{"id":626847,"date":"2025-12-11T19:16:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T19:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/626847\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T19:16:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T19:16:19","slug":"fife-nurse-to-appeal-against-hugely-problematic-trans-changing-room-ruling-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/626847\/","title":{"rendered":"Fife nurse to appeal against \u2018hugely problematic\u2019 trans changing room ruling | Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandie Peggie, the Fife nurse who was suspended after she complained about sharing a female changing room with a transgender doctor, will appeal against a \u201chugely problematic\u201d employment tribunal ruling, her solicitor has confirmed.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the ruling of a lengthy employment tribunal found that Peggie, who has worked as a nurse for more than 30 years, had been harassed by NHS Fife<\/a> when she was expected to share the changing room with Dr Beth Upton.<\/p>\n

But her other claims, which included victimisation and discrimination under the 2010 Equality Act, were dismissed. The tribunal, before the employment judge Sandy Kemp, also dismissed her claim against Upton, whose evidence was held to be \u201cmore reliable and materially more cohesive in nature\u201d.<\/p>\n

Telling supporters in Dundee that she would \u201cnot be giving up the fight any time soon\u201d, the appeal will be one of four cases that Peggie is pursuing \u2013 including actions against NHS Fife\u2019s management, senior medical staff and the Royal College of Nursing<\/a>, her trade union, claiming it failed to support her when she was suspended, something it denies.<\/p>\n

Thanking her family, friends and campaign supporters who had gathered for a press conference in Dundee on Thursday afternoon, Peggie said she had been \u201coverwhelmed by the messages of support\u201d from across the UK and beyond.<\/p>\n

The announcement came as questions emerged about misquotations in Monday\u2019s ruling, some of which appear to change the original meaning of legal references.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the tribunal issued a \u201ccertificate of correction\u201d stating there had been \u201cclerical mistake(s), error(s)or omissions(s)\u201d, and changed one reference to the judgment in Maya Forstater\u2019s landmark case<\/a>, which established that gender critical views were protected in law.<\/p>\n

The ruling initially quoted Forstater\u2019s case as emphasising that the Equality Act did not create \u201ca hierarchy of protected characteristics\u201d. Forstater, however, pointed out on social media that the judgment did no such thing, and that the quote was \u201ccompletely made up\u201d. It has now been removed and replaced with an accurate citation.<\/p>\n

Forstater, who now heads the campaign group Sex Matters and attended Peggie\u2019s event on Thursday, said she was concerned that no explanation had been given for how the error occurred. She pointed to at least three other instances where the ruling used quotes that \u201cdon\u2019t reflect the case law\u201d and consequently \u201cseverely undermine people\u2019s confidence in the legal process\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuestions about these stark errors need to be answered by the judiciary,\u201d Forstater said.<\/p>\n

Margaret Gribbon, Peggie\u2019s solicitor, said work on the appeal was now under way, and that some of the tribunal\u2019s findings were \u201chugely problematic\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor instance, the judgment places responsibility on female employees to raise complaints if they feel uncomfortable about sharing single-sex spaces with men. This ignores industrial realities. When Sandie objected, she was suspended, subjected to an unreasonably lengthy disciplinary investigation and falsely accused of patient care concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gribbon continued: \u201cThe judgment also places employers in the invidious position of having to make decisions about single-sex workplace facilities based on the physical appearance of transgender employees, and by asking them intrusive questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reading from her own statement, Peggie said: \u201cI am not a campaigner and had never heard of the phrase \u2018gender-critical\u2019 when I first raised complaints over two years ago about my employer\u2019s decision to allow men into female-only changing rooms. I just knew instinctively that it wasn\u2019t right that women were expected to undress in front of men in private spaces and I still believe this to be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sandie Peggie, the Fife nurse who was suspended after she complained about sharing a female changing room with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-626847","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\/115702542152619699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626847","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=626847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}