NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #25

[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
Thread 24: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5301295-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-24

I think I understand what you are saying about taking offence and I take on board the fact that you are simplifying, but if I parse your double negative, that still leaves the fact that the GC employee is being asked to do something they find offensive - change their natural language and pay lip service to a belief system that they do not hold and which they believe harms children, women and homosexuals. I think the employer or the courts should not dismiss that offence.

Also, the reason why it's ok for person B to say that the Earth is a globe, but not that person A is obese is that the former is a statement of fact and the latter is a personal remark and it is rude (in Western society, at least). The adherents of GII have decided that a remark of the first type - Susie is a man - is a remark of the second type, whether Susie is present or not. It's not.

Just because what you do offends someone it doesn't follow that you have done anything wrong. Susie might just be angry because he can't coerce your speech, or because you have destroyed his fiction. Where is the accommodation from Susie or the employer? How is Susie contributing to a harmonious work environment?

That's what I would say to a tribunal.

Note that to get a GRC one only has to claim an intention of physically transitioning, in the manner of St Augustine's prayer.

You don't even need to claim an intention to physically transition. Hormones or surgery are not required. Changing your name to one of the opposite sex is sufficient to fulfill the living in your acquired gender condition

That podcast was a real eye-opener for me. Before I listened it, I had thought of Dr Upton's beliefs as being extreme and unusual (to the point where some of the things Dr Upton said in court seemed barely sane) but in context they made more sense. The NHS is - well, it's remarkable.

And even if we do have all the time in the world, how else would you expect a reasonable person discussing allocations to express "Freda can counsel those rape crisis clients but not these ones because he's male"?

It must be reasonable to express relevant facts in clear everyday language without being considered guilty of offensiveness or microaggressions or a dogwhistle. Though not in the NHS, if that podcast is to be believed,

Note that to get a GRC one only has to claim an intention of physically transitioning, in the manner of St Augustine's prayer.

This IMO needs to be tightened up. I believe it was much tighter and had to be under proper medical supervision. However, with the GMC captured, not all medical practitioners can be now be trusted.

Just popping up from my lurking to say I’ve been following your discussion with interest. Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful discussion and particularly to @prh47bridge for the careful and detailed analysis. It’s an interesting chat you’ve all been having.

I understand PPs frustration at having their GC beliefs treated like a religion rather than objective fact (which it is) but I think prh’s points are well made about the fact the court (if asked) would try and balance competing beliefs rather than taking one side or another if it came down to an issue like pronouns. Anyway I don’t have time to get properly absorbed into the conversation but I will continue to read along with interest!

That podcast was a real eye-opener for me.

It was for me too. You couldn't say woman and uterus in the same sentence. How did normal Health care staff go about their jobs with this nonsense? Well as they said, they were walking on eggshells.

So who exactly created the hostile environment?

That's why I said it was a gross oversimplification! It is very much fact dependent. It shouldn't be an issue in SP's case, however, as it appears she used Upton's preferred pronouns and name except when trying to explain to him why she didn't want him in the female changing rooms and possibly also when talking to HR.

Plus as the Drs Webberley demonstrate some doctors will do anything for money.

As I say, up to now it has been GI individuals creating a hostile environment for those with GC beliefs. Both cases you cite are examples of that. But that still doesn't mean we should respond by creating a hostile environment for trans individuals or those with GI beliefs. It should not be hostile for anyone.

But that still doesn't mean we should respond by creating a hostile environment for trans individuals or those with GI beliefs.

Who has argued that we should? We have though, pointed out the difficulties with some people with GI beliefs who will regard anything anyone says as hostile and transphobic.

Agree. Also, the situations cited by pp will not happen again (hopefully) so the ruling has diminished the opportunities for conflict.

We need to know everyone's sex, for safeguarding and sex-based rights, but acquired gender believers are entitled not to be egregiously mocked or have their noses rubbed in it.

@prh47bridge btw I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you and I'm very grateful for your clear explanations of the law. Often seems as if the law - well discrimination law at least - says the exact opposite of what I think it should say until someone explains all the ins and outs. My first exposure to this was Karon Mongahan and Naomi Cunningham (I think) talking to the Scottish committee about GRR and prisons. At first I couldn't understand why they said having a GRC shouldn't make any difference in prison. I get it now!

I can say I find my bank refusing to honor my self-identity as a millionaire as creating a hostile environment for my life. But clearly that's ridiculous.

Similarly, someone using normal English third person pronouns can never be 'hostile' in itself. There would need to be additional behaviour or slurs used, in which case the pronoun usage is irrelevant.

It is not creating a hostile environment using normal English. I actually think that suggesting to young people - especially those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g. those in care) - that they can expect to compel the language of others throughout their lives and that not complying is hostile and hateful is in reality itself quite hostile because it's setting them up to fail in normal everyday life. It's creating mental health problems.

Old school transsexuals knew (and still know) the sex they are. They don't expect other people to pretend they're literally the opposite sex, just be treated as the transsexuals they are with normal human levels of dignity and respect.

