NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #19

[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. However, after 2 weeks it was not complete and it adjourned part-heard. It seems that it will resume on 16 July and the last day of evidence will be 28 July but it wasn't completely clear whether it might end a day or two later.

The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton gave evidence from Thursday 6 February to Wednesday 12 February.

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

However, as a result of problems with the livestreaming, apparently caused by a very large number of observers, remote public access to the hearing was suspended on Tuesday 11 February. It was suggested that it might be reinstated at some point but don't count on it.

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
Thread 12: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272276-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-12
Thread 13: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272398-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-13
Thread 14: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272939-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-14
Thread 15: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273119-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-15
Thread 16: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273636-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-16
Thread 17: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273827-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-17
Thread 18: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5274332-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-18

In case people want further information, here's Sarah's Twitter account:

x.com/sartay2001

What is a man?

A man is masculine and wears trousers and conforms to masculine stereotypes.

What is a woman?

A woman is a non-man. The other. Therefore if you are not a man you are by default a woman as a woman has no identity and defining features apart from 'other than man'. Women are not autonomous. They are owned by men for the use of men. They do not have enough value in their own right to be anything of their own.

Therefore if Dr Upton does not feel masculine and he is not a robot, he therefore must be a woman.

That is the sum total of this logic.

And if you can't see how much this reeks of sexism then really, I can't actually help you to see it.

Is that what harassment can now be construed as? A woman stating effectively to a transvestite get the feck out of my changing room, I want privacy as I am entitled to?

"I have never been spoken to like that in my life."

Which life? Your life for 28 years when you dressed like a man, or your life for 2 years when you have dressed like a woman?

Tell me, would the Dr use the womens toilets in Glasgow where the response would have been that he would have been terfed out on his ear by both ladies and gentlemen?

Yes.

Mobile phone operating systems work the same way as computers, and files are stored using the same SSD technology that is increasingly used on computers to replace magnetic hard drives. When you delete a file, it is simply marked as deleted. It isn't erased. The contents are still there (at least for a while) and can be recovered with appropriate tools.

I wondered this.

DU is basically 'a man in a dress' at this moment in time.

No GRC (if thats applicable in Scotland) etc

I wondered if it was deliberately avoided to prevent a judgement that keeps pre GRC men out but lets GRC men in?

She probably will raise this in her submissions after the evidence

Handbook to NHS Constitution (this is for England, I haven't seen the Scotland equivalent)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supplements-to-the-nhs-constitution-for-england/the-handbook-to-the-nhs-constitution-for-england#patients-and-the-public-your-rights-and-the-nhs-pledges-to-you

Single-sex sleeping accommodation is a pledge rather than a patient right. No mention of same sex doctor for intimate examination.

"I have never been spoken to like that in my life."
Which life? Your life for 28 years when you dressed like a man, or your life for 2 years when you have dressed like a woman?

I suspect the latter and that this is the 'Beth' persona speaking.

Thank you. Yes that’s what I saw too. I will see if there’s a way to look at earlier versions and to see if it was always like that or if/when it changed.

Excellent post. I have always considered myself to be a lefty, liberal type but I'm furious with left/liberal politicians and their nonsense on gender ideology which is pushing people away. The gender idealogues are enabling this and I despise them for it.

Single-sex sleeping accommodation is a pledge rather than a patient right.

Which is odd because until recently when militant activists infiltrated the NHS, hospitals could be fined for putting you in mixed sex accommodation.

www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jan/20/hospitals-face-fines-mixed-sex-wards

This is shocking - and discriminatory. It discriminates on the grounds of disability and religion at least.

if Dr Upton really was a woman (which he isn’t) he’d know that being “spoken to like that” is an everyday experience for women

If the GMC won't even open an investigation about a doctor's statement he thinks patient consent is unnecessary, could there not be a legal case against them for discrimination / failure of care to patients?

This is brilliant, thanks for posting it!

Interesting article on the Grauniad today.

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/feb/15/cancel-culture-we-should-stop-it-end-of-story-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-on-backlash-writers-block-and-her-two-new-babies

Partly relevant because it discusses Adichie's experience of cancel culture for saying, "trans women are trans women." (Instead of the approved and expected TWAW). She makes a very salient point for this case,

"It’s about the way the world treats us, and I think if you’ve lived in the world as a man with the privileges that the world accords to men and then sort of change gender, it’s difficult for me to accept that then we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning as a woman and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are.”

But, less obviously immediately relevant but food for thought is her discussing a real life woman she has based a fictional character on, and how her court case against a powerful man for alleged rape fell apart when she was discovered not to be who they thought she was, (I don't know the detail)

"The message it was sending to women claiming they have been sexually abused is: you’d better be perfect. You’d better be utterly sinless. You’d better be an angel if you expect to get justice. It’s not just about that character. It’s also about all the women who, because of the circumstances of their lives, are powerless.”

The bringing in of Sandy's possible political views, her husband's FB posts, describing her as stern, the insinuation she put herself in the line of fire and could have avoided everything, that she was tricky for not accepting a change of workplace/shift pattern without complaint, that she was, gasp, ANGRY, when being unfairly suspended.....

Interesting about the consent question. I was asked just the other day by a female radiologist if I was happy for the examination to take place with only the two of us in the room. I've never been asked this before.

Well goodness me. Have they even looked at what their role actually is? (My italics).

Our role
The General Medical Council (GMC) is an independent organisation that helps to protect patients and improve medical education and practice across the UK.
⚫ We decide which doctors are qualified to work here and we oversee UK medical education and training. There are over 370,000 doctors on the UK medical register.
⚫ We check every doctor's identity, qualifications, knowledge, skills, experience, and English language competence before they can join the register. We also check with others, such as the doctor's medical school or previous employers, to find out if they have any concerns about the doctor's ability to practise safely, for example inappropriate behaviour, serious health problems, or performance.
⚫ We set the professional standards that doctors need to follow, and make sure that they continue to meet these standards throughout their careers.
⚫ We take action to prevent a doctor from putting the safety of patients, or the public's confidence in doctors, at risk.

I am wondering how they will enforce the 1992 H & S legislation to provide single sex changing facilities, when a man insists he is a woman, and with a GRC has a new birth certificate to say that he is.

Placemarking x

Whenever anyone squawks, "I have never been spoken to like that in my life.", I always think, "Nah..." 😀

Something is troubling me about ED so glibly repeating the claim of BU about SP comparing him to Isla Bryson.
BU's own testimony admits this was an assumption on his part.
At some point in Fife's process SP must have had to give some sort of statement about how the CR interaction proceeded? This must have been documented. Surely by the time it gets to tribunal ED must have had sight of this and know that there's a discrepancy there. How can she repeat DU's claim with such confidence?

The £250 fine for breaches was dropped due to Covid 19 pressures but I can't find anything to say it's been reinstated in the meantime.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...

We didn't even have a tele (or a phone).

I was very much a Listen with Mother on the radio child.

We did get a tele whilst Rainbow was still on, but I'd probably aged out of it's target age range by then. So I'd struggle to name the characters or what they were.

I feel like I missed out on an essential part of childhood!