NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #23

[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
Thread 22: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5280174-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-22

I hope @GraduateFog (Tanya de Grunwald) is feeling vindicated.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4917862-look-at-this-brilliant-post-on-a-popular-professional-network

I strongly recommend her podcast: This Isn’t Working.

Bad form to quote myself but I know @GraduateFog has spoken with Levi Pay on her podcast. He posted this:

I heard a person screaming near our office today. When I went out to help, it was a young woman, around 17/18yo, who was extremely distressed about the service she was getting from a support agency based near to us.

Part of her complaint was that staff kept calling her ‘she’, after she asked them not to. Colleagues were getting very defensive about that point, which wasn’t helping.

It made me think about all the individuals and organisations who have been telling people that they have a right to be referred to using pronouns of their choosing. By telling these kids that a failure to affirm their subjective identity over their sex amounts to harassment or even an existential threat, the likes of stonewalluk have completely destabilised the mental wellbeing of a large group of people.

I try to be a forgiving man, but the constructed distress that I witnessed today is entirely unforgivable.

https://x.com/soppystern/status/1897735168833863890?

yaasss to the blue plaque idea!
love that!

I know that is supposed to be parody, but it is going to be something that will be needed - there will be robots and cyborgs and AI - and there will be (shudder) fembots and sexbots because let's face it who are the bros designing this stuff. Which is why I thought that maybe encountering DU's lecturing might be a good opportunity to get markers down for what is woman. Then when the bots arrive we will have our legal turf marked out and we can watch the lads struggling with all the identity shit and get our popcorn out?

I was going to post that post too @RethinkingLife because it chimes with my thoughts linked to this case & specifically DU with his strong belief he's not just not male, but claims he's 'biologically female' too. To the extent he'd still attend to a female patient who had been specific in requesting a female doctor.

There's a strong streak of 'inability to cope' with the collapse of wishful thinking when it clashes with real world & basic reality that involves other people with their free thoughts & opinions, and free will too.

When you're faced with someone as described by Levi Pay who is so distressed when this happens, the cruelty of this ideological dogma is laid bare. But it's equally cruel to expect women to acquiesce to the demands of people like DU & the person Levi Pay described, for the sake of alleviating their distress. That was never a realistic solution.

The abandonment of helping people build personal resilience & internal coping processes to manage themselves when faced reality, is a disgraceful failure that the gender ideology lobbyists have perpetuated.

It's shameful.

Talking of institutions, even something so official as a passport application titles the male/female question as ‘gender’, and guidance info says “….transgender (live as a different gender to that shown on your birth certificate)…” As far as I’m aware, birth certificates still ask for a baby’s sex. Fact matters. Accuracy matters. Language matters.

Today from the Sun and Reform - interesting that the Scottish Sun just seeming to pick this up so long after the Tribunal itself?

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/14453460/reform-uk-sandie-peggie-trans-row/

Tim

In case it's not been posted before, a must-read about NC:

https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,naomi-cunningham-im-fuelled-by-rage-and-ive-been-lucky

Informative and fascinating.

Not withstanding that Reform need a squirrel today to distract from having to suspend one of their MPs for bullying allegations, this is still a helpful piece. It will play well with the readership & keeps the issue in people's minds.

Ah thank you - the squirrel explains it! Couldn’t understand the timing otherwise

Thank you. Yes, really interesting, for all sorts of reasons. I like her mixture of humility and realism (she's good!) about her own abilities.

Really interesting article. NC is incredibly modest about her abilities and thinking that so many people are far, far cleverer than her but maybe that fuels her efforts.

She said about the time she wanted to retire and grow vegetables. Being a working gardener I would absolutely love to see her garden and see what's growing there.

It's a really fantastic article. Naomi comes across very well.

She kind of had to go with the humility and “it’s my network thats powerful thing” tho didn’t she? Because as a woman if she’d gone all “I’m fabulous” it would be a turn off. Even though she clearly is fabulous - too modest! I look forward to the day when gals can be gals - out and proud with their brilliance 😊😘 We are very lucky to have NC on the case xx

I think I see what you mean. But as well as the view that she has to talk herself down a bit because women mustn't boast, there's the angle that British culture doesn't tend to like boastful men either. Anyway, I think she comes across as both self aware and confident - and with good reason.

Absolutely agree!

I think it struck a good tone - although in my experience name recognition in one’s field (esp if a traditional male stronghold) comes at a cost for older women professionals. While we are in the fan club we do need to be aware that she’ll be taking a beating off those who are less “supportive”. I think I’ll have to send a thank you note because she’s taking a lot for the team when most other people have ducked behind the parapet

Sending a card is a good idea. I suppose we'd send it to her chambers?

I think we tend to laud “brilliance” unreasonably over sound knowledge, competence, application and common sense, not to mention self-awareness.

Yes this is a great idea I think Sandie was really touched by all the cards she received

Do we send them to MG and NC (different addresses)? And express thanks to each and the team?

That would be a great way to acknowledge this is a team effort @RethinkingLife

I completely agree, and think that people possessing the latter skills are generally the ones who just get things done.

Your division of skill sets reminds me a bit of some research that was done on leaders and leadership. Can’t remember who did it but they gave a few talks a while back with the general title “Why do we keep hiring/voting for such shitty leaders?” (Spoiler - we over value boasting and shouting about how amazing one is, and under value actual leadership skills like building community, boosting other’s self esteem, spotting where things might be about to go wrong, etc. No points for guessing what the general sex divide was across those skill sets.)

Yes! I love this idea.

“Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration” -- Edison