The transgender doctor who quit Scotland for a new job in a sun-soaked Australian coastal resort after a high-profile tribunal is at the centre of another gender row.
The Scottish Mail on Sunday has learned that Dr Beth Upton, now known as Lis, has been named in an alleged incident at a New South Wales hospital where a woman patient refused treatment from the male-born medic.
Her family claim that fears she would be ‘bullied’ into accepting the 6ft doctor as female meant her husband refused to leave her bedside. Under Australia’s controversial self-ID laws, transgender doctors are under no legal or professional obligation to disclose their gender history or trans status to patients.
At a Dundee employment tribunal last year, brought by NHS Fife nurse Sandie Peggie, Dr Upton denied being male, said biological sex was a ‘nebulous dog whistle’, and stated that if a woman patient requested a female doctor, the medic would treat them.
The 31-year-old started work at Port Macquarie Base Hospital’s emergency department in April, four months after quitting the NHS.
It is understood the incident occurred when a middle-aged woman was admitted and became concerned after recognising the doctor as male and said so, causing other staff to become involved.
A friend claimed: ‘Her husband stayed the whole time she was in to make sure they didn’t bully her into accepting treatment.’
Australian women’s rights campaigners demanded that the government investigate the incident after earlier warning that the country’s health regulator had listed Upton’s sex as female.
Dr Beth Upton moved to Australia after the employment tribunal involving Sandie Peggie ended
Nurse Sandie Peggie
Port Macquarie Base Hospital, New South Wales, Australia
Women’s Forum Australia CEO Rachael Wong said: ‘A woman in hospital should not have to defend her boundaries from the very people entrusted with her care.
‘The New South Wales health minister must urgently investigate why a vulnerable woman seeking emergency care felt she needed her husband’s protection to ensure her wish to be treated by a female doctor was respected.
‘The minister and Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority [AHPRA] must also explain what assessment was made of Upton’s breathtakingly entitled assertion, made under oath, that he would treat women who had specifically requested a female doctor and what safeguards were put in place to protect the dignity, wellbeing and consent of female patients.
‘In April, we warned that AHPRA registering Upton as a female doctor raised serious questions about whether women’s boundaries and consent would be respected in Australian hospitals. This allegation brings those concerns into sharp focus.’
Queensland businesswoman Sall Grover, who lost a legal battle after she refused to allow a man who identifies as a woman on her female-only social media platform, said: ‘A doctor who refuses to acknowledge the reality of biological sex is putting themselves and their patients in a precarious position.
‘If it is being done to validate the doctor’s own identity, it just makes the situation even more sinister.’
A hospital staff member said: ‘It should now be very clear why Dr Upton wanted to come to work in Australia. Our laws, as they stand, mean he is regarded as a woman here.
‘But it was always only a matter of time before an allegation like this was made.’
Other colleagues have been more welcoming of the trans doctor at the 228-bed hospital. One nurse said: ‘Lis is lovely. Everyone loves her.’ The Dundee University medical graduate has been living an idyllic life in the middle-class coastal community where the average house costs around $900,000 (£473,000).
The doctor, along with wife Zoe, has moved into a rented home in the resort, which has a burgeoning LGBTQIA+ scene.
Dr Upton, a field hockey goalkeeper, has also landed a second job umpiring games for Port Macquarie Hastings Hockey Association, earning around $50 a match.
The medic was given help by the hospital to secure a visa after landing the $110,000-a-year post.
Meanwhile, Mrs Peggie, 56, faces losing her income in three months.
She has been off sick as she continues an appeal against NHS Fife following her partial tribunal win. It is understood that her sick pay will run out in January.
The tribunal ruled the health board, which spent around £220,000 defending both Upton and itself, had harassed Mrs Peggie by allowing the trans doctor to use the female-only changing room at Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital.
Unlike UK law, clarified by the Supreme Court in the For Women Scotland ruling last year, Australia’s anti-discrimination legislation allows biological men who identify as women into female-only spaces.
The health authority which oversees Port Macquarie Base Hospital said: ‘Mid Northern Coast Local Health District does not comment on matters relating to individual staff members.’
Mrs Peggie’s lawyer, Margaret Gribbon, also declined to comment.