NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #32

[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 resumed 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] by 5pm on Wednesday 9 July. Detailed instructions were provided here:

drive.google.com/file/d/16-9POEZ7yHWUr6EmbfquJZO18Gv78bSm/view

The hearing is being live tweeted by x.com/tribunaltweets and there's additional information here: tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-005. 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.ph/WSSjg.

An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

Links to previous threads #1 to #29 can be found in the header of thread #30.

Thread 30: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5375337-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-30
Thread 31: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5375819-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-31

This is something that keeps bothering me: my non-legal mind thinks that if it has been established by the highest court in the land that 'woman' means 'biological woman' in one piece of legislation, it logically follows that 'woman' means 'biological woman' in all legislation.
I have to work hard not to follow that with 'DUH!'
But more learned posters have explained that this is not the case, because... because the law is not always logical, I suppose.

What is needed is one Big Bang moment where the King, the Supreme Court Judges, the Prime Minister, Ant and Dec, Kirsty Wark,, all of Sex Matters, a representative of the Feminism: Sex and gender discussions board, a sprinkling of SM influencers, Sandie Peggie, all of the English women's football squad, Mr Menno, the leaders of the opposition parties, etc., appear on a very very big balcony and solemnly proclaim:

WHEREVER LAWS AND RULES AND REGULATIONS SAY 'WOMAN', THEY MEAN 'BIOLOGICAL WOMAN'. FULL STOP. NO 'BUT WHAT ABOUT INTERSEX..', CLEAR? HAS EVERYBODY GOT THAT? GOOD. THERE IS NO NEED FOR FURTHER CLARIFICATION, JUST DO IT. CAPISCE? NOW DON'T MAKE US DO THIS AGAIN AS IT HAS BEEN A BLOODY NIGHTMARE TO FIND A DATE WE WERE ALL FREE AND COULD GET CHILDCARE, WHERE NEEDED.

OH AND UM... GOD SAVE THE..er..umm...
<mercifully drowned out by cheering of crowds>

edited, just in time by skin of my teeth, to add a 'd' to the 'cheering of crows'!

Until I started following the Sandie Peggie last February I wasn’t aware of the Herald & Courier. I have been so impressed at the depth & quality of the journalism that I now subscribe to both even though I live in Essex.

@GenderlessVoid I am definitely guilty of tutting at the BBC's coverage of this case, I know how inaccurate their reporting can be, but still take an interest in some of the other articles they write (although I have definitely soured on them). But I don't think it's amnesia. I think it's not facing how completely helpless I am. If I can't trust the BBC and the Guardian, which media outlets can I trust? I know SM is notoriously inaccurate? At the end of this line of thinking, no sources of information are trustworthy.

The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect you kindly told us about enables us to think (even unconsciously) 'they're useless on that but they might have a point about this'. What other option do we have?

Thanks to PP for posts above about how the decline of the press in a new era of communication technology has led to an erosion of trust in public institutions - very interesting. You've definitely inspired me to make a donation to Tribunal Tweets.

Edit: typo

@borntobequiet I could make an excellent case for R4 playing in the background of schools at all times. Inevitably DC would find themselves picking up a wide and varied knowledge of things they’d never have intentionally learned about. There’d need to be a bit of pruning, but still.

Sliced bread alone covers science, maths, statistics and scientific method, before exploring actual products. And is excellent on assessing value for money.

In my dreams I'd be played by John Hannah like when he did Rebus.

In reality probably Ken Stott, like when he did Rebus.

No, the Supreme Court doesn't proactively issue clarifications and, if they did, they would have no legal effect. Any clarification would come in the form of a judgement when someone took a relevant case back to the Supreme Court.

The argument I think JR is going to try is that the SC judgement doesn't apply to the workplace regulations and therefore they should be read as allowing trans women to use the women's facilities. That is clearly not what was meant at the time the regulations were written, but I believe that is the argument being put forward by TRAs and the (thoroughly misnamed) Good Law Project.

Hmmm might the same phenomenon be at work for NHS Fife after feeding theirs with Stonewall and Scottish Trans guidance notes for too long?