I do understand that the children of celebrities may really be able to punch down on their cleaners, cooks, HCPs etc and force them to say whatever they want. So it has always been, but let's see that for what it is.

As I've pointed out - there are significant impacts on other people of wrong-sex pronoun usage. As in the case of Dr U being referred to as female to patients who have not yet seen him who may need single sex care and may not be aware that it is even possible that when previous HCPs have used 'she/her' they will then be faced with an adult human male HCP.

What if a patient's blind? Then even at the point of Dr U stepping into the room that woman may not immediately realise he's male (until he speaks).

In the case of Miller - abducted and raped a young girl- the judge in the case indicated that she got into his car in part because he 'presented as a woman'.

I wonder if that child had been indoctrinated in school into treating even obviously male people as women if they wanted her to? Perhaps that's why she got in the car - fear of being called a bigot by treating Miller as a man or simply believed (if indocrinated hard enough) that Miller was in fact a literal woman and so statistically of less risk than a man- perhaps she'd overheard Miller being referred to in the community as 'she / her'. We'll probably never know, but given it was Scotland it's not unreasonable to ask the question. That child was raped and kidnapped and was I think lucky to get away. THAT'S a hostile environment for children, not someone using normal English.

Old school transsexuals knew (and still know) the sex they are. They don't expect other people to pretend they're literally the opposite sex, just be treated as the transsexuals they are with normal human levels of dignity and respect.

Whereas transgenderism is consciously abusing equality and human rights legislation as a form of coercive control. The purported 'offence' at being 'misgendered' is an invention to game the system and come out on top.

It's similar to how Rebecca Reilly-Cooper explains how Gender Identity has no internal logic, but it has exactly the characteristics it needs to thrive in an 'identity rights' framework - it's an evolutionary adaptation.

I've known someone raped by a taxi driver. If I ask for a woman taxi driver and the dispatcher says she/he'll ensure my taxi driver is female, perhaps the dispatcher doesn't know that's a bio male because the employer policy is 'preferred pronouns' and the dispatcher has never met him. It then puts me in the position of having to refuse the male taxi driver who I didn't want in the first place (for my friend who was raped by a male taxi driver, she'd probably have a panic attack in that situation). And transwomen routinely make death and rape threats against women as seen at the weekend so I'm not really cool with having to say 'no' at that point perhaps late at night on my own.

Sex-based pronouns are a) expected by most other people and b) affect decisions of other people. The only way using preferred wrong sex pronouns is ever reasonable if you're only interacting in complete isolation from everyone else. Which is not true in most contexts.

It is not creating a hostile environment using normal English. I actually think that suggesting to young people - especially those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g. those in care) - that they can expect to compel the language of others throughout their lives and that not complying is hostile and hateful is in reality itself quite hostile because it's setting them up to fail in normal everyday life. It's creating mental health problems.

But sometimes they can keep doing it, even in everyday life. The podcast upthread talked about how DEI policing (specifically pronouns but it could have been anything) gave some junior NHS staff real power over more senior staff. The staff member who could interrupt her bosses presentation mid-flow with impunity because he'd "misgendered" her - and it was the boss who apologised.

Without even realising what they're doing some people can use DEI to flip authority structures on their heads. And that's a wonderful experience! It's a nice moment of revenge but after that they can become like little Hitlers or petty Stasi spies enjoying their power over other authorities.

Like Parsons in "1984", the good Party member who was turned in by his own children. He didn't even know what he'd done.

I'm slightly happier using the ridiculous 'fae/ faer' etc made up pronouns as at least I'm then not being purposefully deceived about the sex of who I'm interacting with.

Although I'm likely to still try and avoid that person because I am an equal human being and my purpose in life is not narcissistic supply.

The purported 'offence' at being 'misgendered' is an invention to game the system and come out on top.

And to be clear, I'm not claiming that they're faking their real-world reactions - they often are very upset. But they're not offended - the reaction is far more extreme, in fact. That's because it's narcissistic injury. Very much in play with Dr Upton.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_injury

Can we legislate to not cause narcissistic injury?

Yeah, I know, you're not wrong - who would have thought it would come to this? Our institutions such as NHS aping Orwell's 1984!.

I wonder if there are a load of Winstons in the NHS hurridly trying to rewrite history/ their policies right now!

NHS training day: repeat after me 'We were always at war with Eurasia, Transwomen are women. HER PENIS YOU BIGOT'*

*Credit to Ricky Gervais for the last one.

And maybe changing the gas bill

Sorry should have said upthread I'm happier using made up pronouns because I'm then not being forced to purposefully deceive other people about someone's sex.

I also, obviously, don't like myself being purposefully deceived about someone's sex. Which wrong-sex pronouns does.

We're all arguing about what ought to be versus what is.

We have an actual law that compels us to respect (recognise/treat as protected characteristic) acquired gender, and to let people conceal their sex to the detriment of safeguarding and sex-based rights.

Pronoun revolts would be mere skirmishes, which we might very well lose under this law.

What's the solution?

Repeal the GRA. Not consistent with safeguarding law.

Sex matters for safeguarding.