Mick Hartley

Janice Turner, in the Times, interviews Sandie Peggie:

When Upton, then 27, joined the hospital in August 2023, just a year after transition, he sought and received permission to use female changing rooms. The nurses, however, were told nothing. “He just kind of popped up,” Peggie says. “It was a bit of a talking point. Everybody had something to say. I think it was probably the older crowd who were more shocked. The younger ones were more scared to speak out. But there was a big proportion of us — male and female nurses — who agreed he shouldn’t be there.” An Asian nurse stopped using the locker rooms; another woman started changing in a nearby cupboard.

Peggie assumed the issue would be resolved, that Upton would be found a gender-neutral changing space. (In fact, Upton had dismissed this option as “othering”.) After their Christmas encounter she finished her shift, and went home to celebrate with her family. Then on December 29 her charge nurse called to say there was a serious complaint of bullying against her. “I was a bit confounded,” she says. “It was just a discussion, me letting him know that I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t think it was serious.” Davidson called to say she was handling the complaint, but promising support.

Then in early January, Davidson called again, summoning Peggie to the hospital where she was abruptly suspended. “They said my emails would stop, they took my badge and I had to stay away from my workplace. And at the time, I was just thinking, ‘I have to bring my mother-in-law here tomorrow for tests.’ ” She left the hospital in tears.

It transpired that on Christmas Day Upton had complained to his boss, Dr Kate Searle, who — breaking all complaints protocols — quickly emailed fellow consultants labelling Peggie’s words a “hate incident”. Upton revealed that on the two occasions Peggie left rather than change in front of him, he had logged this on his phone. Now he made graver claims, that twice when working with Peggie in A&E she had endangered patients. First, she’d walked out of a resuscitation; second, a patient who was triaged had left without being treated. Although Peggie says Upton had not noted or mentioned these incidents at the time….

As an internal disciplinary hearing was launched, she contacted her Royal College of Nurses rep. When he was reluctant to act, she was put in touch with the campaign group Sex Matters, who recommended Gribbon, a veteran trade union lawyer. “Any experienced union rep should have recognised that Sandie was the real victim here,” she says. “This was an unwritten policy. There were no public sector equality duty obligations, no impact assessment or risk assessment; there was no consultation with the trade union or the women. In any other matter, a union would have been up in arms about that. Instead, they did absolutely nothing.”

It’s the same old story: useless unions in thrall to gender ideology; hospital officials siding with the man against the women; so many people involved just going with the tide. Plus…well, this is Scotland. Still in thrall to the gender cult.

“Before this happened to me,” Sandie Peggie says, “I’d never heard of terms like ‘gender critical’. I was just a nurse doing my job. I can’t believe I’ve had to go through all this just because I didn’t want to undress in front of a man.”