A Scottish NHS Trust is seeking to ban a nurse and her lawyers from referring to a trans-identified male doctor, who used the female changing rooms multiple times, as a “man” during the course of an employment tribunal.
Nurse Sandie Peggie is going up against NHS Fife in a legal battle set to take place next month. The case relates to interactions between Peggie and Dr. Theodore “Beth” Upton, a trans-identified male doctor, at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy in 2023.
Despite being a biological male, who Peggie asserts “looks like a man” to hospital patients, the two encountered each other in the female changing rooms at the hospital multiple times after they first met in August 2023. On at least one of those occasions, Peggie had been in the process of changing and was only wearing her bra and trousers when Upton entered the changing room.
This is Theodore Upton who, having invaded female nurses changing rooms, is now demanding the court force the women concerned to use female pronouns
— Le_Sorelle_Arduino KPSS (@Sorelle_Arduino) January 21, 2025
This is what male supremacy looks like https://t.co/02Tvi6OsKf pic.twitter.com/gKPmQKKU4W
During another interaction on Christmas Eve of 2023, Upton declared that he had “as much right to be there as her,” leading to an argument that resulted in Peggie being suspended from work and an investigation into her for “bullying.”
Before the 10 day employment tribunal into Peggie is set to begin on February 3, the lawyer representing NHS Fife and Upton demanded that Peggie and her legal team not be allowed refer to Dr. Upton with male pronouns at any point. The lawyer has claimed that her “gratuitous misgendering” of him had caused him “pain” and “harm.”
Jane Russell urged employment judge Sandy Kemp to force Peggie and her legal team to refer to Upton in “neutral terms” throughout the case. She claimed it was “simply a matter of courtesy” to use the preferred pronouns of someone, and that it was “troubling” to have Upton “repeatedly and deliberately” misgendered.
“I’m afraid the way the claimant and her representatives are conducting this case is a form of activism, that in my submission, is contributing to a climate of hostility and hatred towards trans people, which is actively harmful and has actively harmed the second respondent. It shouldn’t be allowed,” Russell argued.
“It is simply not acceptable for a party to litigation and a witness to face harassment in the course of a tribunal hearing,” she continued.
She further claimed that due to non-binding guidelines that state that courts should not be “a forum for abuse,” any further misgendering would be tantamount to “state-sanctioned harassment.”
In response, Naomi Cunningham, representing Peggie, argued that the fact of Upton’s biological sex is “right at the heart” of her case. “The claimant can’t put her case, clearly and forcefully, without using correct-sex pronouns, as opposed to preferred pronouns,” she said.
“We don’t seek to police Ms. Russell’s language, they are entitled if they wish to use preferred pronouns, even if they are counter-factual,” she added. She further confirmed that Peggie’s legal team was not attempting to force the other side to use male pronouns, in what would be a similarly “wholly unreasonable” attempt to police language, but did want the court itself to refer to Upton only in neutral language, or as the “second respondent.”
Judge Kemp said that he would issue a ruling on the judgement prior to the tribunal commencing on February 3. He has already ruled out a previous request from NHS Fife and Upton’s team to hold the proceedings behind closed doors and keep Upton anonymous.
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