Why a nurse is suing the Royal College of Nursing

Sandie Peggie is back in a tribunal

A nurse is suing her union. Sandie Peggie has brought a case against the Royal College of Nursing. It is her second employment tribunal. This time the respondent is not her former employer, NHS Fife. It is the RCN.

Ms Peggie accuses the union of failing to support her. She alleges discrimination. The case stems from the RCN’s conduct during a previous workplace dispute which centred on a complaint she raised about sharing a women’s changing room with a transgender doctor. At a hearing on 23 September 2026, Ms Peggie told the tribunal she felt the union did not treat her case with sufficient gravity. The union was meant to help. She claims it did not.

She believes a representative from the Royal College of Nursing ‘was not taking it as seriously as I was’. This is the heart of her claim. She told the tribunal that this perceived lack of seriousness made her feel discriminated against by the very organisation tasked with her professional defence. The current legal action does not concern the original incident at NHS Fife directly, but rather scrutinises the duty of care and quality of representation that a trade union owes to one of its members. Ms Peggie, a nurse with over thirty years of service in the NHS, argues that the support she received was inadequate. She says it was insufficient.

The tribunal will have to consider whether the union failed in its obligations. Her legal team argues that the RCN’s actions constituted a form of discrimination against her. It is a serious charge. It puts the internal processes of Britain's largest nursing union under a microscope. The outcome could have significant implications for how all unions navigate complex disputes between their members, particularly where protected beliefs and characteristics might appear to be in conflict. For now, the focus is narrow. It is on one nurse. It is about one union’s actions.

The dispute began in an NHS changing room

The present conflict has its roots in an NHS hospital. It began in a changing room. The dispute that has now led Sandie Peggie into a legal fight with the Royal College of Nursing started with a single incident at NHS Fife, the health board where she had served as a nurse for over thirty years. She raised an objection. She was not comfortable sharing a women’s changing room with a transgender doctor who was a colleague at the facility. This action led to a complaint being made about her own behaviour, a complaint that set in motion a chain of events which ultimately saw her removed from her duties while the matter was investigated. She was suspended. Her employer placed her on special leave. It was during this period of uncertainty that she sought the support of her professional union, the RCN, a decision that would eventually lead to this second, separate legal case. The original issue was contained within the hospital. It soon moved to the courts.

Ms Peggie did not let the matter rest with her employer’s internal processes. She took NHS Fife to an employment tribunal. This was her first tribunal. She argued that the health board’s handling of the situation was unlawful and that she had been unfairly treated for voicing her concerns about the single sex space. Her case rested on several complex legal arguments. She alleged harassment. She also claimed discrimination, indirect discrimination and victimisation, all stemming from the fallout after the changing room incident. The hearing examined the conduct of NHS Fife managers and the processes they followed after Ms Peggie first made her complaint known. The judgment was delivered in December 2025. It was not a simple victory for either side. It was a split decision.

The tribunal’s ruling provided a mixed result for the long serving nurse. It was a partial win. A judge found in her favour on one significant point, upholding her claim that she had been subjected to harassment by the health board. This part of the judgment validated her experience of the events following her complaint. But it was not a complete success. Her other claims failed. The judge dismissed them. The tribunal found Ms Peggie had not been a victim of direct discrimination. It also rejected her claim of indirect discrimination. The claim of victimisation failed too. The outcome meant that while the health board's conduct was found to be harassing, it was not deemed discriminatory under the specific definitions of the Equality Act 2010. This complex legal result formed the backdrop for her interactions with the RCN. It was the union's handling of this partial victory and partial defeat that is now at the very centre of her new legal challenge.

Unions face a difficult balancing act

The RCN faces a challenge. So do other unions. The Peggie case exposes a deep conflict at the heart of modern trade unionism. A union’s primary purpose is to represent its members. It must support them in workplace disputes. This is the foundation of the movement. But the duty becomes complicated when the beliefs of one member appear to clash with the rights of another. That is the situation here. The Royal College of Nursing has an obligation to Ms Peggie. It also has obligations to the transgender doctor at the centre of the original disagreement, who may also be a member of the same union. The interests collided.

The union must consider its own policies. The RCN has a public commitment to equality and diversity. This includes specific protections and support for transgender individuals within the nursing profession. The organisation promotes an inclusive environment. It actively opposes discrimination based on gender identity. Ms Peggie’s complaint, however, is rooted in her belief about single sex spaces, a belief which sits uneasily alongside the union’s official stance on trans inclusion. The question for the tribunal is how a union should act when a member requires representation for a stance that appears to contradict the union’s own established values and equality objectives. Can it offer robust support? Must it offer that support?

This is the dilemma. The difficulty is not abstract. It plays out in the actions of individual union representatives on the ground. These officials are tasked with providing advice, support and advocacy to members in distress. They are often the first port of call. Ms Peggie told the tribunal she felt her own RCN representative "was not taking it as seriously as I was". This specific allegation suggests she perceived a lack of commitment. Her case argues that the support she received was inadequate, possibly because her views were considered controversial within the organisation meant to be helping her. It raises a fundamental point about the quality and nature of representation itself.

Every major British trade union is watching this case. Organisations representing millions of workers, from teachers and civil servants to local government staff, face the same internal friction. They all contain members with a wide spectrum of beliefs on sex and gender. They also all have policies designed to protect LGBTQ+ members from harassment and discrimination. A judgment against the RCN could force unions to change how they train representatives and how they handle cases where members’ protected beliefs conflict. A ruling in the union's favour would affirm that their current balancing act, however difficult, is legally sound. The outcome will set a precedent. It will define the boundaries of a union's duty.

