Sandie Peggie and the Royal College of Nursing

Why has the RCN refused to support Sandie Peggie in the NHS Fife case?

The reality of theoretical ‘be kind’ appeasement has struck once again in the NHS. A 6-foot-plus male doctor insists on using the women’s changing room, and for challenging this, nurse Sandie Peggie is being vilified as a bigot.

The General Medical Council (the medical regulator for doctors), could be said to have set the scene for this drama. The male doctor involved - now known as Dr Beth Upton - is disingenuously represented as ‘Gender: Female’ on the General Medical Council’s public register alongside at least 50 other male doctors, as I described here.

GMC Does Not Record Protected Characteristic of Sex

The GMC has explicitly said in an astonishing FOI response that they ‘do not record the sex of doctors, so do not hold this information’, meaning that when the GMC states ‘gender’, they are solely referring to doctors’ so-called gender identity. The concept of gender identity is a contested belief and one that one would not expect the UK’s medical regulator to push on to all doctors (and indeed patients) in this manner. I have described how the GMC has made these changes in response to pressure from gender identity lobby groups GLADD UK (Association of LGBTQ Doctors and Dentists) and BAGIS (British Association of Gender Identity Specialists) here.

That summarises the General Medical Council’s current approach to representing biological reality, but what about the Royal College of Nursing? Some commentators have been shocked about the fact that the RCN has ‘refused to provide legal assistance’ to Sandie Peggie. This decision aligns perfectly with the Royal College of Nursing’s activist messaging on ‘true gender identity’ in patient care.

Nurses Must Affirm Trans People

In the RCN’s 2020 document Fair Care for Trans and Non-binary Patients (which the RCN still signposted to in 2022 and is now labelled ‘under review’), it is stated twice that ‘Nurses and healthcare support workers have a powerful role to play in affirming the true gender identity of trans and non-binary people’. The use of ‘true gender identity’ is incredibly religious in tone and nurses seem to be being compelled by the RCN to go along with the gender beliefs of their patients regardless of the risks to their physical health. The guide begins by claiming that ‘equality legislation exists across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales which outlaws discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment or gender identity’, even though the Equality Act 2010 does not include ‘gender identity’.

‘Gender-variant Children’

The Royal College of Nursing also uses the chilling phrase ‘gender-variant children’, instructing nurses to treat children’s self-proclaimed gender/sex as being their ‘true’ one. ‘Gender-variant children and young people should be accorded the same respect for their self-defined (or true) gender as trans and non-binary adults are, regardless of their sex’. The RCN’s guide signposts to disgraced children’s charity Mermaids and thanks GIRES for its input in the acknowledgements. It also recommends Gendered Intelligence, the LGBT Foundation, Stonewall and WPATH.

The Royal College of Nursing guide’s glossary describes ‘gender variance’ in purely stereotypical terms which will remind many people of the concept of being a ‘tomboy’ or simply a child with varied interests:

‘Gender variance: tends to be used (often in respect of children or adolescents) to refer to behaviour and interests that are outside what is considered ‘normal’ for a person’s assigned (biological) sex. The abbreviation ‘trans’ is sometimes adopted, to emphasise that the full spectrum of gender-variant, gender non-conforming, gender-diverse or gender-atypical identities is being referred to’.

WPATH and the Royal College of Nursing

We can clearly see the influence of WPATH on the Royal College of Nursing in some of the glossary definitions given:

‘Gender identity: a person’s intrinsic sense of being male (boy or man), female (girl or woman) or an alternative gender, for example transgender, girlboy, boygirl, eunuch, genderqueer’.

As reported by Genevieve Gluck for Reduxx, in 2021 WPATH tried to introduce ‘eunuch’ as a legitimate gender identity with which patients could try to align themselves via castration. WPATH described ‘eunuch-identified people and other transgender people’. Reduxx’s investigation found that WPATH linked to fictional stories that ‘primarily focus on the eroticisation of child castration’. This was a horrifying discovery and unfortunately gained very little media coverage. However, even before these shocking details had been revealed, we must ask why the Royal College of Nursing and other major organisations ever endorsed the concept of someone choosing to undergo elective medical harm to become a eunuch.

Patient Accommodation Based on Feelings

In terms of wards, the Royal College of Nursing instructs that patients should be separated based on ‘gender presentation’ rather than sex. ‘Patient placement should be based on [the patient’s] preference and on gender presentation’ - effectively how they feel that day and whether they have long or short hair. This is a farcical state of affairs and completely dispenses with other patients’ sex-based rights to privacy, safety and dignity.

Repeating Trans Activists’ Mythology

In additional resources, the Royal College of Nursing’s guide links to Preventing Suicide Among Trans Young People: A Toolkit for Nurses which was produced by the RCN and Public Health England. In this toolkit, nurses are instructed to ask children ‘Does your gender identity match completely the sex you were registered at birth?’ and ‘Do you intend to bring your physical sex appearance and/or your gender role more in line with your gender identity?’. This document is full of this kind of dangerous unreality and perpetuates the idea - which has now been proven false - that if you do not ‘affirm children’s gender identity’ then they will commit suicide. Including this coercive message for nurses is manipulative and fully endorses gender identity activists’ tropes.

Nurses as Professional Activists

The Royal College of Nursing has itself repeatedly called upon nurses to be ‘professional activists’ and has gone as far as setting up an ‘Activism Academy’ in the Royal College. It is clear that the RCN will only be allowing nurses to ‘agitate for change’ in certain directions, however, and would not support gender-critical nurses.

As we can see, the Royal College of Nursing has been expecting nurses to act as unquestioning props to affirm patients’ gender beliefs. It is therefore unsurprising that they are not on Sandie Peggie’s side regarding her right not to have her speech or beliefs compelled by a trans-identified male doctor.

The Royal College of Nursing seems to be saturated with ‘Be kind’ authoritarianism, which demolishes sex-based rights and safeguarding. This is a dangerous state of affairs for their 89% female workforce. How many more tribunals for sex-based and belief discrimination will need to take place before bodies like the General Medical Council and the Royal College of Nursing join the rest of us in the real world?