Closing arguments heard in Sandie Peggie nursing union tribunal

Closing arguments have been heard in the employment tribunal raised by Sandie Peggie against the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

The Fife nurse has brought the legal case over what she claims was direct discrimination over her sex-realist beliefs, saying the union had failed to adequately support her during a dispute with her employer.

The RCN denies the claims and insisted it acted "reasonably" throughout. Lawyers for the union called for Peggie's calls to be dismissed.

A written judgement will be published by employment judge Melanie Sangster.

This is the second employment tribunal Peggie has brought over the dispute with Dr Beth Upton, a biological male who identifies as a woman.

The nurse objected to sharing a changing room with the doctor at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy and the two had disagreements on the subject which came to a head in December 2023.

The nurse was suspended shortly afterwards and, after seeking her own independent legal representation, took both NHS Fife and Upton to tribunal - which became a high-profile and controversial case.

Peggie partially won a claim for harassment against NHS Fife in December last year, but her other allegations of discrimination and victimisation were dismissed.

This tribunal, being held in Dundee, has looked at claims by Peggie that the union should have provided her with legal advice after her representative Stuart Fraser made contact with her in early January 2024.

During the closing submissions, Peggie's lawyer Naomi Cunningham said evidence had shown the RCN was "steeped" in gender ideology, and this had shaped its behaviour towards the nurse at every stage.

She told the tribunal: "All the respondent's relevant conduct was conditioned and caused by its adherence to gender ideology, which is in its nature antithetical to the claimant's protected belief."

Cunningham said this resulted in one officer failing to recognise Peggie in her original complaint as "the victim of a serious injustice", instead seeing her as "in trouble" for having potentially discriminated against Upton.

She said the same was true of Peggie's two other complaints against the union, explaining it refused to give her legal advice because it could not be seen to publicly back a member who had experienced difficulties arising from her gender-critical beliefs.

The lawyer also said a reluctance to "back the rights of (its) sex-realist membership" lay behind its failure to properly advocate for her when she sought guarantees from Fife Health Board that changing facilities should be single sex.

She said: "The gender ideology in which the union had been steeped for years made it impossible for its officers to act vigorously, and especially to act publicly, in the best interests of a member whose protected belief was in direct opposition to that ideology."

Later, David Hay KC appearing for the RCN, said a tribunal is "not a court of morals, it is a court of law."

He dismissed the claim the RCN was in the grip of an "institutional belief or culture" that is opposed to sex realism – adding that even if one did exist, human beings "have minds of their own" and would not "automatically" be influenced by it.

Hay called on the judge to dismiss all three of Peggie's claims, insisting RCN staff had acted "reasonably" in each.

He said, in the first incident, the officer was not aware Peggie wanted legal advice, or that she held gender-critical beliefs – something, he pointed out, she conceded she had also not been aware of at the time.

He also said, in February 2024, when trans women had the right to use women-only facilities in Scotland, that the officer was therefore acting on the basis of a "contemporary understanding of the law" when he did not regard Upton's mere presence in the changing room as an issue.

In the second claim, Hay reiterated the RCN's position that Peggie's request for legal assistance had been turned down as she had already obtained her own legal advice, which he said was "entirely in accordance with the respondent's established procedure".

He said the final claim boiled down to the fact a union official had not "copied and pasted" Peggie's letter into an email to all NHS Fife RCN members.

The lawyer said "in no view" could changing the wording of her letter be considered to have been to Peggie's "detriment".

He also said there was no evidence that any other RCN members in Fife had raised concerns about the issue of single-sex changing facilities, and that nobody had therefore been waiting for the union to take a "broader action" on it.

At the end of the hearing, employment judge Melanie Sangster told the parties she will deliver a written judgement "as soon as (she is) able".