Thinking about corruption or incompetence in the press is depressing so I'm just taking a moment to be gleeful about how far we've come and how well we're doing, as a movement, in regaining rights we once took for granted (yes, I know it's horrendous that we've had to do this but, still, at this point we have to take what we can get) and winning hearts and minds. The UK public is broadly supportive of this even if idiots who run health boards have still got their heads in the sand.

Will we need to train the crows or do we already know they’ve been paying attention?

Yeah, I've just been reading the February transcripts and Sandie is asked early on to describe the room in question. Lockers, two toilet cubicles, and used by (female) nurses, doctors and support workers.

Reddit Scotland users now accusing dreadful TERF nurse of Knowingly Entering A Changing Room whilst Upton was there in order to connive the situation to bring the tribunal

Is there anywhere with an actual time line of everything. I'd like to know when Upton added in the clinic complaints against her versus when she was suspended etc.

I've seen several posters looking forward to seeing Kate Searle's testimony, but I.can't see any mention of her name on the witness list..

Doh! Remember- first rule of witch hunting - don’t be seen to associate with the witch!

Reddit Scotland is overtired and needs it's nap.

Well SexMatters has already become an Éminence grise among TRAs. (It's telling that Fife is so thoroughly invested in that narrative.)

The tribunal is still ongoing, we don't know the outcome yet, I don't think anyone is seriously considering film and TV rights yet. And even if they did, the subject is still sensitive enough that I don't think many production companies or streaming services/channels/cinemas would go there for quite a while yet.

However, I think Meryl Streep would make a kick-ass NC.

I loved Ken Stotts version.

As opposed to the waiting outside that she was accused of? Yet another example that there was no permitted course of action for Peggie.

My knowledge of Scots dialect is all down to reading Ian Rankin. TBH Most of my knowledge about Scotland is drawn from reading the Rebus novels. I have briefly visited Edinburgh, Glasgow & Ayr but that was 30+ years ago. I am now planning my visit to the Kingdom of Fife later this summer.

'And then Your Honour, he made a vicious attack on my fist with his nose...'🙄

I sincerely hope NC raises the fact that there was a nearby doctor's room - with a telly and Netflix - for the fragrant Dr Upton to use. And instead he chose to make an elongated journey to use the women's changing rooms. It is jaw dropping that anyone thinks this behaviour is normal and acceptable.

Well that makes no sense, Upton got pissed off when she left because he was in there.

Even the "well YOU change elsewhere, men who claim to be women have more right to a women's space than women have" schtick isn't cutting it for them any more, it seems. They're just outright saying that there's no alternative, women MUST undress in front of men who claim to be women, any alternative is hatred and bigotry.

I've been around the block a bit and I truly thought I'd heard every bit of bullshit used to moralise me out of my clothes to please a man, but this one takes every bloody biscuit in the tin.

I thought that she did return to her old job and that is why she responded to the investigation saying people had been told not to speak to her about the suspension and ongoing case.

I think they made arrangements for her to work day shifts and be supervised by a senior nurse, and suggested a move to a different department to keep her away from Upton until he roataed out in Aug 2024. Her suspension was reinstated for a while after she objected to some of those terms. But by August 24, at least, we know she was back in work. I think part/all of the victimisation claim is that Kate Searle shot the possibility of confidentiality to pieces with her 29 Jan 2024 emails, but Sandie was forbidden from speaking and the reason given was 'confidentiality' within the disciplinary process.

I am v interested to see that 2 new people on the witness list are female emergency nurse practitioners and am wondering if they may have been called by Sandie's team, if possibly either or both have decided to support Sandie's position? It seems odd for Fife to call new witnesses, and we have not heard the names before lining them up to be scapegoated for any reason?

Her argument carries no weight. The 1992 Workplace Regulations mandate single sex changing rooms. This deliberate discrimination is permitted by the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act 2010 where the Supreme Court has confirmed that sex is biological sex. The consequence is that for the purposes of the WR1992 sex means biological sex.