Most of today was taken up with the evidence of RCN Senior Officer Gillian Tait, but the first hour and forty minutes was dedicated to finishing the cross-examination of Union Officer Stuart Fraser – Tait’s direct report.
Naomi Cunningham, Sandie Peggie’s barrister, had two main strands to her questioning of Fraser. The first was about a trans-identifying male called Freda Wallace (She/Ra) who in December last year posted four photos on BlueSky with the caption:
“Royal College of Nursing- Education on discrimination. I used Dr Upton’s case to explain how gender critical organisations target NHS trusts. It was amazing to meet other transgender healthcare professionals.”
The insinuation was that Wallace had been brought in by the RCN to conduct or contribute toward some form of RCN training. The photos in the post showed the exterior of the RCN HQ in London, two people standing in front of a screen carrying the RCN logo and a whiteboard marked “Eqalities, Diversity and Inclusion” and another photo showing a diverse group of people sitting around some tables in the same room. Naomi Cunningham suggested that one of people standing in front of the screen and whiteboard might be Freda Wallace dressed, as she described it “quite demurely”.
Stuart Fraser confirmed the room was part of RCN’s HQ, but said just because there was RCN branding, it might not be an RCN event as any member could hire than room. Cunningham agreed and said she wasn’t saying Wallace was a member of RCN staff, but it was “known” he was a member.
Another post by Wallace dated 17 Jan 2026 stated that he would be “at the RCN Congress 2026, 18 to 21 May, ACC Liverpool.” The picture accompanying the post was that of a card with a Progress Pride flag containing RCN branding, an enamel badge with the PP flag containing RCN branding and the message “When you wear this badge, please share your pledge to support LGBTQ+ inclusion by posting your image or video on social media using #RCNProud and #AllyActions with a link to the RCN’s Pride in Nursing website.”
Cunningham then took Fraser to a tweet apparently posted by Wallace in September 2024. This showed Wallace standing semi-naked, wearing fetish gear, apparently receiving oral sex from an unidentifiable man dressed in blue jeans and a yellow shirt. The accompanying text was “Dads worship female penis” [you can find the picture online. I am not going to share it here].
Another tweet dated 25 Nov 2025 called the gender critical feminist Helen Staniland “joyless little cunt who deserves the worst punishment”. And another dated 19 Jan this year from a now suspended account declared: “I’m a pervert, a degenerate and an artist.”
Cunningham wondered if having Wallace at an RCN event was a serious reputational risk for the RCN. Fraser said it wasn’t possible to “police” people’s social media posts. Cunningham suggested he take another look at the photos she’d just shown him. “Looking at those posts do you agree he is a thoroughly unpleasant and menacing individual who RCN should not be willing to be associated with publicly?” she asked.
Fraser seemed unwilling to get involved. Cunningham suggested any trade union, and any union activist ought to be “shocked to the core” by the posts she had presented him and suggested someone like Wallace should be expelled from the organisation “before their feet touch the ground” the moment pictures like that came to light.
David Hay KC, acting for the RCN, stepped in to say that Fraser should not answer the question. Referencing the 2022 Bruce Carr report into the RCN’s various crises (of which appalling male behaviour was a running theme), Cunningham told the court that the RCN had a “serious misogyny problem”, and the posts she was showing Fraser suggested they couldn’t claim to have dealt with it.
Fraser accepted that if the posts were brought to the RCN’s attention there would likely be an investigation.
Bad Rep
The remainder of Fraser’s cross-examination went back to his apparent misunderstanding of equality law when it came to dealing with Sandie Peggie’s case, which he’d been assigned to in January 2024.
Cunningham first of all wanted to know why he’d suggested to Peggie that she might like to move department after attending her initial disciplinary investigation meeting in March 2024, despite Peggie being adamant she loved working in A&E at Victoria Hospital and had no desire to move.
Fraser suggested it was about “exploring the potential options” to get Peggie back to work if NHS Fife “didn’t want to lift the suspension for her to return to A&E”. Cunningham said it was due to his complete failure to consider that Beth Upton, the male trans-identifying doctor who had complained about Peggie, might be in the wrong. And the reason he hadn’t considered that Upton might be in the wrong because, Cunningham said, he had failed to clock that Peggie’s objection to Upton in the female changing room was a “manifestation of her [gender critical] protected belief”.
Fraser had proven to be more than woolly on understanding the law on this area, and Cunningham didn’t necessarily blame him for it, but asked why he didn’t think to get urgent legal advice on the matter given the three month time bar on raising a legal claim. Fraser clearly believed that the suspension was the only ongoing act of discrimination and “if they continued the suspension that would be a continuing act of discrimination that would’ve extended the time bar.”
