Union failed Sandie Peggie because of her gender-critical beliefs, tribunal told

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) failed to properly support nurse Sandie Peggie because her views were in “direct opposition” to its gender ideology, a lawyer has told an employment tribunal.

Naomi Cunningham, who is representing Ms Peggie, told the tribunal the RCN was “in the grip” of an ideology which she said holds that a trans woman is a woman.

She said that, as a result, it was “impossible” for its officers to support Ms Peggie properly in a workplace dispute that “sprang directly” from her gender-critical beliefs.

This was rejected by the RCN’s barrister David Hay KC, who said the union’s behaviour towards the nurse was influenced neither by her sex-realist views, nor by any kind of “institutional belief or culture”.

Both sides were delivering her closing submissions on Thursday in Ms Peggie’s employment tribunal against the organisation.

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.

Ms Peggie previously brought a case against NHS Fife after sharing a changing room with transgender medic Dr Beth Upton at Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital in December 2023.

The first employment tribunal awarded Ms Peggie a partial victory against the health board in December last year, upholding claims of harassment against her employer, but dismissing allegations of discrimination, indirect discrimination and victimisation.

Barrister Naomi Cunningham, who represents Sandie Peggie, was delivering her closing submissions on Thursday morning (Jane Barlow/PA)

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Addressing the tribunal in the morning session, Ms Cunningham said evidence had shown the RCN was “steeped” in gender ideology, and that this 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.”

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

She said the same was true of Ms 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.”

RCN lawyer David Hay KC dismissed claims the union was ‘in the grip’ of an ‘institutional belief or culture’ (Jane Barlow/PA)

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These arguments were roundly rejected by David Hay KC, who opened his submissions by reminding the judge that 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.

Mr Hay called on the judge to dismiss all three of Ms Peggie’s claims, insisting RCN staff had acted “reasonably” in each.

He said, in the first incident, the officer was not aware Ms 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 Dr Upton’s mere presence in the changing room as an issue.

In the second claim, Mr Hay reiterated the RCN’s position that Ms 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” Ms 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 Ms Peggie’s “detriment”.

He also said there was no evidence 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 judgment “as soon as (she is) able”.