A transgender doctor felt “unsafe” after a nurse made “hurtful and demeaning” remarks to her in the women’s changing room they were both using at work, an employment tribunal has heard.
Dr Beth Upton said she felt nurse Sandie Peggie compared her to a transgender rapist and had told the doctor “as a man (Dr Upton) couldn’t be in the changing room”.
Ms Peggie, who has worked at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife, for 30 years, has taken Dr Upton and Fife health board to a tribunal after being suspended following an incident on Christmas Eve 2023 in the hospital’s female changing area.
She lodged a complaint of sexual harassment or harassment related to protected beliefs under the Equality Act 2010 regarding three incidents when she and Dr Upton were in the changing room together; indirect harassment; victimisation; and whistleblowing.
That came after she was suspended in January 2024 following Dr Upton making an allegation of bullying and harassment.
Dr Upton, 29, began working in the hospital’s A&E department in August 2023.
Giving evidence on the fourth day of the tribunal in Dundee, Dr Upton said she began gender transition in January 2022, uses the pronouns she/her, and had been “fully out in all aspects of my life” since August 2022, including at work.
The doctor told the tribunal that during a meeting with her manager in August 2023, as part of a wider conversation they discussed her trans identity and use of changing rooms, and said 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.”
The medic spoke about two incidents when she said Ms Peggie left the women’s changing room when they were both present and stood outside, which the doctor assumed was based on her being trans.
A third incident took place on Christmas Eve 2023, Dr Upton told the tribunal, where Ms Peggie started a conversation when they were alone in the changing room.
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 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.
Dr Upton 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.”
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 Isla Bryson – who was jailed for eight years in 2023 for raping two women pre-transition and was initially held in a women’s prison before being transferred to the male estate – and Ms Peggie was implying the doctor’s “presence in the changing rooms to be analogous to that of a sexual predator”.
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 the incident on Christmas Eve made her “anxious and nervous” about being at work in case she ran into Ms Peggie.
She said she saw her again in the changing room on her first day back after the incident, just as she was about to change into her hospital scrubs.
“I just picked up all of my stuff and left straight away”, she told the tribunal.
She added she initially “took refuge” in a cupboard before getting changed in a toilet, explaining that she did not want to be “in a space” where she could interact with her.
She also said she had a panic attack when she heard in April that Ms Peggie would be returning to work following her suspension, and that she had to be signed off sick for eight weeks.
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”.
The doctor also said the public nature of the inquiry had given rise to numerous “hostile” articles and social media posts about her, which she described as a realisation of some of her “worst fears”.
“I feel it’s very difficult for me to live my life normally at the moment. I feel incredibly anxious and and upset by all of it,” she said.
Ms Peggie previously told the tribunal she was “embarrassed” due to menstruation when getting changed in the changing room on Christmas Eve 2023, 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.”
The tribunal continues.
