Transgender doctor felt ‘unsafe and upset’ after nurse’s comments in Fife hospital’s changing room, tribunal told

A transgender doctor felt “unsafe and upset” after a nurse made “hurtful and demeaning” remarks to her in a women’s changing room at work, an employment tribunal has heard.

Dr Beth Upton, 29, said she felt nurse Sandie Peggie compared her to transgender rapist Isla Bryson and had told the doctor that “as a man” she “couldn’t be in the changing room”.

Ms Peggie was suspended from Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in January 2024 after she objected to Dr Upton using the changing facilities in its A&E department on Christmas Eve 2023.

The nurse, who was accused of bullying and harassment, lodged a complaint against NHS Fife and Dr Upton of sexual harassment or harassment related to protected beliefs under the Equality Act 2010 regarding three changing room incidents – indirect harassment; victimisation; and whistleblowing.

At the tribunal in Dundee on Thursday, Dr Upton, who uses she/her pronouns, said she began gender transition in January 2022 and started working at the A&E department in August 2023.

During a meeting with her manager that month, the doctor told her boss she had used the women’s changing room previously at work.

Dr Upton said: “As she understood it as my identity is as a woman, that was enough, that I should use the women’s changing facilities.”

‘I’m not a man’

The tribunal heard how Ms Peggie left the changing room on two occasions while Dr Upton was present and stood outside, which the doctor believed was based on her being trans.

During the third incident, on Christmas Eve 2023, Dr Upton said: “She told me this was the women’s changing room and she told me that it was inappropriate for me to be in there.

“She said that she felt intimidated by my presence and that I couldn’t be in there.”

The doctor said Ms Peggie told her that others felt the same.

Dr Upton said she apologised to the nurse for how she was feeling but told her “as a woman I’m allowed to use these changing rooms”, and said if Ms Peggie had a problem with that she should raise it formally.

The doctor added: “She repeated that I can’t be in this room and that I’m not a woman, that it’s not safe, that she understood I was going through some sort of process but as a man I couldn’t be in the changing room.

“I responded to her that I’m not a man and that I can be in this changing room.”

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The doctor said Ms Peggie asked her what her chromosomes were and said it was “like the situation in prisons”.

Dr Upton said she believed this was a reference to transgender rapist Bryson, who was jailed for eight years in 2023 for raping two women pre-transition.

Scottish Prison Service (SPS) guidance at the time saw Bryson initially housed in segregation at Cornton Vale women’s prison near Stirling while awaiting sentencing.

Bryson was quickly moved to a jail with male inmates following a public outcry, with the scandal engulfing the final weeks of Nicola Sturgeon’s premiership as first minister.

Dr Upton said she believed Ms Peggie was implying the doctor’s “presence in the changing rooms to be analogous to that of a sexual predator”.

‘I felt unsafe and upset’

Asked by lawyer Jane Russell KC, who is representing the doctor and the health board, how she felt at the time, Dr Upton said: “Awful. Really, really upset. Really distressed.”

She said the nurse’s questions were “hurtful and demeaning”, adding: “It was deeply uncomfortable and upsetting to have somebody saying such unpleasant and accusatory things to you. I felt unsafe and upset.”

Dr Upton said, apart from the incidents with Ms Peggie, her gender identity had generally been “respected” and people at work had been “really lovely”.

Ms Peggie previously told the tribunal she was “embarrassed” due to menstruation while getting changed during the third incident, and she insisted she was not drawing comparisons with a convicted rapist when she likened the situation to a “biological man in a women’s prison”.

She said: “I don’t have a problem with trans people and I didn’t have a problem with Beth until I found him in the female changing rooms.”

Earlier on Thursday, Ms Peggie’s mother told the tribunal that on Christmas Day 2023 her daughter did not seem “her normal self” before telling her about the changing room incident.

Sheila Bell said: “She told us she had to go into a changing room the night before, when she went in Dr Upton was in there and he was changing.

“He was in there, she was desperate to get herself sorted out and she felt uncomfortable and embarrassed that he was getting changed when she needed to.

“She did speak to him and she told him how she felt uncomfortable and embarrassed. He turned round and became on the defence and said he had every right to be there.”

The tribunal continues.