Cunningham reminded him that after 24 Dec 2023, Peggie had no contact with Upton, which meant the clock was ticking on making a claim against him. The cogs whirred.
“Potentially, yeah”, he conceded. He admitted he hadn’t thought about that.
“That was because everything in the RCN’s training and culture was telling you trans women are women and they have a right to be in the female changing facilities”, said Cunningham.
Fraser objected to the use of the word “culture”. He said it was down to the “guidance” from the EHRC. “This is the Services and Public Functions Practice,” said Cunningham. “The name gives it away. It’s about services and public functions. Not workplaces.”
“That’s my understanding where the board would have taken their advice from”, Fraser replied.
Cunningham next asked why Fraser didn’t take up evidence provided by Sandie Peggie that Dr Upton had caused “chaos” in his last place of work by challenging people to direct him to the “correct” toilets and complaining about people misgendering him.
Fraser said it would have been “difficult” to do.
Cunningham wanted to know why. “If Sandie Peggie was correct, he was a serial troublemaker and that is relevant to [her disciplinary] investigation.” She had handed over the names of the hospitals Upton worked at. Why not insist the NHS Fife investigators start asking questions?
Fraser was not having a good morning. He slipped into “don’t recall” mode, and came up with the excuse that at one stage he was getting so much information from Sandie Peggie’s solicitor Margaret Gribbon “it was quite unclear what instructions I was being given… Often it would be Margaret saying ‘I am doing this’. I didn’t believe that was something for me to follow up with.”
Cunningham suggested this was all of a piece with no one at the RCN or NHS Fife wanting investigate the behaviours of a trans-identifying man in case “you might uncover discreditable things” which would go against the “favoured narrative that the TIMs are the victims”. Fraser disagreed.
Good Rep
The union officer revealed some gumption when he said he disagreed with his boss Norman Provan’s decision in January 2025 not to fund Sandie Peggie’s second employment tribunal against NHS Fife, not just because it was the right thing for Peggie, but because it was the right decision “reputationally” for the union.
Cunningham seized on this. She noted that by this point Sandie Peggie’s first claim was heading to trial and her case had become something of a cause celebre. “It was already news”, she said. Fraser agreed. He also agreed that it was a “serious matter for all your female members, potentially.”
“Its right isn’t it”, added Cunningham “that unions are keen to be seen to be taking strategoic legal cases to establish rights of their members?”
“Yeah you could say that”, replied Fraser.
“Quite important part of trade union work…?”
“… to be representative of our membership, yes”, said the union man.
“And for all those reasons you were quite right and Norman Provan was quite wrong. The RCN should’ve been representing Sandie Peggie at the second tribunal.”
Fraser gave a long answer which did not in any way criticise his boss, but did end with the answer that to at least “explore” funding Peggie’s case “probably would have been the right thing to do”.
The problem was, suggested Cunningham, there was no way that the RCN were ever going to back Peggie, because there would have been “howls of fury” from “activisits, staff members and the LGBTQ network” if they had.
“Potentially” agreed Fraser, “but again I don’t see why that would be relevant to our thinking at a local level.”
Well, suggested Cunningham – the reason it didn’t happen was the same reason he hadn’t spotted the correct legal analysis of Peggie’s confrontation with Upton, the same reason no one had investigated Upton’s past and the same reason the union let NHS Fife change the female changing facilities to mixed sex without consultation, and the same reason he hadn’t bothered to speak to Sandie Peggie’s colleagues to see how they felt about it – the RCN had “picked a side” and that side was gender ideology, “running through it like a stick of rock”.
Fraser disagreed.
Taiters Gon’ Tait
The next witness was Fraser’s boss (pictured at the top). Gillian Tait’s evidence in chief was largely given over to explaining her job and her role in taking over from Stuart Fraser as Sandie’s rep whilst Fraser was dealing with a bereavement in the middle of last year.
On paper Tait was an exemplary rep. She wrote to Peggie on at least eleven occasions suggesting a chat, which Peggie refused. She dealt with correspondence from Peggie and Gribbon and seemed to be reasonably proactive in dealing with Peggie’s requests when it came to the level of workplace representation she was seeking the requests she made. As well as taking her through this, the RCN’s advocate, David Hay KC also was at pains to point out that despite several well-intentioned and quite thorough attempts to see if there was more than one nurse at NHS Fife who had a problem with males using the female changing facilities, Sandie Peggie was the only one at the time of her complaint and the only one since.
When it came to cross-examination, Naomi Cunningham painted a different picture.
Tait admitted to being woolly (like Fraser) on For Women Scotland 1, which in essence established that men without GRCs could not be treated as women (before FWS2 at the Supreme Court in essence concluded that men with GRCs remained men too). As for Forstater: “It’s fairly a blank for me”, she said
Tait was shown the PP flag and knew it was the Pride Flag, but did not know it was known as the PP flag. She claimed not to be aware that the pink, white and blue in the PP flag represented trans. She wasn’t sure the PP flag was associated with gender ideology and didn’t know what TERF stood for.
