A nurse who objected to sharing a female changing room with a transgender woman doctor has been cleared of gross misconduct allegations.
Sandie Peggie, who has worked as a nurse for the health board 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 a trans woman, Dr Beth Upton.
Upton herself complained to the board about Peggie’s behaviour after an altercation in the women’s changing room in Victoria hospital, Kirkcaldy, Fife, in December 2023. Peggie was accused of misconduct, failures of patient care and misgendering Upton.
But NHS Fife confirmed on Wednesday that an internal hearing had concluded there was “insufficient evidence to support a finding of misconduct”.
Peggie’s solicitor, Margaret Gribbon, described her client – who was suspended from work at Victoria hospital in January 2024 – as “relieved and delighted” at the outcome of the 18-month internal process.
NHS Fife and Upton are defending their actions in an employment tribunal case against the trust that resumed on Wednesday after a five-month break.
The tribunal hearing is being watched closely for how it may be influenced by April’s landmark judgment by the supreme court that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 does not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates. The ruling has since 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, the details of which are disputed.
The health board has previously described Peggie’s action as “unnecessary and vexatious”. Upton is also disputing it.
NHS Fife’s equality lead, Isla Bumba, told NHS Fife’s counsel, Jane Russell KC, that in August 2023, her line manager, Esther Davidson, had asked for “very generic and informal” advice on how best to accommodate a new trans member of staff, “particularly around changing rooms”.
The advice was based on the Equality and Human Rights Commissions’s statutory code of practice, which is currently being revised to reflect the supreme court’s ruling.
Bumba told the hearing: “I said it could be deemed discriminatory to not allow a trans person access to facilities that aligned with their gender, but I recommended that it might be worthwhile having a conversation with the person directly if they had been open about their trans status to see where they would be most comfortable.”
She confirmed to Russell that she was not aware of any other cases of staff objecting to trans employees using changing facilities that aligned with their lived gender to date, and that no other female staff had approached her to say they felt their safety, privacy or dignity were being compromised.
Bumba was later questioned by Peggie’s lawyer, Naomi Cunningham, who asked whether the health board’s approach to allowing Upton to use the women’s facilities amounted to forcing female colleagues “to participate in a pretence” that Upton was a woman. “I disagree,” said Bumba firmly.
She later denied that she wanted to “see Sandie Peggie punished” for her gender-critical views, telling Cunningham “that’s quite a leap”. Earlier she accepted that, while she believed that trans women were women, there were others who did not. “I believe gender is a spectrum and people’s views on gender will also be a spectrum”.
As the tribunal continues, the first minister, John Swinney, insisted that NHS Fife – which has spent at least £220,000 defending its actions – “has my confidence and support”, while Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, Jackie Baillie, called on NHS Fife to settle the tribunal case “and brings this sorry saga to an end”.
