Kemi Badenoch has hailed an NHS nurse who objected to sharing a changing room with a transgender doctor for “standing up to a mad ideology”.
Sandie Peggie, who works as an A&E nurse, was suspended after complaining about sharing a changing room with Dr Beth Upton at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy on Christmas Eve 2023.
Mrs Peggie was placed on special leave after Dr Upton made an allegation of bullying and harassment.
In response, Mrs Peggie lodged a claim against NHS Fife and Dr Upton, citing the Equality Act 2010, including sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination, and victimisation.
An employment tribunal this month upheld the nurse’s claims of harassment but dismissed allegations of discrimination, indirect discrimination and victimisation.
In her first ever interview, Mrs Peggie said she had “lost friends” over the ordeal.
“I had tried to stand up for myself and for other women,” she told the Daily Mail.
“And they tried to stamp me down. They tried to destroy me.”
An employment tribunal this month upheld the nurse’s claims of harassment
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“I feel let down – by managers, senior people, board members I’ve never even met, she added.
“There has been no backing whatsoever. I’ve lost friends over this. They [her bosses] tried to destroy me. They went digging for dirt in my life. I was turned into a pariah.”
Conservative leader Ms Badenoch has branded the tribunal judgement “pathetic”.
“Sandie Peggie has shown real courage. Standing up to a mad ideology that denies biological reality takes backbone. She showed it,” she said.
“Now compare that with the tribunal judgment. Pathetic.
“When judges feel comfortable rewriting Supreme Court rulings and pretending biological sex does not exist, something is badly broken in our system.
“This is what happens when activism seeps into institutions that are meant to uphold the law, not bend it.
“Authority is abused. Facts are treated as optional. Women are told to sit down and be quiet. I will always choose facts over fiction. Reality over ideology.
“And I will always stand with the brave women like Sandie, and the Darlington nurses, who risk their livelihoods to push back against the NHS’s trans activism. They should be protected, not punished. Britain owes them better.”
Kemi Badenoch slammed the ‘pathetic’ tribunal ruling
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Mrs Peggie’s legal team has confirmed she will appeal against the tribunal’s ruling.
The announcement came on the same day the judgement was amended following claims by supporters of the A&E nurse that one of the quotes it contained was “completely made up”.
Maya Forstater, chief executive of the charity Sex Matters, posted a screenshot of part of the judgment on X, with the caption: “One of the many things wrong with the Sandie Peggie judgment.
“This ‘quote’ from my judgment doesn’t come from my judgment. It is completely made up.”
Mrs Peggie was suspended after complaining about sharing a changing room with Dr Beth Upton at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy in 2023
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In a further post she suggested the quote may have been generated by Artificial Intelligence.
A “certificate of correction” was then released, which amended a paragraph in the 312-page judgment.
The amendment did not however change the overall verdict of the employment tribunal.
Speaking at an event in Dundee earlier this month, Mrs Peggie vowed she “wont’ be giving up this legal fight”.
She said: “I am not a campaigner and [had] never heard of the phrase ‘gender critical’.
“When I first raised complaints over two years ago about my employer’s decision to allow men into female-only changing rooms, I just knew instinctively that it wasn’t right that women were expected to undress in front of men in private spaces, and I still believe this to be the case.
“Whilst I am delighted that the tribunal was critical of Fife health board and found they had harassed me, their judgment, I believe, falls short in many respects, and that is why I certainly won’t be giving up this legal fight any time soon.”