Men do not belong in women’s changing rooms

The tribunal of Sandie Peggie has exposed the bullying and entitlement of the trans activist movement.

Trans-identified people are among the most powerful in society. They are endlessly celebrated by the media and celebrity classes. They are able to enforce speech codes against the will of the majority of the population in the knowledge that those in authority will support their demands. They are able to call on the police to harass those who dare to refuse to comply. Above all, they enjoy the status of victimhood in spite of being among the safest and least victimised of all demographics. Who knew that being oppressed was so appealing?

And, of course, they are able to demand the erosion of women’s spaces in the name of ‘progress’. An employment tribunal currently underway in Dundee may establish an important precedent when it comes to challenging this state of affairs. Sandie Peggie is a nurse at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy in Scotland, who was suspended for ‘harassment’ when she complained about the presence of a man, Dr Beth Upton (pictured above), in the female changing room. It should go without saying the nurses absolutely require changing facilities as part of the job. In this specific instance, Peggie had been menstruating and so asked Upton to leave, an action that was interpreted as ‘bullying’. Quite rightly, she has taken legal action against her employers.

The proceedings are being posted in real time by the Tribunal Tweets account on X, and the sense of entitlement from Upton has been fascinating. He repeatedly claims that he is simply seeking ‘respect’, as though inveigling himself into his female colleagues’ private spaces would be deserving of any courtesy. Not content with accusing Peggie of ‘harassment’, he has also claimed that he has been victimised by the judge and the entire tribunal proceedings. Upton asserted that he had ‘been treated horribly, this tribunal has been harassment. Not just for me but for all trans people in the country, just trying to be themselves’.

And this, of course, is where the essential authoritarianism of the trans movement becomes manifest. In a liberal society, we are able to dress as we like, call ourselves whatever we like and request that others do the same. We cannot force compliance when it comes to our private speech codes, nor can we intrude on the rights of others. Upton is free to call himself a woman, to change his name to ‘Beth’, and to ask others to address him as such. He is not entitled to their acquiescence, and nor is he entitled to assert his own desires at the expense of women’s rights.

For some time, women have been sounding the alarm about this problem. In October 2024, the Health Secretary Wes Streeting met with five nurses who were concerned that they were being compelled to undress in front of male colleagues who identified as female. This group - who became known in the media as the ‘Darlington Five’ - had previously complained to their employers at the Darlington Memorial Hospital, only to be rebuked for their intolerance. Twenty-six nurses had raised objections and were eventually informed by the ward manager that they should be ‘more inclusive’ and required ‘re-education’.

All of this is reminiscent of the appointment of Mridul Wadhwa, a trans-identified male, as head of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre in 2021. When asked about victims of sexual assault who sought female-only spaces, Wadhwa said that such victims needed to ‘reframe’ their trauma. ‘Sexual violence happens to bigoted people as well,’ he said on The Guilty Feminist podcast. ‘And so, you know, it is not a discerning crime. But these spaces are also for you. But if you bring unacceptable beliefs that are discriminatory in nature, we will begin to work with you on your journey of recovery from trauma. But please also expect to be challenged on your prejudices’. The scenario could barely be more darkly farcical; a man was shaming female rape victims for not wanting to be around men, and he was doing so on a feminist podcast and was applauded for it.

This is the unreality we face in the present-day culture wars. One of the Darlington Five was sexually abused as a child, and she has nonetheless been branded a bigot for feeling unsettled when a man in her changing room repeatedly asked her: ‘Are you getting changed yet?’ While I am not one for indulging in cod-psychology, we should never forget that a prominent trait among fetishists is the desire to force others to comply. This is why exhibitionism is so common; the flasher makes someone a participant in their sexual performance without their consent.

One aspect of the culture war that will mystify future historians will be the way in which experts have been largely responsible for promoting false narratives in the name of ideology. In spite of being a doctor, Upton has claimed that the terms biological male and female have ‘no defined and agreed meaning in science’. Nor is he alone in his delusion. In a televised interview with Jordan Peterson, Dr Nicholas Matte of the Sexual Diversity Studies programme at the University of Toronto said that ‘it’s not correct that there is such a thing as biological sex’. Sally Hines, Professor of Sociology and Gender Identities at the University of Leeds, once argued that ‘before the Enlightenment the female skeleton didn’t exist’.

This kind of sentiment could only ever be uttered by activist academics, those who are intelligent enough to devise a means to rationalise even the most preposterous of claims. This is what Upton had to say at the tribunal about the incontestable reality of sexual dimorphism:

‘Biological sex is a nebulous term and it doesn’t really mean anything, because nobody can accurately or usefully define biological sex because pretty much every human I’m aware of is at least in part biological and many of them have a sex characteristic. I am quite aware of the impacts and implications of somebody’s biological makeup, and as a trans person I’m quite aware of the implications of someone’s biological makeup. There are very few people who don’t think understanding some aspect of somebody’s biology is important in some situation, but there is no agreed definition of biological sex. It’s a nebulous dog whistle.’

And there you have it. This is the kind of careening bilge that the tribunal judge is now expected to treat as the testimony of an ‘expert’. This is how a man justifies forcing his way into the space of victim of sexual assault (Peggie had been molested by a male doctor as a girl). Invoking the logic of Mridul Wadhwa, Upton dismissed this aspect of Peggie’s experience by saying that ‘someone's trauma doesn't justify bad behaviour towards colleagues’. This wild reversal of victim and aggressor, this determination to bully and claim to be bullied, tells us everything about the deranged narcissism at the heart of gender identity ideology. How many more tribunals of this kind will be needed before sanity is restored?

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