(LifeSiteNews) — Some of you may remember that last year eight nurses in the UK launched a lawsuit against their employer for “sexual harassment and sex discrimination” for permitting trans-identifying males into their changing rooms. When they first complained that one particular male was making them uncomfortable, they were told that they needed to be “re-educated.”
A similar case — and aren’t there always more? — has now erupted in Scotland, where nurse Sandie Peggie was suspended from her job at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife in January 2024 after she objected to a trans-identifying male doctor using the female changing rooms. Her interactions with the man are at the heart of a 10-day employment tribunal hearing that began February 3.
Dr. Theodore Upton qualified as a doctor in 2021. The same year, he began identifying as a woman and filed a request with the General Medical Council (GMC) to change his name and sex in his public register. The GMC complied, and Upton changed his name to “Elisabeth Ruth Annikki Upton.” He now goes by Dr. Beth Upton. Peggie has worked for NHS Fife since 1994 and first met Upton in August 2023. Peggie has noted that Upton still “looks like a man” to both staff and patients; pictures posted online clearly verify this claim.
“He looked male,” Peggie stated. “He had his hair in a ponytail and a receding hairline and Adam’s apple.”
After their initial meeting, Peggie ran into Upton at least three times in the female changing room; Reduxx reported that at least once she “had been in the process of changing and was only wearing her bra and trousers when Upton entered the changing room.” The incident that triggered Peggie’s suspension took place on Christmas Eve 2023 when Upton appeared in the changing room once again. She argued with him about this presence, and Upton informed her that he had “as much right to be there as her.” Peggie left, and the hospital suspended her and launched an investigation into her “bullying.”
Note here how transgender ideology inverts all that we know to be true: A man who is obviously a man can walk into a female changing room, which is sex-segregated to protect female privacy and vulnerability from men, and because a female nurse complains, she is accused of bullying. Peggie has stated that finding Upton in her changing room made her feel “embarrassed” and flustered” and “intimidate(d)”; but in today’s insane culture, Upton has more of a claim to feminine vulnerability than she does.
After Peggie complained about the situation, she says her manager was initially sympathetic, telling her that he would “get it sorted.” Instead, her suspension was extended until February 2024 and reinstated once again in April after her lawyer requested that Upton be disallowed from using the female changing rooms. The investigation into Peggie’s “bullying” continued into October despite her insistence that she didn’t have a problem working with Upton in the ward itself.
The tribunal hearing is already underway and has become something of a microcosm of the transgender debate. Upton insists that Peggie asking him to leave constituted a “confrontation” and states that she used “offensive language.” Peggie responded by stating, “I didn’t unexpectedly stop Beth as I was already in the area waiting to go into the toilet. I never used any offensive language. I don’t recall using the word rapist.” In short, Upton is attempting to portray himself as a vulnerable victim who was abused by the words of a woman in the changing room. (To which one is tempted to respond: Grow up.)
Indeed, whether Upton does or does not qualify as a woman is at the heart of the case, and Jane Russell, the lawyer representing both NHS Fife and Upton against Peggie, demanded she and her lawyers refrain from referring to Upton by male pronouns. Of course, if she does not, she tacitly affirms their case; Upton’s lawyer already accused Peggie of causing Upton “harm” and “pain” due to “gratuitous misgendering.” In Russell’s words:
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 toward trans people, which is actively harmful and has actively harmed the second respondent. It shouldn’t be allowed. It is simply not acceptable for a party to litigation and a witness to face harassment in the course of a tribunal hearing.
This is gaslighting on full display. It is not “activism” for a trans-identifying man to demand access to female-only spaces. It is “activism” for a woman to accurately identify the source of her fear. It is not harassment for a trans-identifying man to enter a female changing room. It is harassment for a woman to ask him to leave. As Peggie’s lawyer, Naomi Cunningham, put it: “The claimant can’t put her case, clearly and forcefully, without using correct-sex pronouns, as opposed to preferred pronouns.”
Exactly. The case continues, and this story is still developing.
