NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #12

[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 was expected to continue for 2 weeks although at the start of the second week getting everything done in this time period was looking less certain. 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
Thread 10: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271723-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-10
Thread 11: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272046-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-11

According to his online GMC registration entry he changed his registration name & gender on 4 April 2023, after qualifying in July 21.

Someone should tot up the amount of PUBLIC money that has been wasted in court trying to defend these indefensible cases, it must be an absolute fortune by now!

Apols if this q has already been addressed, but the relevant regs apply throughout "Great Britain", ie England Wales Scotland. The make requirements relating to separate changing facilities, washing facilities and toilets

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/3004/contents

Edited to add that afaik NI law makes the same requirements, just in a different set of regs.

Tw say that they have always been women, they just couldn't say and/or didn't realise until insert random date.

Eta in reply to @HootyMcBoobs

Thank you, I asked this question somewhere upthread, back in the dark mists of time!

On the subject of definitions and politicians what we have rn is Self ID

DU has decided he's female. There's no process, other than his assertion he can enter the female CR

Any politician who has said this can't happen or shouldn't needs to change the law

Can you please email [email protected] and tell them how to do it properly?

And yes legal definitions matter because it makes it harder for policy makers to fudge.

So you have in law and understanding of the difference between 'sex' and 'gender' and how they can't be used interchangeably as they have different meanings and legal status (thus a policy which fails to mention sex as a protected characteristic and instead uses the word gender is an open goal for litigation for discrimination. The correct terms are 'sex' and 'gender reassignment'. And legal sex and biological sex have their boundaries clearly marked as to where applicable.

ATM we get waffle and word salad because there is a lack of clear boundaries. There has been deliberate boundary blurring.

A grown up needs to say enough of this bullshit.

Can you imagine how many will want to watch the Darlington nurses case. Hope they are prepared.

To me it isn't a case of fragility, it's a case of control. He didn't become upset because he was offended, he became angry because someone refused to go along with his charade. And as he is an extremely intelligent man he knows the best way to proceed is to claim to be so traumatised and upset that he was unfit to work. And much like the rape gangs being enabled to continue because nobody dared call out a racial element, people are too fearful of TRAs to call him out.

Male and Female are established concepts in engineering and trades as well for fixings. The GI ideology has intentionally introduced terminology to advance what is a deviant practice - see how many of the men have prostate checks and the women engage in ordinary medical check-ups for females - there are long established safeguards for women and these men want to eradicate the boundaries that are in place for obvious reasons. Theodore is just a know-it-all twerp who plays the softly voiced victim and uses being upset to advance his cause. By his very presence he is the aggressor, he should not have stepped foot in that changing room.

Never going to happen. Love a good cake derail!

I've been spoilt by the Post Office Inquiry - YouTube recordings of all evidence still available, documents all freely available, live documents on screen.

But I guess that was a Roving Public Inquiry, and I've got a vague feeling that someone may have mentioned that this isn't one . . .?

Yes. It's a mess. I know some on here disagree but I do think the best thing is to repeal all 'gender' law. Keeping any law that recognises 'legal sex' as opposed to real sex just legitimises lying about something that is too important to lie about, and expecting people to play along with a lie, even when it undermines safeguarding. (I don't even want to say 'biological sex' any more, given, as we have seen, any unnecessary qualifier of sex is used by TRAs as a ridiculous gotcha. And it just gives credence to the idea that there is some other kind of sex).

If there is a need in professional practice for "Candour" after things go wrong. Why is there no requirement for that before we accept treatment?
https://www.gmc-uk.org/professional-standards/the-professional-standards/personal-beliefs-and-medical-practice

Just thinking how utterly amazing it is that there are so many engaged, interested people who are following and commenting on this. We're getting to 12,000 posts on an ET. The open democracy enabled by Tribunal Tweets means that people are getting amazing insight into the legal system. Before I started engaging with FWR, I couldn't have told you what Hansard is on a multiple choice question.

Without sounding too twatty, hooray for FWR!

I recall pre GE Starmer answering that we should have female CR

So where is that in law?

Nothing is stopping DU. In fact the only person being stopped is SP for saying no

It's madness. Who will do what's necessary and get us CR back? The US seem to have taken the lead

I'm baffled why they don't use a standard Zoom webinar function. Caters for up to 10k attendees (I think) and only the main participants are shown on screen so there's never an issue with randoms unmuting/babies crying etc. even a standard Zoom meeting has a host who can control who can turn their sound/cameras etc on and can adjust the controls accordingly.

I'm only saying this because part of me is absolutely longing to be there and I'm thinking I could offer to be Zoom host.

I know this isn't about children, but the creation of a sacred caste leads to abuse.

With thanks to the much missed LangCleg:

LangCleg wrote Thu 21-Feb-19

"How did the scandal of TV entertainers grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

How did the scandal of Catholic priests grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

How did the scandal of on-street gangs grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

Because if you create a sacred caste of any group and silence anyone asking questions about individuals on behalf of the sacred caste, abusers will see, infiltrate, and groom and exploit children.
That''s how."

Patient: I want to be examined by a female Dr because it’s about a really bad uterine infection.
Dr: I am female
Patient: Huh? My symptoms are worse than I thought! Am I ok?
Dr: Well I can’t find a nurse so I am going to have to take down some obs myself. Firstly, are you female?
Patient: What?!?!
Dr: How do I know you are female?
Patient: Nurse? Nurse!
Dr: Why are you looking at me? Oi now you’re not looking at me! I am going to have to take a note of this!

@RedToothBrush I would like to see sex and gender (identity) clearly defined and gender (identity) added as a separate protected characteristic.

Sex would be as recorded at birth, no changes to birth certificate etc. allowed. It would be mandatory to capture data about a person’s sex I.e. you can’t just collect data by gender. It would underpin equal pay legislation and sex based rights.

Gender (identity) would be a new protected characteristic and defined as a belief and protected for both believers and non-believers. It would include non-binary and would see the provision of third spaces along side single sex provisions e.g. unisex toilets.

I would leave gender reassignment as its own pc to cover the act of transition but expanded it to include detransitioners. It is awful women like Keira Bell and others of both sexes can’t change their legal sex back to their natal sex.

It worked for me yesterday, but not today, and this afternoon it says my PIN is invalid. Annoying, but these threads are some consolation.

I know I know I KNOW that we ALL know and see Dr Upton’s level of entitlement. But I still can’t get over what he (says he’s) like with patients. According to his OWN EVIDENCE, if a female patient comes in and asks for a female doctor, then he would still go and see that patient.

His concession was that IF she then objected, he’d get someone else to see her.

I mean, WTF?!?!

If a woman for whatever reason said that she was scared of someone with a Geordie accent for example, and I was the only woman with a Geordie accent in the department at the time, I wouldn’t insist on seeing her. I mean, yes, she might not notice that I’m Geordie, especially if she’s confused/scared/hard of hearing. And if she did notice she could ask me to leave.

But I WOULDN’T CONSIDER SEEING HER if there was any alternative. Because because I realise women may have any fears for any reason, because I don’t want them to feel they have to disclose past trauma, because I don’t want to control or dominate women, because I don’t need validation, because I care about not causing distress to others, because I’m (mostly!!) not going about thinking ME ME ME ME ME ME ME!

Yet Dr Upton says that he has empathy. I wonder how he demonstrates it, particularly to women.

Sorry for the rant, but FFS!!

I didn’t know they couldn’t - that’s awful!