Tribunal rejects nurse Sandie Peggie's discrimination claim against the Royal College of Nursing

A Scottish employment tribunal has ruled that the Royal College of Nursing did not discriminate against nurse Sandie Peggie because of her gender-critical beliefs. Employment Judge Melanie Sangster issued the written judgment on Monday, Nov. 2. It dismissed all three complaints Peggie brought against the union. Her spokesperson said her lawyers are weighing "further legal steps." The union said it welcomed the decision.

The ruling is the latest chapter in a dispute that has run since late 2023. It began in a changing room at a Fife hospital and grew into several legal cases. This case was narrower than the earlier ones. It asked only whether the union treated Peggie worse because of her own belief. It did not ask who may use which changing room, and it did not decide whether her belief is correct. This story explains what the judge found, what each side said, and what remains open.

The dispute behind the case

Peggie is a nurse at NHS Fife's Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy. She was suspended in January 2024 after a dispute over a changing room with Dr Beth Upton, a transgender doctor. Peggie objected to Upton using the women's changing area. NHS Fife cleared her of misconduct in July 2025. In December 2025, a tribunal upheld part of her harassment claim against NHS Fife, according to the BBC. Her other claims, including those against Dr Upton, were dismissed.

The Royal College of Nursing, known as the RCN, is both a professional body and a trade union for nurses. Peggie is a member. In a separate claim, she said the union itself discriminated against her. She argued that officials failed to support her properly because of her "gender critical" or "sex realist" belief. The tribunal's judgment defines that belief as the view that biological sex is "real, important, immutable, and not to be conflated with gender identity."

The RCN accepted that Peggie holds this belief and that it is protected under section 10 of the Equality Act 2010. That point was not in dispute. The hearing was about liability only. It ran in Dundee on Sept. 23 to 25, Sept. 28 to 30 and Oct. 1. Peggie filed the claim on May 14, 2025, and amended it on Dec. 30, 2025. The case number is 8001209/2025, and the full judgment is on the UK government's tribunal decisions site.

Peggie's witnesses included Neale Hanvey, a former MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, and Stephen O'Grady, a solicitor with the Free Speech Union. The BBC reports that the campaign group Sex Matters funded her legal case against NHS Fife and Dr Upton.

The three complaints

Peggie's claim was one of direct discrimination because of belief. That means she had to show the union treated her worse than it would treat someone without her belief, and that her belief was the reason. She relied on a hypothetical comparator, since no real person had been treated differently. The judge looked at the state of mind of each official involved, as the law requires.

The first complaint was about Stuart Fraser, an RCN officer. Peggie said he did not tell her, in a call around the New Year in 2023 and 2024, that she might have a claim against NHS Fife or Dr Upton. She also said he did not refer her to the union's solicitors.

The tribunal found that Fraser did not understand Peggie to be asserting a protected belief. It said he "did not perceive her views as anything more than disagreement about the use of changing facilities." The judge noted that Peggie did not tell RCN Direct, the union's advice line, or Fraser that she held a philosophical belief about sex. She "did not refer to holding gender critical or sex realist beliefs (as she was unaware of these terms at the time)." The judgment says a person cannot discriminate because of a characteristic they do not know about. That finding alone defeated the complaint.

The judge also said that even if she were wrong, the claim would still fail. Fraser focused on the suspension and the coming investigation. He planned to give fuller advice later, once he had more information. He knew the time limit for a tribunal claim was three months, so he saw no urgency. The tribunal found he would have done the same for anyone recently suspended.

The second complaint was about Norman Provan, an associate director at RCN Scotland. In January 2025, he refused Peggie's request for legal help with her second claim. The parties agreed he made that decision. The tribunal accepted his evidence and found it "credible and reliable." Peggie had already taken outside legal advice on the new complaint. Her lawyers had judged how to bring it. Provan was aware of her belief. The tribunal found it did not influence his decision. His reasons were "case specific, consistent with his long-standing practice, and unrelated to the claimant's protected belief." He told the tribunal he had made decisions this way for 18 years.

Peggie's side had argued that Provan was influenced, even without realizing it, by the union's wider culture. It pointed to the union's clinical guide "Fair care for trans patients," the progress pride flag in articles, emails and online merchandise, and his dealings with a former RCN policy officer, Lisa Mackenzie. The tribunal found he was not involved in writing the guide and that there was no evidence he had seen it before his decision. Provan said the guide was clinical advice only. He accepted, when it was put to him, that the flag is associated with "gender ideology," but said he saw no reason the union would not stock merchandise supporting other beliefs. The judge found nothing in his dealings that justified inferring bias, even at an unconscious level.

The third complaint was about Gillian Tait, a senior RCN officer, and events between Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, 2025. Peggie had asked the union to get assurances from NHS Fife on three points. These were single-sex changing facilities, protection from discrimination for gender-critical staff, and the right of staff to discuss the issue and organize. She also asked the union to email all its members who work at NHS Fife.

The judgment records that Tait had already written to NHS Fife in August 2025. NHS Fife replied that single-sex changing and toilet facilities would be in place before Peggie returned. The tribunal found that Tait did seek the assurances that Peggie requested on the first two points. On the third point, the right of staff to discuss the issue and organize, Tait framed her request differently from how Peggie had asked. The judge found Tait understood her role as supporting one member only. Tait did not copy the email to the other members. According to the BBC, the judge agreed the email would have gone out more widely if others had raised similar concerns. None of the union's 55,000 Scottish members had done so. The judgment records that Tait held gender-critical views herself.