She also wasn’t prepared to agree that adherents to gender ideology characterise sex realists as being “hateful and transphobic and often genocidal”. Tait was neither on Facebook nor twitter and she said wasn’t really aware of the discussions around gender reassignment surgery, hormones and puberty blockers.
Thankfully she had heard of the FWS Supreme Court decision. Cunningham asked her if she thought it was “bad news” or if she agreed with Sandie Peggie that biological sex matters.
After the judge overruled an objection from David Hay telling Tait not to answer the question, Tait said:
“Okay, my personal opinion and my own belief is that I agree with the Supreme Court ruling that a biological woman is a woman. I have been a registered nurse for 33 years and I have supported hundreds of members over 11 years and at no point has my personal opinion impacted how I support a member, a patient or a relative over my career.”
“So you agree with Sandie Peggie”, said Cunningham.
“I agree with the Supreme Court”, Tait replied.
Cunningham showed Tait some searches that had been made of the public-facing RCN website. It returned the letters “LGBTQ” sixty times. The word “transgender” featured 170 times. The words “gender critical” came back twice. Cunningham wondered what Tait made of that. Tait agreed that there was a higher frequency of the words “transgender” and “LGBTQ” than “gender critical”.
Cunningham asked if Tait knew LGBTQ was a contested term. That some LGB people felt the TQ had nothing to do with them and resented being lumped together as if they were a homogenous group.
“My knowledge in this area is minimal” replied Tait.
Cunningham then spent about 15 desperate minutes trying to get Tait to admit that a good chunk of the RCN membership might support the Supreme Court ruling, in the same way that Peggie was, and in the same way that she had said she did.
Tait was not going to be drawn one inch. It led to the following exchange:
NC: A lot of the reasoning in the Supreme Court judgment was based upon the fact about whether someone has a female or male body, and that has has consequences for their privacy and dignity.
GT: I am not sure I agree with that. From my perspective, as a Registered Nurse and in my role [as a rep] I am very inclusive of all members.
NC: Those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You said you agreed with the Supreme Court ruling. I’ve said to you that the Supreme Court ruling is premised on the fact that biological differences have really important impacts in the world.
GT: I am maybe not understanding your question.
NC: For the purposes of medicine if you are calculating doses or recognising the symptoms of a heart attack, its really important to know if someone is a man or a woman…
GT: I think that’s a wide area. Without knowing each individual perspective on that it is vert difficult to comment.
NC: If a patient presents with abdominal pain, it’s important to know if they are a man or a woman.
GT: It depends on the context – what you are looking for and to diagnose.
NC: But if that person has “no female kit” you can rule out quite a few things.
GT: I agree with that.
NC: So, sex matters.
GT: In certain medical settings yes. It depends on the circumstances and you need to take each thing into consideration.
Cunningham went back to how many nurses amongst the RCN membership might hold sex realist views.
“Without collecting the data from the membership I wouldn’t know that,” said Tait, knowing full well the RCN had never done this. Possibly deliberately.
Cunningham kept trying. Tait would not say a majority of staff might be sex realists, nor a “large minority” nor even “some proportion”. Tait resolutely refused to go there. Cunningham wondered if Tait thought the majority of RCN members were not flat earthers. Tait agreed they wouldn’t be. Cunningham asked if she thought most of them believed in gravity. Tait said she was pretty sure most of them did. But when Cunningham tried to suggest that as nurses who deal with bodies day in day out there might proportion who thought biological sex was important and mattered Tait said:
“Its very difficult to answer because I don’t know the membership, but we would have a mixture of different views… We have a mixed membership, different beliefs, races… it would be difficult for me to say…. I cant comment on members beliefs.” Though of course, she just had, on their belief in gravity and the earth being round.
Was this marked reluctance to speculate on the membership’s sex realist beliefs (or otherwise) because the RCN had adopted gender ideology to such an extent “that saying sex is real and matters is alien to the RCN”?
Tait disagreed. “We are inclusive membership”, she said, with a hint of triumph.
Cunningham asked her to wade through the pages of what she had “rather rudely” called “tat” when she was cross-examining Tait’s boss, Norman Provan, on Friday. “Merchandise!” said Tait with a smile. Merch it was. As Tait looked at the various products on sale in the shop website. There was generic merch, historic merch, pay campaign merch and then pride merch. Pride merch branded with the PP flag. This suggested the RCN favoured gender ideology, didn’t it?
Oh no, said Tait”I would disagree that we are in favour. I would say that we are an inclusive union.”
