by Brendan O’Neill, spiked
A society that shames and bullies a nurse for believing in women’s rights is a society that has lost the plot.
Picture the scene. It’s Christmas Eve, you’re a stressed nurse on a tough shift, and you get a sudden and heavy period. You’re worried it might have bled through to your scrubs. You dash to the women’s changing room to attend to yourself and there’s a man there. In the one zone of your workplace where you ought to enjoy the liberty and dignity to deal with your menstruation away from your male colleagues, a man is present. Then the real sucker punch: it isn’t him that gets into trouble for hauling his male ass into your changing area – it’s you. You’re branded a bigot, you’re accused of gross misconduct, and you’re suspended from your job. All for wanting that most elemental woman’s right: the right to menstruate in private.
This horrifying scenario, this nightmare that can only be called Kafkaesque, is what happened to Sandie Peggie. She’s been a nurse in Scotland for 30 years. She was working at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy in Fife. And on 24 December 2023 she went to the changing area to take care of her period. Inside was Beth Upton, a male doctor who identifies as female. Ms Peggie said she felt ‘embarrassed and intimidated’. She asked Dr Upton to leave, on the basis that, as a man, he had no right to be there. He complained to hospital bosses, accusing Ms Peggie of ‘misgendering’ him. Nine days later, on 3 January 2024, Peggie was suspended. What a way to start a new year: booted from your job for the sin of expecting dignity.
Today it’s been confirmed that Ms Peggie has been cleared following an 18-month internal investigation by NHS Fife into her ‘misconduct’. This is great news. It’s a blow for reason and for women against the trans cult that poses such a devastating threat to both. And yet it might be wise to keep the champagne on ice. First, because Ms Peggie is still facing down NHS Fife and Dr Upton in a separate employment tribunal in which she accuses them of sexual harassment and belief discrimination. But more importantly because we need to ask ourselves how our society came to be so fully insane that a nurse can be shamed and tormented simply for understanding biology and believing in women’s rights.