NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #3

[nauticant]

Sandie Peggie, a nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy (VH), has brought claims in the employment tribunal against her employer; Fife Health Board (the Board) and another employee, Dr B Upton. Ms Peggie’s claims are of sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation. Dr Upton claims to be a transwoman, that is observed as male at birth but asserting a female gender identity.

The Employment Tribunal hearing started on Monday 3 January 2025 and is expected to continue for 2 weeks.

Access to view the hearing remotely can be obtained by sending an email request to [email protected] headed Public Access Request (Peggie v Fife Health Board) 4104864/2024 and requesting access.

Thread 1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5186317-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse

Thread 2: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5267591-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-thread-2

The hearing is being live tweeted by https://x.com/tribunaltweets and there's additional information here: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr. This also has threadreaderapp archives of live-tweeting of the sessions of the hearing for those who can't follow on Twitter, for example: archive.is/xkSxy.

A thank you from another lurker 👀

For those in the know, is it at all likely that Upton could attend remotely?

Do we actually know what the grounds of the discrimination complaint are yet?

Am I right that the grievances are that:

• NHS Fife failed to provide an appropriate single sex changing space for SP (because they allowed Dr Upton to use it and suggested she change in a cupboard instead)
• NHS Fife inappropriately suspended SP when she asked DU to not be in the changing room
• NHS Fife then inappropriately dragged out the suspension/return to work process

From what I can tell, point 1 is fairly black and white. If Dr Upton doesn't have a GRC then he remains legally male as well as biologically, so NHS Fife erred in saying he could use the female changing room.

Point 2 is less clear. I don't know what the precedent is, but I'm a bit worried that SP will be considered to have harassed Dr Upton because she "confronted" him. An alternative avenue would have been to bring the discrimination claim without the discussion in the changing room - based on point 1, I think like the Darlington nurses. IANAL so I have no idea where the line is on harassment/bullying vs an awkward interaction in a stressful situation. I think this is why there has been so much focus on both the specific details of the interaction in the changing room and on any indication that SP might have had an agenda prior to the actual changing room discussion.

Point 3 presumably depends on the specifics of the NHS policy, the exact nature of alternative shift patterns offered and why they were unsuitable etc. I've seen another tribunal where a support worker won a claim on similar grounds (unreasonable suspension about a disputed cigarette break and then asked to work on a different ward with a different patient group), so I think this is fairly likely to be upheld too.

However, I honestly cannot understand why JR spent the best part of a day cross examining Maya Forstater on various blog posts, opinion pieces and research articles. It's just not relevant.

I remember following TT for Sonia Appleby's employment tribunal and it was extremely focused on the minutiae of emails, meetings and communication between different employees at GIDS and the Tavistock. There was none of this grandstanding or character assassination stuff.

Will there be a witness from NHS Fife? And will NC get into the nitty gritty of whether it is legal for them not to provide a single sex changing facility and to allow people in on the basis of self ID instead?

Thank you everyone for updating this thread. You're all the best 🥰 I've had to dip in and out due to work, so catching up on here has been really helpful.

• NHS Fife failed to provide an appropriate single sex changing space for SP (because they allowed Dr Upton to use it and suggested she change in a cupboard instead)

this looks like a slamdunk to me. Unless all the other male staff were allowed in there. It's discrimination against the rest of the men surely?

Are NHS Fife really going to start saying that all changing rooms are now mixed sex across the board, officially?

I'm more familiar with mimophant for the same phenomenon. I've been at an event where a presenter called it mimosaphant: she explained that she knew Koestler's word was "mimophant" but she thought the origins and meaning came through better in that version.

That said, I like "eleflower". I'll look up the pronunciation.

Helen Lewis:

Mimophant: "A phenomenon most of us have met in life: a hybrid who combines the delicate frailness of the Mimosa, crumbling at a touch when his own feelings are hurt, with the thick-skinned robustness of the elephant trampling over the feelings of others.“
- from Khushwant Singh’s The End of India - which spells it "momiophant”. The original coinage is by Arthur Koestler, where it’s “mimophant”. He coined it in 1963, but it’s the perfect word for the internet age.
helenlewiswrites.tumblr.com/post/74636067158/mimophant-a-phenomenon-most-of-us-have-met-in

I love this! Mimophant 😍

Is Sandie done now? There are still another 7 days scheduled, I can’t think how they’ll fill them

More of an "aw" sound.

