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

Agree @Peregrina I don’t think we should ever underestimate how immensely brave Sandie has been and how much of a toll this will have taken on her.
Some of the other staff involved also have my sympathy as they were following the policies of their massive, hugely influential employer with the backing and seemingly bottomless pit of public money of the Scottish Gov behind them.

The ton means polite/fashionable society.

I think it’s hard to imagine just how oppressive life has been in Scotland lately with this nonsense pervading every aspect of life, pushed by ScotGov. It’s disgusting and I’m appalled that hard earned taxes are being wasted on this when there are some pretty glaring social and economic issues which are being ignored. It really is fiddling while Rome burns and Sturgeon and Co, and every snivelling, cowardly minion who lapped up this shite and took public money for peddling it should be ashamed of themselves.

I wish!

"The ton" is bridgerton-speak for "society"; "the town" I think

The Equality Network (parent charity of Scottish Trans) has received about £7m from scotgov over the last 12 years.

They are members of the ScotGov Human Rights funding group and are set to receive another £0.5m per year until 2026 as part of the current arrangments.

Not sure if that will be another £0.5m or £1m but IMO they should receive not a penny more for unlawful advice and stirring up anxiety & division

There was a demand by one of the conservatives in Scottish Parliament the other day for public funding only to be given to organisations who are following the law. Seems a perfectly reasonable request!

They borrowed it from Georgette Heyer.

From the French 'ton' meaning 'tone.

'the ton' was originally 'le bon ton', a French expression meaning good manners, good breeding, and then by extension the class that had such manners and breeding.

Yes. It is scandal of epic proportions.

Is this perhaps also something to try and highlight in press articles? Either the same ones as re the audit, to try and underline the link and make the public understand, or a separate one?

Also, isn’t there some kind of audit body that should be looking at this?

Thank you, I've never come across that term before.

A further thought:

I know a trans person who was introduced to me with a preferred name and pronouns. I now feel very uncomfortable wrongly sexing him, and I tend to stumble over my words as the cognition kicks in that I was about to correctly sex him, which he would find offensive, or incorrectly sex him which causes me cognitive dissonance. Does he notice my hesitation? Does he find that offensive?

I knew people with amputations and congenital abnormalities. One treated it all entirely matter-of-factly, another drew attention by trying unsuccessfully to hide it. Which one do you think made it easy for everyone else to treat her in a natural, comfortable way, and which one was constantly self conscious (and that made many people around her self conscious and awkward too)?

This should be something to tackle. When the money runs out, there’s less momentum for spurious legal challenges.

EN came very close to having their knuckles wrapped previously, after they’d changed their charitable objectives to cover ‘intersex’ advocacy (after attending a European conference & took up their arguments that conflated DSDs with trans rights) & then applied for funding from Scotgov. Their application was supported by Engender (it’s a very incestuous NGO clique - they reinforce each other’s grifts) & the finding T&Cs were clear on what they were supposed to do with the funding.

EN then gave evidence at the Cenus committee hearings on the Scottish census & then used their award on funding ‘intersex’ projects to make spurious arguments they had no business making. DSD Families responded by asking for a private session to put across their position, which didn’t align with what EN were claiming.

On closer inspection, the funding that EN had been given hadn’t been used for its intended purpose. They should have lost the funding & paid it back, but didn’t.

The terms of funding being dished out to all of these orgs who are continuing to misrepresent the law really should be stopped. It’s not hard to abide by the law, and if they can’t, they should not be getting tax payers money to maintain the misinformation & deliberate confusion that’s caused so much bother.

I know a trans person who was introduced to me with a preferred name and pronouns. I now feel very uncomfortable wrongly sexing him, and I tend to stumble over my words as the cognition kicks in that I was about to correctly sex him, which he would find offensive, or incorrectly sex him which causes me cognitive dissonance. Does he notice my hesitation? Does he find that offensive?

I avoid the transwomen I know as much as possible. Having a conversation with them or one with them involved is just so headache inducing.

I can see even others of the "be kind" persuasion struggling, too. Which adds to the awkwardness.

In a social situation I just go and find someone else to talk to or a book to read. Fortunately work situations no longer arise.

Is this all out in the public domain? Or evidenced ready for publication?
The Courier is particularly interested in scottish financial stories l believe

My extensive reading of of what used to be termed bodice rippers in my extreme youth and a quick consultation with ChatGTP informs me that it’s from the French “haut ton” or “bon ton”, meaning high or good society.

My old (convent, 1960s) school friend and I were discussing how we used to secretly read Angelique books (Sergeanne Golon) under the desk in French lessons. Does anyone else remember these, considered very racy at the time?

Edited to say Cher beat me to it. Damn you EDF and your intrusive sales calls.

Sandie got a mention in the Scottish devolution immigration debate today in the commons. I hope seeing how big the impact it is having strengthens her resolve.

From Tonia Antoniazzi

”I want to move on to something that is very close to my heart: the Supreme Court judgment, for which Scottish women had to bring a case to the Supreme Court. I just think we have not done anybody right, and that comes from the SNP Government and their agenda in Scotland. We have seen how NHS Fife is treating the nurse, Sandie Peggie. We know how they are treating women and girls. There is a brilliant book called “The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht”, by Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Susan Dalgety. It has 30 essays with 30 women’s voices on the situation in Scotland, from the frontline of the battle for women’s rights. It is a compelling read, Madam Deputy Speaker—I can get you a copy. So many women have had their reputations thrown under a bus and their jobs ruined, and their relationships with family and friends have gone.”

Hansard

The ton is Georgian high society.

One of the issues would be that Government was getting guidance from Stonewall, and from the very top seemed to push the TWAW.

Why is the Government giving money to charities?

Charities get public money to run services eg. mental health and addictions charities run support groups, Women’s charities run shelters and domestic violence services. Stonewall provide training and advice

Trouble was, it was predicated on accepting TWAW….

Quite!
And hopefully now the criteria will be following the (fully clarified) law

@borntobequiet - another reader of the Angelique books as a teenager here! And Georgette Heyer.