NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #24

[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
Thread 23: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5285690-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-23

@mimsiest that is not what @prh47bridge is saying.

@prh47bridge has spent a lot of time answering questions on this thread and others. He is a respected poster on the legal forums and you are twisting what is said in bad faith.

Agree. His commentary and opinion are valued here on FWR as well as in Legal on Education (in face he and another lawyer poster helped me with advice re education a decade or so ago)

Ah, I see.

I decline to engage with bad faith interpretations. See Bunbury threads.

At the detail level this is right - there has to be one rule for all. Which is the point of the SC ruling. In male dominated industries this is very important as it stops the old - well no one ever wanted to do it before so it’s ok not to allow it. But in practice it will take a Non Binary person, Trans Man or Man or any other of the 100 genders to challenge the WI in the courts. Unlikely to happen so we are unlikely to know.

I'm not engaging in bad faith. I was previosuly unfamiliar with phr47, but if he's a legal expert I'm delighted to hear it.

I image he'd then be able to explain which part of the Equality Act the WI would be relying on if they refused membership to a man when a comparable women was allowed membership.

I point out that section 101 says that an association must not discriminate when deciding who to admit to membership, and that Schedule 16 - which lists the permissible exceptions - only mentions associations whose membership is restricted to people who share a protected characteristic, which the WI does not do.

There is no general permission to "discriminate just a little bit" which is what phr47 seemed to me to be implying. If he meant something else, I look forward to the clarification.

No, they do not. If they are indirectly discriminating against men, they can rely on this being a proportional means to achieving a legitimate aim.

But in this case haven't they directly discriminated against that man if they say that the reason he can't join is because he's a man

I’m also struggling with this. If you allow trans women in, then what’s the legitimate aim for excluding males? And if you allow women how can you exclude trans men? Urgh what a mess

Only a handful of women want to work on oil rigs -> excluding them is not a problem

That is direct discrimination. Excluding them is not allowed.

Only a handful of men want to join the WI -> excluding them is not a problem

If WI was excluding all men, it would not be a problem because there is a specific exemption for associations that covers this. As they are only excluding some men, this may be indirect discrimination, although this is not guaranteed. Unlike direct discrimination, this can be justified if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim (objective justification). In deciding how high to set the bar on whether you have objective justification, the courts look at the number of people affected. If you are excluding a lot of people, the bar for what is objectively justified is very high. If you are only excluding a few people, the bar is much lower.

That is not bonkers. It is the law as interpreted by the courts.

But they aren't. They are saying the reason he can't join is that he is not trans. It would only be direct discrimination if they excluded all biological men. They aren't. It therefore cannot be direct discrimination. It may, however, be indirect discrimination.

I'm willing to bow to the superior knowledge of someone who has legal experience. I'm willing to be wrong. I have to admit that @mimsiest's take makes far more sense to me. I didn't read that poster as being bad faith either. It seems to be a logical extrapolation of the tw in women's toilets. You can't just let in the good faith ones. Once you let one man in you have to let them all in. In both cases how can you identify 'good faith'. In the latter, especially after this judgement, tw are men. Refusing membership to some men while allowing others to join is sex discrimination in my book. The WI might be hoping to pass by unnoticed but their membership rules are, at least now, incoherent.

I appreciate ph47 taking the time to post. It'll be interesting to see how this is settled.

Didn't the Freemasons allow members who transitioned to remain members but wouldn't allow men who already claimed to be trans to join? I have no idea if they allowed tm to join up.

They allow women who are not trans in, so this is direct discrimination.

A man is not being allowed in, when a comparable women would be (both of them not being trans).

If the reason given was specifically that he was a man with no mention of not being trans would that make a difference. Let's say a man applies and receives a written response that says sorry we don't allow men to join as this is a women's organisation

Thank you for all your replies on this thread btw prh47

If the "must be trans" requirement is applied only to male applicants, and not to female applicants, this is straightforwardly discriminatory.

The law is, to some degree, context dependent.

Where single sex provision is mandated by law or a service provider is taking advantage of the single sex provisions of the Equality Act, it must be single biological sex. In other situations the rules are different.

In many cases, the law requires single sex provision for toilets. They must, therefore, be single biological sex. If the law does not require single sex toilets, it is open to a provider to operate some other rule (e.g. single gender) but, if challenged, they would have to show that what they are doing is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. How strong a case they would have to make would depend on the level of harm caused by their rule.

That one is easy for WI to deal with. The requirement is "must be a woman" where the term "woman" is interpreted as including trans women. That includes most biological women and some biological men. That may be indirect discrimination, but it is clearly not direct discrimination. It can therefore be justified if the courts accept that this is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

I don't think so. Just as with other instances of the words "man" and "woman" outside the equality act, there is no requirement for the term "man" in the letter to mean "biological man", nor do they necessarily have to make it clear that is what they mean. And, indeed, if they did mean biological man, they would be covered by the exemption for associations.

Isn't the point that they could now legitimately change tack and declare themselves to be for biological women, and chances are a court would support that?

I guess the thing is that many decisions are taken according to the zeitgeist and general direction of travel rather than the threat of law. This is why so many companies caved to trans demands in the first place. Legally they didn't have to but they chose to follow the way the wind was blowing.

Most sporting orgs asked for same sex exemptions in the Equality Act for example. These were granted but most eventually decided not to use them, a sign of the times.

Let's hope those times are well and truly over.

The male applicant is having additional requirements imposed over a comparator female applicant. This is direct discrimination however it's phrased.

Absolutely yes. I think they should.

I can say for a certainty that a TW was using the ladies loos in Dundee. Not Dr U (AFAIK) but at least one supporter.

Just thinking of basis for single sex exception for WI.

Surely it just a safe space for women to discuss anything female related, from managing periods in a wedding dress to HRT.

MN provides a forum for women to discuss the most random of things. The WI must be the same.

No, "must be a woman" is not an additional requirement for men. The same requirement is in place for biological women. The fact women find it easier to meet that requirement means it may be indirect discrimination, but it is not direct discrimination however much you want it to be.

Do you know if there were any gender neutral toilets at Dundee that they could have used?