Sandie Peggie interview: 'I wouldn't change a thing'

Sandie Peggie, the Fife nurse who was suspended from work after challenging the decision to allow a trans woman to use a female changing room, has given her first in-depth interview.

READ MORE: Equalities chief: Sandie Peggie case shows its ‘very important’ to have single-sex spaces

She has spoken about the night shift that changed her life and the impact heragainst NHS Fife has had on her life, her friendships and family.

Earlier this month, an employment tribunal tules that NHS Fife had harassed Ms Peggie.

However, all of Ms Peggie’s claims of victimisation and discrimination, including all her claims against trans doctor Beth Upton, failed and she is now planning to appeal the decision.

Ms Peggie, 52, in an interview with the Scottish Daily Mail, said: “This needs to end with me.

READ MORE: How trans people are being deeply harmed by uncertainty over single-sex spaces

“I wouldn’t change a thing and I wouldn’t go back. I wouldn’t have done anything different.

“All I have ever been is truthful and honest. I never once thought I’d got this biological sex thing wrong.’

‘I had never heard of gender critical before all this. Feminist? I don’t think I would have thought about it before, to be honest. But I would say that I would always stick up for women and women’s rights.

“I’m a realist. I believe a man is a man and a woman is a woman and how people dress is up to them. But don’t come into a woman’s space.”

Ms Peggie was suspended from NHS Fife after complaining about sharing a female changing room with Dr Upton at Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital, where she had worked for 25 years.

She had gone to get changed on Christmas Eve 2023, and found Dr Upton using the same changing room.

She said: “They suspended me, told me I was banned from coming anywhere near the hospital, they were taking away my nursing badges and locking me out of my emails.

“ My dad and my mother in law had both been unwell and I asked what if I needed to bring them in? They said I would need permission.

“I could feel myself welling up but I was not going to let them see me cry. My line manager offered me a tissue and suggested I leave by the back door.

“If I was being forced to leave, I told them I was going out the front door. I had done nothing wrong.”

“I love my job and I miss it. It was one thing I felt confident about. I want to keep being a nurse. It’s all I ever wanted to be since I was a little girl.

“I’m fighting on because what has happened to me is wrong. And I suppose I am a strong person, I have my family, they are the people I turn to.

“They are supporting me with my legal team and I want to see this through to the end.”

Ms Peggie said she was called names such as “bigot and transphobe” as the employment tribunal got underway, with the location of the hearings moved from Edinburgh to Dundee.

She added: My employers, my union and the government have done nothing. I’ve lost people I thought were friends.

“I’ve learned a lot and who is there for you and who is not. Who my friends are. I suppose I just don’t trust people as much as I did.

“I don’t trust the system. But I don’t dwell on anything.”