The courts have already changed the rules

The legal position has shifted. This shift comes from the Equality Act 2010. The Act protects people from discrimination based on nine specific characteristics, one of which is religion or belief. This includes philosophical beliefs. What counts as a protected philosophical belief has been the subject of intense legal argument, culminating in judgments that directly impact the case of Sandie Peggie and the Royal College of Nursing. The courts have now spoken.

A key ruling came in June 2021. The Employment Appeal Tribunal heard the case of Maya Forstater, a tax expert who had lost her contract at the Centre for Global Development, a think tank. Ms Forstater had posted on social media expressing her belief that biological sex is immutable and should not be conflated with gender identity. A lower tribunal had decided her views were 'not worthy of respect in a democratic society'. The appeal tribunal disagreed. Mr Justice Choudhury ruled that her gender critical beliefs did fall under the protection of the Equality Act. He found they met the necessary legal test. That test is known as the Grainger criteria, which requires a belief to be genuinely held, be a weighty part of human life, and have a certain level of seriousness and importance.

The Forstater judgment drew a very sharp line. It protected the holding of a belief. It did not protect acting on that belief in a way that might harass others. This is the distinction that creates such difficulty for a trade union. A member like Ms Peggie can argue that her gender critical views are a protected philosophical belief, meaning a union like the RCN has a duty not to discriminate against her for holding those views when she asks for help. The problem is that the union also has an identical duty to protect its transgender members from harassment or discrimination, which are prohibited under the same Equality Act. The union itself also holds official policy positions promoting transgender inclusion. A conflict arises. The duty to represent one member appears to clash with the duty to protect another. It creates a legal and ethical puzzle.

This puzzle has no easy solution. It forces union officials into a difficult position on a case by case basis. They must navigate a path where they provide genuine, robust support to a member with protected beliefs without being seen to endorse behaviour that could be deemed discriminatory by another member. The courts have established the principle. They have not provided a clear operational handbook for a union representative dealing with a dispute about access to a changing room at an NHS Fife hospital. That is why the current tribunal is so significant. It moves beyond the abstract principle of protected belief and asks a practical question about what adequate representation actually looks like in these uniquely complex circumstances. It will affect every union.

What the verdict could change for workers

The tribunal’s decision will be closely watched. Very closely. It reaches far beyond the actions of one union representative or the specific circumstances of the dispute at NHS Fife. A ruling in Ms Peggie’s favour would establish a new legal benchmark for how all trade unions must approach internal conflicts where members’ legally protected beliefs are at odds with the rights of other workers. This is the 'clash of rights' problem. A union, the argument would run, could not offer less enthusiastic or robust support to a member simply because their views, like gender critical beliefs, conflict with the union’s own equality policies. The quality of representation would have to be identical. No matter the belief. This would force major unions, from Unison to the NEU, to rewrite their internal guidance for thousands of representatives on the ground.

A victory for Ms Peggie would likely empower other members. Workers holding similar beliefs who feel they have been poorly represented might be encouraged to bring their own claims against their unions. Unions could face a wave of litigation. This is expensive. It is disruptive. They would be compelled to demonstrate, with meticulous records, that the support offered to a member was not diminished by the controversial nature of their belief or its conflict with official union policy. The focus would shift entirely to the tangible actions of the union official. Did they respond promptly to calls. Did they take the complaint as seriously as they would any other. Did they offer the same level of support they would in a more straightforward disciplinary case. The representative's personal views, or the union's official stance on trans inclusion, would become legally irrelevant to the standard of service provided. This creates a very high bar.

A ruling for the Royal College of Nursing would have different, but equally significant, effects. It would affirm the status quo. A victory would suggest that unions do possess a degree of discretion in dealing with these conflicts, especially when a member's actions, even if stemming from a protected belief, could be perceived as harassing a colleague. The RCN could successfully argue that it balanced its competing duties. A duty to Ms Peggie. And an equal duty to her transgender colleague and its wider membership. It would strengthen the hand of union leadership in pursuing their established equality and inclusion policies, offering them a legal shield against internal dissent on these matters. This might deter future legal challenges. The underlying tensions would remain. The fundamental conflict of duties is not resolved by a single tribunal verdict, but a win for the RCN would confirm that its method of approaching it is, for now, legally sound.

Every major trade union is watching this case. The issues are not unique to healthcare. The problem is everywhere. It exists in schools, civil service departments, and local government offices. Large, diverse memberships will always contain people with fundamentally opposing, yet legally protected, philosophical beliefs. All these people pay their subscriptions. All of them expect representation when they have a problem at work. Whatever the outcome of Sandie Peggie’s claim against the RCN, the verdict will ripple through the entire British trade union movement, forcing a difficult conversation about the limits and obligations of representation. It will not be the last word. Union officials on the ground will still be the ones caught between competing duties. The judgment will give them a new set of rules. It will not make the job any easier.

Sources. Channel 4 News: Nurse at centre of trans hospital row takes on nursing union. Guardian UK: Trans row nurse tells tribunal she ‘felt discriminated against’ by her union. Sky News UK: Trans row nurse takes nursing union to employment tribunal. Evening Standard: Trans row nurse ‘felt discriminated against’ by union, tribunal told.

Analysis. Drafted with AI assistance from the sources listed above and reviewed by an editor before publication. Jnews links to the organisations it writes about.