NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #20

[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 last 2 weeks. However, after 2 weeks it was not complete and it adjourned part-heard. It is planned that it will resume on 16 July and the last day of evidence will be 28 July and then there will be 2 days of submissions from counsel meaning that the hearing will end on 30 July.

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
Thread 19: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5274571-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-19

Re: HR going ahead of the law or being better than standard practice…

Why has it never, seemingly, been an aspiration to do that for workers with disabilities, parents and others who desperately need more flexible working arrangements? Older workers or anyone in the sandwich generation?

@Merrymouse sex is important HMRC as some female employees are entitled to pay the married woman’s reduced rate - this is now fading out.

It is important for Gender Pay Gap analysis and I think ONS use the data for some of its analysis.

Apparently because Stonewall decided to add T not D(isabled), P(arents) or O(lder people).

Again, grrrrr.

Do things like pensions eligibility change with a GRC?!

Yes.

Because that requires work and actually changing things whereas trans requires wearing a rainbow lanyard and worrying about pronouns. Of course it also involves trampling over the rights of women but that is apparently irrelevant.

Every time some bangs on about wearing the rainbow lanyard at work I always ask where is our la heard to show solidarity with the people who can't access our buildings as so many have no disabled access

Lanyard not la heard!

Back in 2004, a GRC made a difference to state pension age, so historically there has been a reason for the way that HMRC records sex/gender.

(Another one of those things that mysteriously benefited men rather than women) -

More than happy to write to HMRC with my objections as to why sex is important.

Surely if sex is important for the "gender gap" and inequality it must only gather data on biological sex.

I'm incandescent today at HR advisors not following the actual fucking law.

You may not get them to change using gender but as per best practice they need to define what they mean and include a “I do not have a gender” option.

There were some fascinating posts in a thread about pensions last year. The unequal pensions age wasn't brought in for women's benefit but to recognise the usual age disparity in marriage and to recognise the legal impact that this had on men's ability to draw their full pensions or some such (post WWII) unless women could retire earlier.

Does anyone recall the thread?

I know you will disagree but the law as it stands gives those with a GRC the right to change their birth certificate and to have a legal sex.

For example a person recorded male at birth who has a GRC stating female became entitled to state pension at 60 ( now it’s equalised at 66)

Even if the Supreme Court rule in the EA2010 sex means natal sex the GRA still gives people with a GRC a legal sex which is different to their natal sex. There are times where legal sex is appropriate.

You would need reform/repeal of GRA to change this and that would need to consider the c9500 people with a GRC. You cannot turn the clock back.

This is why I believe we need to have both sex and gender defined in law including the right to not have a gender. I know people disagree and I respect their position but I am a pragmatist.

The change was because of the sex discrimination Act and an ET where a 60 year old woman won the right to work to 65 like her male colleagues.

There was no way the country could afford to reduce men’s state pension age to 60 so women’s state pension age was raised to equal men’s.

The Sex Discrimination Act like the EA2010 protects men just as much as it protects women from unequal treatment.

Itbis correct that due to WWII women were typically younger than their husbands

I’m in the middle of an argument discussion (not on here) and need some concrete info to back up something I know I’ve read:

Does any lovely viper have to hand statistics on the amount of violence recorded against trans women as compared to against women?

I was referring to the reason for the different ages (1940s) because, before then, the rudimentary pensions were the same age, crudely speaking.

pensionsarchive.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/The-History-of-Pensions-in-the-UK-Website-PDF.pdf

The story that I heard is that when they reduced male pension age to 65 they reduced female pension age to 60 so that given husband was usually older he would not be sitting at home fending for himself while his wife was out at work but instead she could be at home waiting on him hand & foot.☹️

As this thread draws to a close, I have accepted that I will be forever on catch-up. I'm currently on page 9, immersed in the utter madness of NHS Fife "inviting" Sandie to an internal disciplinary hearing this Friday for misgendering and other "crimes" against gender identity belief. I already know this isn't going ahead but I find the comments and different perspectives so valuable that I want to keep reading through them.

