A woman confronts a biological man in a female changing room. She is later found to have harassed him because he identified as a woman. Many thought this sort of madness was over, but the findings of Sandie Peggie’s tribunal against the NHS confirm that the battle is not won.
This year will be remembered as one in which women’s rights took a step forward. The Supreme Court judgment confirmed what we’ve always known to be true: ‘sex’ means sex. It cannot be altered by a piece of paper. It seemed that sanity had been restored.
But sometimes we forget just how fast defeat can be snapped from the jaws of victory. The results of Sandie Peggie’s case against NHS Fife serve as a stark reminder. Many have hailed the tribunal as a victory. After being forced to share a changing room with a biological man who identified as a woman, Nurse Peggie won against the NHS. Her employer was found guilty of harassment. Surely this is a win?
After working as a nurse for 30 years, Sandie Peggie was suspended because she confronted a biological man in the women’s changing room on Christmas Eve 2023. Following the incident, Dr Upton, the transgender woman using the changing room, made a complaint against Peggie. She was forced to endure an eighteen-month gross misconduct investigation in which action was taken to smear Peggie’s ‘unblemished’ career. Claims were made about her failure to treat patients and alleged ‘transphobia’ in the workplace – all of which proved entirely unfounded.
The tribunal did find that the management of this complaints process constituted harassment. For this, Peggie commented that she was ‘beyond relieved and delighted’. She deserves compensation and will most likely get it. But a close reading of the whole judgment tells a far more sinister story.
The bulk of the tribunal dealt with Peggie’s conversation with Dr Upton in the women’s changing room. The panel set about determining whether Peggie should have been allowed to ask a biological man to leave a women’s space.
Despite recent legal victories by gender-critical campaigners, it seems that we still live in an age of compelled speech.
The commentary on this issue is positively Orwellian. Reluctantly, it seems, the tribunal accept that Nurse Peggie is permitted to hold the belief that the 6ft tall Dr Upton is not actually a woman. But they go on to state that there are ‘permissible and impermissible manifestations of belief’ and that whatever Peggie believes, ‘misgendering’ is still ‘potentially … harassment’. In fact, despite Peggie not being on trial for the harassment of another member of staff, the tribunal make pains to conclude that, by requesting a man not change in the female changing room, her actions ‘fall clearly within the description of what could be harassment’. Despite recent legal victories by gender-critical campaigners, it seems that we still live in an age of compelled speech.
The full magnitude of this judgment has not been fully understood. A woman’s attempt to assert her right to a single-sex space has been found to constitute harassment because she did not express herself correctly in the eyes of a tribunal. The man in the women’s changing room has faced no recourse. What precedent does this set? Could any woman who asks a man to leave a single-sex space be sanctioned by her workplace?
These comments are not even the worst part of the judgment. Just seven months after the Supreme Court ruled on the provision of single-sex spaces, the panel conclude that:
In our view, having read all the documents, there is very far from sufficient reliable evidence to establish as a fact that a trans woman who is legally and biologically male is a greater risk to any person assigned female at birth within a changing-room environment at a workplace than another woman assigned female at birth
The absurdity of these remarks will not be lost on readers. There is no need for evidence that ‘a trans woman who is legally and biologically male’ poses a threat to women. Somebody who is ‘legally and biologically male’ is simply a man. And we have centuries of evidence that men who seek to enter women’s spaces often pose a threat. Men are physically stronger, ten times more likely to commit a violent crime, and the only sex capable of rape. But despite this, a tribunal is prepared to conclude that the mere act of ‘identifying’ as a different gender might be enough to eliminate this threat.
These remarks could have wide-reaching ramifications. Many workplaces will look to this case to test whether or not they should permit transgender women to access to female spaces. What will become of the Darlington nurses, fighting a very similar case after they were forced to share their changing room with a biological man?
Legal professors have already warned that the conclusions made by this tribunal are ‘incompatible’ with the Supreme Court judgment. The panel create nonsense ‘tests’ for who should access certain spaces, including questions about hairstyle, clothing and surgery. This is not legally consistent. And unless it is overturned, it puts all women at risk.
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