shouldn\u2019t be in the female changing room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peggie was suspended after she complained about having to share a changing room with Upton at the hospital on Christmas Eve in 2023 and was then placed on special leave and later suspended after Upton made an allegation of bullying and harassment and cited concerns about \u201cpatient care\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the start of the second evidence hearing, NHS Fife confirmed Peggie had been cleared of the separate gross misconduct allegations<\/a> after a 18-month internal process.<\/p>\n

Earlier in evidence, Gillian Malone, the head of nursing at NHS Fife told the tribunal she could not recall seeing the risk assessment which led to Peggie\u2019s suspension .<\/p>\n

Last week, the two senior lawyers clashed after Russell argued that Peggie\u2019s legal team were \u201cconfusing\u201d those giving evidence by referring to the doctor as \u201che\u201d and \u201chim\u201d and \u201ccreating a hostile environment for my witnesses\u201d.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cunfair\u201d to ask Peggie and her lawyers to use terms they consider \u201cinaccurate\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The employment tribunal brought by a NHS Fife nurse who objected to sharing a changing room alongside a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-304254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114942943199408354","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}