A Scottish newspaper has been reported to the police after they referred to a trans-identified male doctor as a “man” in articles covering an Employment Tribunal case centered around his gender identity.
The Scottish Daily Express has been one of the outlets covering the progression of a tribunal being held against Sandie Peggie, a nurse who had been employed at the Victoria hospital in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. The case relates to interactions between Peggie and Dr. Theodore “Beth” Upton, a male doctor who had begun using the women’s facilities after beginning to identify as transgender.
As previously reported by Reduxx, 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 a state of undress, and felt extremely uncomfortable when Upton entered the changing rooms and saw her. During another interaction on Christmas Eve of 2023, Upton declared that he had “as much right” to be in the women’s locker rooms as Peggie did, leading to an argument that resulted in the nurse being suspended from work and an investigation being launched into her for “bullying.”
The case has continued to make headlines over the past two weeks, with Peggie being supported by a number of pro-women organizations outside the court. Peggie’s legal team has been referring to Upton as a man throughout the tribunal hearing, something that the opposing legal team had initially attempted to block them from doing.
Just prior to the start of the tribunal hearings, 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. But NHS Fife’s argument was rejected by the tribunal after Naomi Cunningham, representing Peggie, argued that the fact of Upton’s biological sex is “right at the heart” of her case.
During the course of proceedings, Upton has attempted to argue that he is “biologically female” as a result of taking cross-sex hormones, and that sex has “no defined or agreed meaning in science.”
But as part of their coverage, the Scottish Daily Express chose to refer to Upton as a man, issuing a statement that Upton’s biological sex was a simple fact.
“In court stories, accuracy matters above all else (as I and many other journalists before me have found out to our cost) and so we believe the most accurate way of describing Dr. Upton is as a man, albeit one who is choosing to live as a woman,” editor Ben Borland wrote in the statement.
Because of this editorial decision, Borland was reported to Police Scotland by the SEEN Police Official Open Public Network, an account on X which claims it is dedicated to “challenging illegal policing decisions motivated by fear, hate, laziness or incompetence.” However, the Network has claimed that Police Scotland have yet to sufficiently action on the report.
Note that SEEN Police Official Open Public Network has no relation to Police SEEN UK, an advocacy group which serves officers and police staff who “hold lawful sex realist and gender critical beliefs” and seeks to remove ideological influences from policing.
We have submitted a second report to Police Scotland of targeted harassment of Dr Beth Upton by the Scottish Daily Express editor, Ben Borland.
— SEEN Police Official Open Public Network (@SEENpoliceUK) February 15, 2025
This links to our first report, which Police Scotland are currently REFUSING to deal with. In this new incident, Borland explains..
“This links to our first report, which Police Scotland are currently REFUSING to deal with. In this new incident, Borland explains his reasons for intentional and gratuitous misgendering and deadnaming are ‘simply stating a fact’ and other well-worn ‘gender critical’ tropes. Yet, he is fully aware he is causing harassment and distress,” the account claims.
They suggest that if Police Scotland don’t act, it will “end badly” for them, as not arresting Borland would be tantamount to a “breach of the Equality Act,” despite UK law recognizing the rights of gender critical people under the act.
“We are ready to apply for judicial review if this continues any longer. We will not allow Police Scotland to go on excluding the trans section of the public from the protection of a police service – which is effectively what they are doing, and have been doing since their infamous cowardice with JK Rowling,” they continued. The account was likely referring to the refusal of Police Scotland to charge JK Rowling last year under the country’s new hate crime law, which created a new offence of “stirring up hatred” related to protected characteristics such as gender identity.
“They are fobbing us off and know they are wrong,” the account concluded. “FAFO [f**k around and find out] Police Scotland. FAFO.”
Despite the threatening conclusion of their public statement, a Police Scotland spokesman told the Scottish Daily Express that they had “received a report on Friday, 7 February and a further report on Saturday, 15 February,” but that “on both occasions the information was assessed and no further police action was required.”
The SEEN Police Official Open Public Network account has repeatedly engaged in conspiratorial posting. According to the account, the assassination of Donald Trump was “staged,” and the President was never hit, and that criticizing transgender ideology is tantamount to “Christo-fascism.”
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