😂

Fife Council had to produce a vocab list for carers. Near the top of the list was "baffies".

So far we have only dealt with cross-examination of the claimant and her evidence. We still have the defence’s evidence to cross-examine and then closing arguments. That includes Dr Upton and NHS Fife witnesses.

The photos of Dr U I've seen on X suggest that he is/was a men's hockey club goalie. They are pretty fearless (despite all the £££ of padding, it can still hurt if you get hit).

Odd that a few hurty words would prompt an attack of the vapours.

Will there be a witness from NHS Fife? And will NC get into the nitty gritty of whether it is legal for them not to provide a single sex changing facility and to allow people in on the basis of self ID instead?

I expect there to be plenty of NHS Fife witnesses. However, I suspect that the legality about whether NHS Fife have to provide a single sex changing facility might be outside the scope of what the Employment Tribunal can make a decision on.

Isn't it interesting that what marks Upton as a man is his male entitlement and his associated assumption that women will bow to his needs. What the TRAs underestimated(and still underestimate) is what they see as female subservience is actually a coping strategy to survive a male dominated world. While the men were (and are) still under the illusion that they are in charge, women have been getting on with shit and keeping the world turning. We have spines of steel, which they don't even see, well, up until now.

The Handmaid's Tail tv series illustrated this brilliantly, although I have had to stop watching it as it feels like it is becoming a reality in my lifetime, unlike when I read the book years ago and thought 'oh we are so past that now.'

My heart breaks for the Afghan women, the US women who don't have access to terminations, and Sandie being forced into sharing a changing room with a man.

WE DO NOT CONSENT boys. We don't.

However, I suspect that the legality about whether NHS Fife have to provide a single sex changing facility might be outside the scope of what the Employment Tribunal can make a decision on.

No this is a key part of the case; that not providing single sex changing facilities discriminated against SP on the grounds of sex.

I've finally managed to sort out the link for the actual FB post for the local paper. (Fife Free Press is a weekly paper for the Kirkcaldy area.)

https://www.facebook.com/FifeFreePress/posts/pfbid02k4p8iaiS8wgyNFX6NQnS2wNAZeVYZnDc5CjGxM3GdRdgdftCJBdGehELT4foq25jl?comment_id=1115215787017308&reply_comment_id=1307701730550921&notif_id=1738759567006107&notif_t=comment_mention&ref=notif

I wonder how good DU will be at keeping his cool if the questioning is as tough from NC as JR has been on SP and MF.

Why was DU keeping notes? Does DU have any 3rd party verification of their perception?

Was it the J who asked a couple of times if there was any sign on the cupboard door? Also what was kept there, to which SP said bandages and such. I’m wondering what relevance a sign had.

I can’t help wondering how useful it is for a hospital doctor to be easily intimidated by a rather slight woman 30 years his senior. I imagine some of the characters he encounters in the course of his everyday work in a Scottish A&E might be a good deal more frightening. How does the poor dear cope?

I'll be happy to be wrong on the powers of the ET.

I expect an emotional support animal and a mother.

At the very least, he'll probably come in clutching a soft, cuddly toy.

https://glosswitch.substack.com/p/the-invisible-work-of-saying-nothing

Brilliant analysis by Glosswitch on the interrogation of Sandie Peggie

Interestingly today Annaleise Dodds as Minister for Women and Equalities was answering questions about when the revised EHRC Code of Practice will be published. https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-02-05/debates/850CF798-91F5-43A3-BD6C-6CD4D945D0F0/EHRCCodeOfPractice

The focus was on single sex services. I don’t trust AD but I do wonder if the SC decision may be imminent.

In light of all the paperwork on male fetishes in MF’s evidence, it gave me pause when MF referred to a women’s changing room being a popular genre in p*rn.

Not particularly about this case, but against that background, wondering about any male making notes to his phone in such a place. I’ve said this before, but a male whipping out a camera phone where women get undressed would concern me greatly

In a changing room designed to be mixed sex, where it is know that males will be in a space where women are undressing, there may be rules in place to thwart any males who wish to make/take photos or set up recording devices. Although that doesn’t stop it. The design of a single sex female changing room is not created with that possibility in mind.

Just a general point about males inserting themselves in spaces where women undress, or need privacy for any reason.

Does anyone know why NHS Fife chose to use an English firm to represent them at the tribunal? Is it because industrial tribunals are governed by English law rather than Scots law? (I have no idea.)