Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
A spate of cases involving female staff has revealed how far trans ideology has captured NHS management.
Nurses Sandie Peggie, the Darlington Eight and Jennifer Melle are all victims of the transgender cult which denigrates women and privileges men. The tenacious 10 have somehow withstood the unjust slings and arrows launched at them by their very own “horrible bosses”.
On Tuesday, Jennifer Melle won the first round in her battle with Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust. Senior Nurse Melle’s crime? Misgendering Patient X who was attending St Helier hospital in Surrey’s Carshalton from a high-security prison. The convicted paedophile now identifies as a woman.
When Patient X overheard Melle refer to “he”, the self-styled “she” became racially abusive and tried physically to attack her. The Trust subsequently backed the bloke. Management not only suspended Melle but accused her of a “data breach” when she spoke to the media.
Melle is now set to pursue an employment tribunal claim against the Trust. Christian Concern and Shadow Equalities Minister Claire Coutinho, who rallied allies, are among those who have supported Melle. The nurse, with an exemplary 12-year service record, describes the months with the threat of dismissal hanging over her as “the darkest of my life”.
Last week, an employment tribunal found the Darlington nurses not only suffered harassment, but County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust created “a hostile, intimidating and degrading environment”.
The Trust expected the nurses to share their single sex changing room at Darlington Memorial Hospital with a biological man, who identifies as a woman and calls himself Rose Henderson. As the Tribunal noted, “The use of the changing room by Rose Henderson is at the heart of these proceedings … it was simply accepted by management that Rose would use the changing room of Rose’s choice as Rose was transgender.”
In other words, a man would use the changing room of his choice as he was a man – and his female colleagues would just have to lump it.
The women’s discomfort at sharing their space was heightened with the realisation, that, as the Tribunal states, Rose Henderson was actually “a sexually active biological male, who had stopped taking hormones, had a female partner, and had made no secret of this or of plans to have a baby.”
Sandie Peggie is appealing against last month’s Tribunal ruling which found partially in her favour in action against the Fife Health Board. Central to the case was the issue of a biological male – the six ft tall Dr Beth Upton – using female facilities at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy.
Further complicating matters, Tribunal Judge Alexander Kemp subsequently had to issue corrections to his ruling. Peggie is “an admirable person who has been through hell” says Kemi Badenoch, who met her privately last week.
The Tory Leader also had talks with For Women Scotland. In April, the campaigners brought a case against the Scottish government, which resulted in the landmark unanimous decision by the Supreme Court that under the Equality Act, a woman is defined by biological sex.
In the health sector, the three NHS Trusts involved the Tribunal cases are not alone in their misogynistic preferences. Despite 70 per cent female membership, Unison shunned the Darlington nurses, while the Royal College of Nursing refused to support Peggie or Melle. (Feminist Florence Nightingale would surely not be happy.) The General Medical Council only records gender rather than sex, which hardly inspires confidence in an organisation which includes gynaecologists.
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, the government is stalling over issuing formal guidance to the public sector, including the NHS. Of course, such is their pandering to the trans lobby, most Cabinet members, including the Prime Minister, have been total cowards and previously refused to define “woman” (BTW “adult human female”). Instead, we must put up with risible claims about percentages of women having penises and, now, Supreme Court judgments as optional extras.
The government’s lack of legal clarity costs taxpayers. By May 2025, only part way though the hearing, NHS Fife had racked up £220,465.93 in legal fees. It is high time public sector bosses were personally liable for such egregious wastes of public money and had their pensions docked.
NHS managers have facilitated male entitlement and punished female nurses for refusing to play along with their pet ideology. Does the bosses’ contempt for women staff extend to female patients? Let’s not forget, should the legislation get passed, the NHS will be overseeing assisted dying.
The time and money spent pursuing nurses in a misogynistic crusade could be better spent on focusing on the NHS’s increasingly sub-optimal maternity services.
Congratulations to Claire Coutinho who deserves credit for championing the nurses.
As she said, these witch hunts must stop.