Why the "institutional belief" argument failed

Peggie's original claim said the RCN had adopted what her filing called a "gender identity belief" as its institutional position. She argued that this explained why officials treated her as they did.

The tribunal did not decide whether the RCN holds such a belief. It said the question was not needed. Even if she proved it, the judge wrote, that "would not, of itself, establish that the relevant decision makers acted because of the claimant's protected belief." The tribunal would still need evidence that the officials' own minds were affected.

The judge also set out a legal limit. Under the UK Supreme Court's 2018 decision in Lee v Ashers Baking Co, a discrimination claim cannot rest on the discriminator's own belief. A complaint framed that way "cannot succeed." The tribunal still looked at evidence about the union's culture, because it can support a claim that the officials acted because of Peggie's belief. It found that evidence did not show that.

Peggie also relied on the Carr Review. The judge said the RCN's unchallenged evidence was that it took the review's conclusions "extremely seriously." It had launched an action plan covering hundreds of items before the decisions at issue. The tribunal said the review had "little, if any, probative value" in this case.

The judge did not reach the burden of proof on any complaint. In discrimination law, the burden can shift to the employer if a claimant shows facts from which discrimination could be inferred. Here, the tribunal made positive findings about the reasons, so no shift was needed. It added that even if the burden had shifted, the RCN had met it.

What each side said

Peggie's spokesperson said the ruling "makes worrying reading for all trade union members." In a statement quoted by the BBC and The Scotsman, the spokesperson 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 internal and external legal teams, to identify the correct statutory basis for potential legal claims."

The spokesperson also said the judgment suggests a union may treat a woman's objection to undressing in front of a male colleague "merely as a disagreement about access to a changing room," rather than as an expression of her protected belief. Peggie's lawyers will consider the judgment before advising on "further legal steps."

The RCN responded with a short statement. "The judgment is comprehensive and we welcome the decision that we did not discriminate against our member based on her protected beliefs," it said. "RCN staff followed agreed processes that apply to all members and we acted fairly and impartially. We are sorry these matters were aired before the Tribunal." It added that it describes itself as an anti-discrimination body that supports all of its members.

No statement from a transgender rights group or from Dr Upton about this judgment was found in the sources reviewed. Dr Upton has left the NHS, according to the BBC, and was not a party to this case.

The bigger legal picture

The case sits against two years of change in UK equality law. In April 2025, the UK Supreme Court ruled in For Women Scotland that "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 means biological sex. That ruling runs through the workplace dispute. Peggie's August 2025 email to the union cites it, and the tribunal recorded it in its findings. Our report on the Equality and Human Rights Commission's letter to Reform UK shows how the regulator is still applying the Equality Act in other settings.

This tribunal ruling does not address single-sex spaces or the meaning of "sex." It addresses a union's duty to a member. Legally, the question was whether the union treated her worse because of her belief. The tribunal said the evidence did not show that.

The debate over gender and the law is also active elsewhere. In the United States, Kansas law now invalidates driver's licenses issued before July 1, 2026 that list a gender different from sex at birth, as we explain in our report on Kansas and SB 244. Virginia voters decide on a marriage amendment this week, as our Virginia explainer describes. At the U.S. Supreme Court, a separate case on religious schools and a state nondiscrimination rule is on the docket, covered in our story on St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy. These are different legal systems with different rules. They share a theme: how courts weigh protected beliefs against other protections.

Possible appeal and open questions

Appeals on points of law from an employment tribunal go to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. This article does not know whether Peggie will appeal. Her spokesperson said only that her lawyers are considering the next steps.

Several questions remain open. The tribunal did not decide whether the RCN holds an institutional belief about gender identity. It said that was unnecessary. It did not rule on how a union should handle members whose complaints might involve both a workplace dispute and a protected belief. Its finding on the first complaint turned on what Fraser knew. It found that Fraser did not know Peggie held a protected belief. On the second and third complaints, it accepted that the officials knew of her belief and found it did not influence them.

Peggie's supporters say the case shows a gap in how unions support members. The union says it applied its processes to all members alike, and the tribunal found that each official would have acted the same way for any member. A tribunal has now ruled on the legal question. Whether unions should do more for members with this kind of workplace concern is a policy question that the ruling does not settle.

Differing perspectives

How should the tribunal's ruling on Sandie Peggie's claim against the Royal College of Nursing be read?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Ruling raises concerns for union members

  Who holds it: A spokesperson for Sandie Peggie

  Peggie's spokesperson said the judgment "makes worrying reading for all trade union members." The spokesperson said it raises questions about union membership if members must identify the correct legal basis for a claim themselves, instead of trained union officers. The spokesperson also said the ruling suggests a union may describe a woman's objection to a shared changing room as a disagreement, not a protected belief. Her lawyers are considering "further legal steps."

  In their words: The Scotsman ↗

• Union treated her like any other member

  Who holds it: The Royal College of Nursing

  The RCN said it welcomes the tribunal's finding that it did not discriminate against its member because of her protected beliefs. In its statement, the union said its staff "followed agreed processes that apply to all members" and "acted fairly and impartially." It said it is sorry the matters were aired before the Tribunal. The union described itself as an anti-discrimination body that supports all of its members.

  In their words: Royal College of Nursing ↗