“But its not inclusive of gender critical people, who are being told that their beliefs are incorrect and morally wrong” argued Cunningham. The barrister again asked if Tait accepted the PP flag was closely aligned with gender ideology.
“My knowledge is minimal” Tait stonewalled.
“If I am right on that the RCN are providing merch that shows the PP flag. It’s not providing merch that promotes any other belief system. No Christian merch, no muslim merch, no Marxist merch, no atheist merch.”
Tait agreed. Cunningham wondered if the RCN gift shop would stock gender critical RCN merch in suffragette colours.
“It would certainly be a conversation”, said Tait.
“One that would get shut down very fast indeed”, replied Cunningham. “You know that very well.”
“I disagree with that”, said Tait.
Before moving on to her next thread Cunningham asked if Tait was aware the PP flag had been flying above the RCN’s HQ May.
Of course she wasn’t.
The second stage of the cross-examination became a little circular as it focused mainly on two letters one sent by Sandie Peggie to Gillian Tait, asking her to approach NHS Fife with a series of requests, and the other sent by Gillian Tait to NHS Fife which subtly changed all of Peggie’s requests into slightly different beasts. Peggie had asked Tait to ask NHS Fife to agree to make three broad commitments.
- it understands and accepts that it staff have the right to discuss matters of common concern and organise to address them, and that this includes the use of female-only spaces by male staff, and there will be no disciplinary consequences for anyone who does;
- you understand and accept that sex realist or gender critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act 2010, and that it must treat discrimination on this ground in the same way as it would treat discrimination because of any other protected characteristic;
- it acknowledges that in light of the Supreme Court’s judgement in For Women Scotland, where it purports to provide single sex facilities for women, it is not entitled to permit those facilities to be used by men and that “men” for these purposes includes men who identify women irrespective of whether or not they hold a GRC.
Tait turned this into:
- please confirm that no males (including those who identify as women whether or not they have a gender recognition certificate) will be permitted into workplace single sex facilities? For the audience of doubt can you please confirm that access to single spaces will not be based on self identification of gender? Sandie understands that usage is permitted based on self identification at the moment. Please clarify this as I note you have also said that suitable arrangements will be in place ahead of Sandie’s return. Please confirm when these will be in place (if not already).
- Sandie is concerned that employee/colleagues are being told not to discuss her case however, that others share her concerns around the provision of single sex facilities and access being given based on self identification. Understandably Sandie wants assurance that no disciplinary consequences will be taken against her for expressing these concerns and/or discuss discussing these with others so share them. Please kindly confirm.
- gender critical beliefs are protected under the equality act 2010. Please confirm that the Board understands and accepts that those with those views are protected from discrimination in the same way as other protected characteristics.
On the face of it, this is what Peggie asked for, but Cunningham noted that on each occasion, the broader sweep of what Peggie was requesting had been turned into specifics about the nurse’s individual situation. Tait was not having any of it. She had simply put things into her own words, whilst being 100% focused on repping Sandie and getting her back into work. It was a shame if she had misinterpreted what Sandie had been asking for, but if Sandie had agreed to a phone chat or a face-to-face meeting she could have checked what Tait was sending to NHS Fife and everyone would have been happy.
Cunningham wasn’t so sure this was the case. She spent what felt like a very long time taking Tait through each point to suggest that the union had deliberately had narrowed the focus to just Peggie because to widen things out into a principled position was a battle the union was not interested in fighting.
Cunningham asked – why change the text of her requests at all. Peggie “had made it really easy for you. She set it out, all you had to do was copy and paste. You decided to change it.”
Tait replied that she “wasn’t really aware” she was doing it. “Looking at it now I can see that is the wording [I used] but at the time I was concentrating on supporting Sandie. I also have to say… I would put emails into my own words when supporting members.”
Cunningham smelt a rat. “You know she had been isolated with the Board saying she was the only bigot, that’s how she was cross examined in the first tribunal. She knew that that wasn’t true, but she couldn’t prove it because everyone was too frightened and that’s why she wanted her union to support her.”
Tait disagreed. It was all just a simple communication problem, which could have been solved if only Sandie Peggie had picked up the phone.
Peggie v RCN preview interview
Peggie v RCN Day 1: Getting Taken Seriously
Peggie v RCN Day 2: Trans-Organisational Madness
Peggie v RCN Day 3: unProvan
Peggie v RCN Day 4 Pt 1: Nurses Assemble
Peggie v RCN Day 4 Pt 2: Stuart Fraser
Day 1 Live Tweets Collated
Day 2 Live Tweets Collated
Day 3 Live Tweets Collated
Day 4 Live Tweets Collated
Fair Care For Trans Patients 2nd Edition – RCN
Let’s talk… inclusion: Being the Change – RCN
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