Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said a nurse's tribunal loss against her union should take 'nothing away' from her courage as she warned 'the usual suspects will twist the outcome to attack her'.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said a nurse's tribunal loss against her union should take 'nothing away' from her courage as she warned 'the usual suspects will twist the outcome to attack her'.
Sandie Peggie, 53, had appealed for help from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) when she was suspended from work after complaining about sharing a female-changing room with trans doctor Beth Upton.
The nurse, who worked at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, sued her union and accused it of failing to help her because of her gender critical views.
But this week a tribunal ruled against the long-serving nurse, with employment judge Melanie Sangster finding that Mrs Peggie was not discriminated against because of her sex realist beliefs.
Kemi Badenoch praised Sandie Peggie's 'courage'
This week a tribunal ruled against nurse Sandie Peggie
Now Mrs Badenoch, who has long supported the NHS Fife nurse in her women's rights battle, has praised Mrs Peggie for taking up the fight.
Mrs Badenoch said: 'Nurses like Sandie should be allowed to do their job caring for patients, not subjected to witch hunts for defending their basic rights to privacy and dignity.
'This ruling on her union's failures to support her (not about single-sex spaces where she has already won) is disappointing but takes nothing away from Sandie's courage in standing up not just for herself but for women's rights.
'The usual suspects will twist the outcome to attack her after what she's been through but she is braver and better than them.
'Either way, the next Conservative government will put a stop to this nonsense. The NHS should support its nurses, and regulators should focus on what actually matters: professional standards and patient safety not silly fads.'
The long-running row dates back to 2023 when Dr Upton, a biological man who identifies as female, started working in the hospital's emergency department as a resident doctor.
Mrs Peggie was suspended following an encounter with the doctor in the women's changing room on Christmas Eve 2023. She then sued NHS Fife and Dr Upton, sparking a high-profile employment tribunal against her employer and the medic who is now practising in Australia.
She partially won a claim for harassment against NHS Fife in December, but her other allegations of discrimination and victimisation, including those she made against Dr Upton, were dismissed.
She is appealing the ruling, and has claimed the tribunal judge in that case applied the 'wrong legal analysis' to determine whether the health board could lawfully permit a transgender doctor to use the women's changing room.
This week's loss against the RCN marks the end of another chapter of Mrs Peggie's women's rights fight.
The case, which was held in Dundee, focused on if she should have been provided with legal advice after she asked for help.
But the tribunal ruled, the union official who first dealt with her complaint did not understand that her gender critical beliefs were 'anything more than disagreement' about the use of changing facilities.
It said the official did not 'understand her to be asking for anything other than' workplace representation and she did not 'request legal assistance'.
A spokesman for the nurse said: 'It raises serious questions about the value of trade union membership if, when members report workplace concerns, the responsibility falls on them, rather than on experienced and trained union officers supported by legal teams, to identify the correct basis for legal teams.'
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