This feels like such a key moment in national awakening about the harms related to gender identity belief, centred around the NHS.

@Boiledbeetle your reply to me at the start of this thread suggests you're already on it with Volume 3 😉 Can I put in a request that it's an NHS special? This case has brought so many lurkers and new joiners into the conversation, many of whom work for the NHS or in other health-related roles.

Besides what's coming to the fore in this case about single-sex spaces, I know from my own conversations IRL that there is an increasing number of professionals (in health and education) who are concerned that children and vulnerable young people are being irreversibly harmed by the unquestioning adherence to gender identity belief. Dr Upton has shown us what that looks like, how it risks overshadowing good medical practice when it is centred in patient care, how it puts NHS staff in positions where they are part of that harm and part of enforcing this belief (e.g. part of the systematic failing to safeguard vulnerable people in situations that should/could assume same-sex care by default). Poor Pete the Misgendered Plumber isn't real but there are many, many real people who are at risk of bad medical practice when sex isn't recognised as real and a belief in gendered souls is prioritised instead.

Dr Upton and other believers can carry on believing in gendered souls. But supporting this as if it were real and important in both healthcare and NHS employee welfare? No. This needs to stop.

I will submit my poem about the impact enforced belief in health care in due course. I'm sufficiently angry now to write it. In the meantime, thank you to all of the doctors, nurses and other health professionals who are already on this thread today and to those who stumble upon it over the next few weeks. If you're reading this and are thinking about how you can make a difference, you are already part of effecting change.

As food for thought on gender identity belief, I'm going to leave this video here:

I used to believe I had a gender identity. I no longer do. This video helped me get my head around it all after many months of trying to figure out what it all meant - there are lots of examples of me trying to understand it on MN threads, with an open mind. I still don't challenge the belief directly. People believe all sorts of things that I don't, like the idea that a virgin can give birth to a human child who was conceived without sperm. However, I absolutely challenge with every fibre in my body (driven by a motivation to protect my autistic, adolesent daughter from harm - and others like her) this belief being accommodated in law, education, healthcare and more as if it's fact. This has to end.

Edited for typo

😯

There are times where legal sex is appropriate.

I can't actually think of any (in this country) where it would be essential.

Having a female sex marker in your passport when one of a male couple travelling to countries that ban homosexuality, maybe? But Dr Upton has identified into that one rather than out of it.

Yes, the cut off point was 1977 so if a woman married young and opted out she would only be in her 60s now. Haven't done the maths, but I think most of that cohort would now have reached state retirement age, so would no longer be making NI contributions, but that would be very recent.

However, I can't think of any sex related difference that isn't becoming gradually obsolete.

@TwoLoonsAndASprout

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-how-many-trans-people-murdered-uk

Out of date now but trans people are safer than other demographics.

Women's stats:
https://www.npcc.police.uk/our-work/violence-against-women-and-girls/#:~:text=A%20woman%20is%20killed%20by,of%20which%2070%2C330%20were%20rape%20.

Its why Brianna Ghey's murder was so notable, because it's so rare

I don't think it's possible to define gender - nobody has been able to do it so far - and I don't see how it would be helpful. Basically, I don't understand your argument for recognising gender.

If we repealed the GRA, stopped issuing new GRCs and made it clear in the repealing legislation that the existing ones are only valid for the purposes in the GRA (eg new birth certificate, marrying as the opposite sex), what would be wrong with that?

Thank you!! And see, that is my thinking. It’s a nasty side-effect of how ubiquitous VAW is, because unless it’s something horrific, like the Pellicot case, or someone famous, it doesn’t get reported. So it’s easy to forget it is happening all the time.

But violence against trans-identified people is rare, so it does get reported, which pushes it up in people’s minds and makes them think it is the one that is ubiquitous.

I also realise that recent statistics will probably be utterly muddied by incorrect collection of sex information.

Maternity and SMP is one that will remain.

I have kept this article bookmarked as it refutes many such arguments:

thecritic.co.uk/neither-marginalised-abused-nor-vulnerable/