A nurse who was suspended from work after complaining about a trans college using a female changing room has told of her joy after an NHS demand for an employment tribunal to be anonymous was rejected.

Sandie Peggie was put under a disciplinary investigation for a year by bosses at Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital, Fife, after she objected to sharing a woman’s changing room with her trans colleague Dr Beth Upton.

NHS Fife had tried to gag reporting of the tribunal, with the health board making an application for the case to be heard in private and the names of those involved and the hospital department where they worked kept secret.

But employment judge Antoine Tinnon dismissed the gagging attempt after opposition from Ms Peggie, campaign groups and the Press.

Judge Tinnon ruled: ‘Potential public scrutiny of a witness’ evidence is an important part of the open justice principal, and it is right that witnesses should be aware of that when giving evidence as it provides an important incentive to give honest, truthful evidence.’

And now Ms Peggie has said she was ‘very pleased the tribunal decided to reject the application’.

The accident and emergency nurse said: ‘My case is about whether the hospital and Dr Upton subjected me to sexual harassment and discrimination by forcing me and other female colleagues to share a changing room with a man identifying as a woman.

‘Going to employment tribunal is very stressful for all concerned, but everyone has the right to a fair and public hearing.

‘Changing rooms are a place we expect privacy. Courtrooms are not.’

In ordering the tribunal case to be public, Judge Tinnon said the need for open justice outweighed genuine fears the doctor had about their trans status being publicly disclosed.

In his 41 page ruling, the judge said: ‘Ordering Dr Upton’s name and identity to be kept anonymous will substantially fetter the Article 10 rights of the Press and campaigning groups to report on the case, and the general public’s right to read and have access to that reporting involving an issue of public importance and legitimate debate on which significant sections of the public are likely to take an interest and have an opinion.

‘An anonymity order will likely also have the effect of dampening the public’s interest in this case and seeing how it is resolved.’

Judge Tinnon ruled there was ‘already considerable – and the Tribunal finds wholly legitimate – public interest in this case’.

The employment judge said even if an anonymity order was made, it was likely most people at Victoria Hospital, a not significant section of the public, will suspect Dr Upton was the trans woman involved.

Judge Tinnon, who described the health board as a ‘supportive employer’, added: ‘Dr Upton’s status as a trans woman, although not public knowledge, is not a secret – her family and close friends already know, as does her employer, and likely several of her colleagues who work with her and patients she has treated who she has not disclosed this fact to’.

NHS Fife has been approached for comment.