Sandie Peggie tribunal judge issues correction on definition of trans man
Sandie Peggie says she will appeal the court’s ruling next year. (Getty)
Sandie Peggie says she will appeal the court's ruling next year. (Getty)
The judge who issued his ruling in Sandie Peggie’s employment tribunal has made several corrections to the original decision, including its definition of a trans man.
Earlier this year, the Scottish nurse took both her employer NHS Fife and colleague Dr Beth Upton to an employment tribunal after she was suspended from her job after objecting to Dr Upton – who is a trans woman – using the women’s changing rooms at the hospital they both worked at.
The incident, which took place on Christmas Eve 2023 at at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, saw the two “exchange words” and allegedly included Peggie using derogatory terms towards Dr Upton and asking offensive and inappropriate questions. In turn, Dr Upton made an allegation of bullying and harassment about Peggie.
On 8 December, the judgement in the case was published and Peggie’s harassment claims against NHS Fife were upheld. However, a number of Peggie’s claims were dismissed, including all claims against Dr Upton.
Peggie is planning to appeal the ruling in the new year.
On Tuesday (23 December) the judge in the case, Alexander Kemp, published a certificate of corrections in regards to 11 points in the original judgement which were described as “clerical mistake(s), error(s) or omissions(s)”.
These included references to other cases and grammar issues, which follow on from a prior update published on 11 December in reference to a false quote attributed to gender critical campaigner Maya Forstater’s tribunal case.
One key point which was changed was the definition of what a trans man is.
In the original ruling, a trans man was defined as “a person assigned as male by sex at birth who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment in the context of transition to male”.
However, the correction states that “male” is henceforth replaced by “female” and now reads that a trans man is “a person assigned as female by sex at birth who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment in the context of transition to male”.
The definition reflects language set out by the UK Supreme Court in its controversial ruling from April which decided the definition of the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ refers to “biological sex” only and specifically excludes trans people.
