NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #10

[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 February 2025 and is expected to continue for 2 weeks. The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton started giving evidence on Thursday 6 February.

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.

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.

An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: https://nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

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
Thread 3: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5268347-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-3
Thread 4: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5268942-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-4
Thread 5: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5269149-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-5
Thread 6: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5269635-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-6
Thread 7: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5270365-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-7
Thread 8: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271511-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-8
Thread 9: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271596-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-9

Yes I agree, and to assist in the over-riding objective and so on. However in this instance the Judge was criticised for not intervening and insisting on plain, easily comprehendible terminology as it plain to most reasonable observers/typical people when the term "man" or "woman" is used, what he or she may be referring to.

Not for Upton though, whose smarminess and "word-salad" I hope will come back to kick him in the bollocks. The Judge I believe was right to allow him to answer in the terms he tried to convolute relatively simple matters with, and NC to question him in terms that she, and everyone else is familiar with.

He was unnecessarily obstructive and difficult, over-complicating his answers in order and in an attempt to pre-determine the outcome, that there are different forms of women, including men.

Am I the only one who thinks he gets turned on my arguing with NC. He's loving it.

I had to sit and take a few deep breaths after listening today, found his responses and attitude v v upsetting.

But I hope I see where NC is going, and I think Upton's day of insisting that he is a woman, that he is female, that he is biologically female, that there no situation in which he is anything but female, is about to hit the brick wall of intimate examinations when same sex care has been requested.

Isn't a lot of law down to what can be considered reasonable?

I think what is being contested is what the definition of 'woman' and 'female' is in law. If this had been established, much of today's evidence wouldn't have been necessary. NC could have simply said she was using the terms as defined in law.

Labour are only backing away because it's currently politically expedient. They've seen how popular Trump's Executive Order in the US has been and in the UK they don't want to make the Reform party's job even easier.

He didn't give a definition of either women or transwomen, but in insisting that NC did - to try to compel her to use 'cis' - he said that the word 'cis' was necessary to distinguish the 2 different groups of cis and trans women.

Ergo, despite his assertions, transwomen are not women.

Crikey, finally caught up.

Very impressed with the level of detail coming through in posts. Massive thanks and and to you all.

I thanks for answering and thank goodness for Superdrug and your friend! ‘Am so sorry about your husband, ‘am disabled following (almost)too late cancer diagnosis, Partial Retinal Detachment may be due to being on oxygen a lot.

"But hearing him speak any sympathy I had for DU is gone. All I could think about was coercive control - is there a workplace equivalent?"

Bullying? Harassment? Which is I think a major part of SP's case.

Thank you. For whatever reason, on a busy Saturday morning an inexperienced young doctor had been left in charge.

We later found out that they'd had two other stroke patients in the same morning. One was a colleague's wife. She was sent home with a TIA.

She had a full-blown stroke that same night and never woke up.

Don't be sick or injured in Fife at the weekend or on a holiday.

Thank you. I'm so sorry for what you have suffered.

NC tried to make the differentiation, albeit with exceptions to bodies producing sperm and those producing eggs - she put it to the deluded bloke and he started ranting on about different forms of sex. My GP partner derided him as an idiot.

I also think this.

I think he is enjoying having a platform and is thinking of himself as a civil rights hero.

Having said that, whilst I think he's enjoying spouting from the TRA textbook about why TWAW and capitulation is transphobia, I think he is finding the questioning about what happened in the CR uncomfortable- and his brittleness comes through.

I've a neighbour who's super intelligent, an eminent academic, and she is completely accepting of trans-bollocks (although agrees men shouldn't be allowed in women's sports). We were discussing it recently and I was like what about the Cass report, women's rights, etc, and she said she hoped that if she announced she wanted to transition I'd support her in this, and I just blurted out, um no, I'd think there was something wrong with you.

Oh my just read your previous account! Ours is notorious too and has been modernised. At least they did save my life in the end.

I don't know about turned on. But I have observed from my own interactions with my trans-identifying child that arguing with the nonsense just fuels it and is an opportunity for her to practise at making the arguments in a more and more convincing way, and the batshit beliefs seem to get stronger and take hold even more. In that way the mindset seems similar to that of an addiction or an eating disorder where the person is controlled by these behaviours and behaves in a controlling way towards others in order to be able to keep doing the behaviours, which have become a habitual way of dealing with underlying anxiety. Enabling the behaviours and trying to reason with the controlling mindset are both very unhelpful and make the person worse. Saying that my child is a teenage girl and they generally have different reasons for falling prey to this ideology than grown men.

I hope NC is okay after all that, and taking the time to try to relax this evening. I know it's her job and she's resolutely professional but it must have been an ordeal.

Another excellent article - no paywall, just pop your email address in:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/in-defence-of-sandie-peggie/

To be fair, it might be difficult to find anyone who could confidently exclude a detached retina in a general hospital at night.

This 100%

They probably have to finish by 5pm before Upton turns into a pumpkin or develops a 5 o'clock shadow something.

I am liking all the headlines - what becomes more and more clear is that the people who took a philosophical concept to have immediate real-life literal meaning and made the legislation that brought us this result, have ignored all of the warnings which others have given.

They fell for it hook, line and sinker, and thought that everday people were just not smart enough to see the advanced genius of this concept. Also they overestimated very much the influence of some of the most vocal pro-protesters as part of the population.

Now that every part of that legislation and all of its inconsistencies is brought to the public by all the lawsuits, everybody can see just how much contempt for women and decent men is embedded.

I bet if a senior politician on travel suddenly fell ill and had to be treated at this hospital's A&E, they would be horrified someone who pretends different blood values for women and men or biological differences don't matter for the treatment would decide about their life.

...which is exactly why JR moved to object - she knows that trouble lies the way of "informed consent" which is part of any medical process or consultation. A patient or research participant is given all the information they need to make an informed decision and decide whether or not to go ahead with that procedure.

Is he a true believer in trans ideology or is he trying to go all-in on the philosophical belief angle. He came across like a cult acolyte in much of what he was saying.

But then I don't see how that would help, as it would be like if Fife had a vegan doctor so took animal products off the menu for every other member of staff whether they like it or not. Or they have a Muslim doctor so all female employees have to wear hijabs.