Maya Forstater gives evidence in changing-room case 

On 5th February, Sex Matters CEO Maya Forstater gave evidence in the ongoing employment tribunal case of Sandie Peggie v NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton. (Read Tribunal Tweets’ reporting of the hearing so far.)

Sandie Peggie, an accident and emergency nurse, has worked in the NHS in Scotland for more than 30 years. Her employer allowed Dr Upton, a trans-identifying man, to use the women’s changing rooms. 

Peggie told her manager she felt uncomfortable and asked for help. When the hospital did nothing and she again found herself alone with a man in the women’s changing room she spoke to him. He complained to the health board, saying that this was “bullying”. The hospital suspended her and put her under investigation. 

Peggie’s claim is of sexual harassment, sex discrimination, harassment related to a protected belief and victimisation.

The respondents refused to accept as findings of fact that men are more likely to commit violent and sexual crimes than women are, that men are therefore more dangerous to women than women are to men, and that women are more seriously affected by men in their spaces than vice versa. 

Forstater was called as a witness to these facts, drawing on our work at Sex Matters. 

You can read her witness statement.