Sex-dungeon activist claims RCN training role

A self-confessed “pervert” who posted pictures of himself in a sex dungeon claims he gave anti-discrimination training at an event displaying Royal College of Nursing branding, TERF Times can reveal.

Trans activist Freda Wallace made the boast in December. The comments have resurfaced as Sandie Peggie’s employment tribunal claim against the RCN continues in Dundee.

Wallace said it had been “amazing” to meet other trans-identifying healthcare professionals, adding that he had used the case of Sandie Peggie to explain how “gender critical organisations target NHS trusts”.

Peggie was the nurse suspended after objecting to male doctor Beth Upton using the female nurses’ changing rooms. On 8th December 2025, a tribunal upheld parts of her harassment claim against NHS Fife. She is now taking the RCN to tribunal, alleging direct discrimination because of her gender-critical beliefs.

Wallace’s post was accompanied by photographs of an event displaying RCN branding. It is not clear whether he was invited to speak by the RCN, or in what capacity he took part.

In other posts, Wallace said he would put warnings on the file of a patient seeking female-only care “to protect trans people”, “to protect cis women who look non gender conforming” and for “men who obviously might have to intervene in an emergency”.

The woman whose request prompted Wallace’s suggestion is a paraplegic feminist activist who campaigns for single-sex care. In an earlier public post, Wallace shared a photograph of himself in a sex dungeon, tagged her, and wrote: “you love it you slag.” 

Wallace’s apparent involvement in an RCN-branded event has emerged as the union’s treatment of female members comes under fresh scrutiny.

In 2021, Wallace, who worked for the ambulance service in Manchester, gave an interview to Nursing Times about his involvement in the Trans NHS Staff Network. The group, founded in 2018, was reported to be “calling for sanitary bins to be placed in all NHS bathrooms, regardless of gender, and is also lobbying for organisations to review their senior leadership teams and reflect on the lack of transgender and non-binary staff in them”.

Nick Wallis, reporting live from the Peggie hearing for Genderblog, says the RCN’s witness, Stuart Fraser, could not confirm whether Wallace’s session was an official union event. Fraser said he did not know Wallace personally, but maintained that he knew Wallace was not an RCN employee. Cross-examination also raised questions over Wallace’s membership of the union, and whether his conduct reflected on it. 

Concerns about sexism have long dogged the RCN. David Dawes, then chair of its ruling council, was suspended in 2021 over complaints about his conduct and later expelled from the union. A preliminary employment tribunal hearing subsequently heard that the complaints included historic tweets of a sexual nature.

Dawes, who had run rope-bondage workshops and was reported to have an interest in polyamory, told the Daily Mail that his suspension was separate from sexual-harassment allegations that prompted the RCN to move its annual conference online. He later lost an employment tribunal claim against the union.

Bethany Hutchison, one of the Darlington nurses facing NMC proceedings after objecting to a man in female changing facilities, told the tribunal: “I think they have abandoned their members, particularly their female members.”

The RCN has been approached for comment.

For detailed coverage of the Sandie Peggie case read Nick Wallis’ Gender Blog.