A nurse who complained about sharing a women’s changing room with a transgender doctor has won part of her employment tribunal claim against NHS Fife, but her claim against the doctor in question was dismissed.
The judgment, published on Monday, was immediately attacked by gender-critical campaigners as “disappointing” and for failing to provide employers with clarity on the practical application of the April Supreme Court ruling on biological sex.
Sandie Peggie, who has worked as a nurse for more than thirty years, alleged that she was the victim of unlawful harassment under the Equality Act, when she was expected to share a dressing room with Dr Beth Upton.
The case revolved around a controversial incident that took place in a changing room at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy on Christmas Eve 2023, following which Upton made an allegation of bullying and harassment and raised concerns about patient care, leading to Peggie being placed on special leave.
Peggie has brought 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 Dundee employment tribunal heard two sets of evidence before Judge Sandy Kemp in February and July.
In a written ruling on Monday, the tribunal upheld Peggie’s harassment claim but rejected the other allegations against the health board. It also has the claim against Dr. Upton rejected.
In an interim statement, Peggie said she was “extremely relieved and delighted” by the harassment finding, adding that “the last two years have been painful for me and my family”. She is expected to provide a more detailed response later this week.
The 312-page ruling found that NHS Fife had harassed Peggie by failing to withdraw Upton’s permission to use the women’s changing room temporarily after her initial complaint until other work schedules for the couple could come into effect.
It also found that the board took an “unreasonable” amount of time to investigate allegations of patient care, that she abandoned a patient to allow Dr. Avoid Upton. Although they came to light in January 2024, it was not until July 2025 that NHS Fife confirmed that Peggie had been cleared of the separate allegations of gross misconduct following an 18-month internal process.
The case was closely watched across Britain to see how the Supreme Court’s ruling in April that ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act only refers to a biological woman and biological sex.
Kemp argued in his ruling that the Supreme Court ruling was “not determinative” of the use of locker rooms. “It may be lawful to grant permission to a trans person to use the locker room that aligns with the sex and gender they identify as having, depending on the circumstances.”
He concluded that this decision did not result in it being inherently unlawful for a trans woman, who is biologically male under the Equality Act, to be allowed to use a female changing room at work. Conversely, having the protected characteristic of gender reassignment did not mean that permission to use the locker room was necessarily lawful.
Peggie’s lawyer, Margaret Gribbon, described the tribunal’s findings as: “a huge victory for a tenacious and courageous woman who stands up for her sex-based rights.”
But Maya Forstater, head of the sex-based charity Sex Matters, said that “we are generally disappointed in the tribunal’s approach, which sought to strike a false ‘balance’ between a woman’s right to undress with privacy and dignity and the right of a worker with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment not to be discriminated against in employment.
“The case shows that employers with ambiguous policies are putting themselves in legal jeopardy. But the tribunal has failed to provide them with the clarity they need to ensure they can simply and clearly say ‘no’ to men who want to use women’s space.”
NHS Fife, which has been criticized for spending at least £220,500 defending the case, said it would take time to work out the details of the verdict.
“We would like to acknowledge how difficult this tribunal has been for all those 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 provide health and care for the people of Fife,” the tribunal said.
The ruling comes a week after a female employee who objected to trans women using the women’s toilets at Leonardo UK’s Edinburgh office lost her discrimination claim against the company. An employment tribunal ruled that the toilet policy was a “proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim” of creating an inclusive working environment for transgender people.
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