NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #22

[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
Thread 20: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5275782-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-20
Thread 21: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5276925-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-21

Jazzy I am sorry. It is difficult. One of mine was a Be Kinder until Isla Bryson. They have to work it out for themselves, no point listening to boring old mummy, what does SHE know, etc (then light bulb moment)

*stalked

I'm loving seeing all the cards and gifts for Sandie. Loving even more that the post room at the hospital will be having to forward them. It's not only a great way of showing support for Sandie it's also a great way of showing the staff and management at the hospital what the public think. I'm sure a lot of hospital staff will have been very pleased too.

It was a rather tense weekend at one poing as my younger male offspring (22yo doing liberal arts degree in Manc) and I had a rather long discussion of why it's important that Trans women are able to access female changing rooms.

And what reasons did he give? The usual arguments are that they are not safe in male changing rooms, but what evidence is there for this statement and why should women be the ones to sacrifice their changing rooms if it's a male problem?

Or then we get a load of bollocks about why xx or xy chromosomes don't matter - well of course they don't when they are babbling on about gender, which for many of us, is not synonymous with sex, and doesn't actually mean anything to us. Unless we are learning languages and grammar and in some languages words are male or female, or neuter. That usage seems to have been almost lost now, but it's still the only usage which makes sense.

Oh @JazzyContemporaneousNotes I feel your pain.

I have had pretty much the same conversation with my 22 year old DS this weekend.

And it is so incredibly disappointing observing his complete absence of critical thinking skills.

I can't get my head around why he thinks his empathetic left wing feminist mother has suddenly become a right wing conspiracy theorist. Particularly as the best argument he has is "but...Hunter Schafer...but...you're so mean".

One fascinating thing I noticed was that he thought I was being deliberately mean referring to Hunter Schafer/Juno Dawson as "he"....or as "a man". He said "it must take you so much effort to refer to them as men". I pointed out to him that the only reason I have heard of either of these gents is precisely because they are men....so it takes absolutely no effort whatsoever.

note also £100k each from the Scottish & Welsh Governments.

Stonewall's full accounts for each year back to 2019 are available via the Charity Commission website.
https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/3992465/accounts-and-annual-returns

This sounds really difficult, JazzyContemporaneousNotes , I'm sorry you're going through this with your DS.
It looks like he too has misunderstood what intersectionality is🙄

It's often said that you can't reason people out of irrationality, which is fine, you can just walk away from them and their opinions, but not when it's your own DS who you thought was more analytical.

But I'm thinking back to when I was young and I think I took extreme positions just because they were the opposite of my parents', I didn't even believe them all that much, but I was damned if I was going to agree with them!

Maybe he goes away and has quiet thinks on his own; and there's more and more support for your 'side' these days, so it's not just Mum who has those sorts of beliefs.

It must be hard, so

Should the NHS be funding organisations?

I'll admit I know not much about the world and my worlds a bit small but to me, a layperson, in the middle of a public health crisis it seems daft at all that the NHS would be funding any organisation except their own, or for medical research purposes.

Why on earth is the Welsh Arts Council giving them over £89,000? I'm sure there are plenty of good arts projects in Wales just crying out for a few thousand to save them from going under at a difficult time.

I haven't (and probably won't) read about this intersectionality theory, but can't they see the difference between that and two oppressed groups actually having conflicting needs? (And one being clearly more important than the other.)

I don't think I agree that it's conflicting needs: it's needs vs wants.

Surprisingly strong article in the Herald about NHS Fife’s failure to do an Equality Impact Assessment

archive.ph/2025.02.25-051332/www.heraldscotland.com/news/24960314.nhs-fife-may-broken-law-skipping-impact-assesment/

Nice to see the EHRC finally waking up and doing its job. And nice to see a public airing that NHS Fife failed to do an Equality Impact Assessment. Though I suppose Fife NHS could just have done what the Scottish Prison Service did in its assessment of putting transwomen into women's prisons and tick the "no effects on women" box.

I was just thinking the same. So they do an assessment, but it’s rubbish.

Though I suppose Fife NHS could just have done what the Scottish Prison Service did in its assessment of putting transwomen into women's prisons and tick the "no effects on women" box.

I'd love to see NC drill down to their methodology and pick that one apart in a tribunal!

Given that it was probably Isla Bumba doing the EIA, you may yet get your wish, @Conxis !

is IB due to be a witness? I wasn't sure about that? I'd love to see that.

IB is due to be a witness, and she didn't do an EQIA, that's the whole point of the article.

I believe so: that will be during the July session. Things may change if NC succeeds in getting Kate Searle added as Respondent 3, but I can't imagine why IB would be dropped from the list, as the whole case hinges on NHS Fife's interpretation of the EA2010.

Thanks Weary - shocking stuff.
Not sure, but from where I sit south of the border, it feels as if Scotland might be further along the curve with the surfacing of problems caused by trans-identifying men, with this disproportionate number of cases in a small area.

It’s no coincidence that despite the veto from Westminster, much of Scotland appears to have carried on as if gender self-id actually became law. So this rate of incidences might be an indicator of what the rest of us can expect if self-id does ever make it on to the Statute books. Grim.

💯agree.

I was tempted to infiltrate the latest trans "protest" in my city with a banner and shouty slogan:
"Whadda we want?
We want women's stuff!
When do we want it?
NOW!"

I suspect it wouldn't have gone down too well though.

I don't know ... perhaps everyone else would have been like, 'Oh, we're just saying that out loud now are we?' and got behind you!

another scandal is TW nurses working in social care - vulnerable eldery disabled women, vulnerable disabled people, vulnerable young children etc. Why is no one shouting about that?

That is exactly why Dr Upton and is arrogance is a pure golden opportunity to blow this who thing apart.

If it's agreed that Dr's can't act as female if they are male then neither can nurses or carers.
I pray Sandie stays strong and has decent support behind her.

Oh, we are. Henrietta Freeman is I believe paralysed from the neck down and can't speak, but has been extremely vocal,and has masses of support, on X about this.