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3 days ago
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A nurse who complained about sharing a women’s changing room with a transgender doctor has won part of her employment tribunal against NHS Fife while her claim against the doctor in question was dismissed.
The judgment, published on Monday, was immediately attacked by gender critical campaigners as “disappointing” and failing to provide employers with the clarity they need on the practical application of April’s supreme court ruling on biological sex.
Sandie Peggie, who has worked as a nurse for more than 30 years, contended she was subject to unlawful harassment under the Equality Act when she was expected to share a changing room with Dr Beth Upton.
The case revolved around a disputed incident which took place in a changing room at Victoria hospital in Kirkcaldy on Christmas Eve 2023, after which Upton made an allegation of bullying and harassment and cited concerns about patient care, leading to Peggie being placed on special leave.
Peggie lodged a claim against both Upton and NHS Fife, citing the Equality Act 2010, including sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation.
The employment tribunal heard two tranches of evidence in February and July before Judge Sandy Kemp in Dundee.
In a written judgment on Monday, the tribunal upheld Peggie’s harassment claim but dismissed the other allegations against the health board. It also dismissed the claim against Dr Upton.
In an interim statement, Peggie said she was “beyond relieved and delighted” at the harassment finding, adding that “the last two years have been agonising for me and my family”. She is expected to make a more detailed response later this week.
The 312-page ruling found that NHS Fife had harassed Peggie by not revoking Upton’s permission to use the women’s changing room on an interim basis after her initial complaint until different work rotas for the pair could take effect.
It also found the board took an “unreasonable” length of time to investigate the patient care allegations, that she walked out on a patient in order to avoid Dr Upton. Although they emerged in January 2024, it was not until July 2025 that NHS Fife confirmed Peggie had been cleared of the separate gross misconduct allegations after an 18-month internal process.
The case has been followed closely across the UK to see how April’s supreme court ruling that “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer only to a biological woman and to biological sex should be applied in practice.
But Kemp argued in his judgment that the supreme court ruling was “not determinative” for changing room use. “It may be lawful to grant permission to a trans person to use the changing room that aligns with the sex and gender they identify as having, dependent on the circumstances.”
He concluded that that decision did not result in it being inherently unlawful for a trans female, who is biologically male under the Equality Act, to be given permission to use a female changing room at work. Conversely, having the protected characteristic of gender reassignment did not mean that permission to use the changing room was necessarily lawful.
Peggie’s solicitor, Margaret Gribbon, described the tribunal’s finding as “a huge win for a tenacious and courageous woman standing up for her sex-based rights”.
But Maya Forstater, head of the sex-based rights charity Sex Matters, said that “overall we are disappointed in the tribunal’s approach, which sought to reach a spurious “balance” between a woman’s right to undress with privacy and dignity and the right of an employee with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment not to be discriminated against in employment”.
“The case demonstrates that employers with ambiguous policies are putting themselves in legal jeopardy. But the tribunal has failed to provide them with the clarity they need in order to be confident that they can simply and clearly say ‘No’ to men who want to use women’s spaces.”
NHS Fife, which has been criticised for spending at least £220,500 defending the case, said it would take time to work through the detail of the judgment.
“We want to recognise how difficult this tribunal has been for everyone directly and indirectly involved. Our focus now is to ensure that NHS Fife remains a supportive and inclusive environment for all employees and our patients and to deliver health and care to the population of Fife.”
