NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #33

[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 and tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-bd6. 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
Thread 32: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5376072-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-32

It seems like not only are Big Sond, NC and JR not getting the weekend off but our very own nauticant is accruing annual leave faster than you can say it is lawful to exclude trans identifying men from single sex provisions where it is proportionate means to a legitimate aim.

All the allies should say well of course it won't be outting because we will be using them too
besides everyone already knows love rather than in that case crack on with using the ladies.

I can probably paraphrase VV's statement -

'Beth is a brave, courageous woman, attacked by a demon in human form! She feared for her life!!!'

'The Hospital said she could use the cr!!!'

'The Supreme court are meanies - wah!!'

With a few 'human rights/most oppressed/brave and special/vulnerable' thrown in.

Yes, this. And I think some may experience a phase of "pre-peak euphoria" when they feel a need to tell everyone that they're a trans ally. Maybe the oxygen is getting a bit thin. I used to do this. Now I just keep quiet when I hear others do it.

Is Vic Valentine a male non-binary or a female non-binary?

female

A stunning there must be at least one stunning.

Possibly tears because Sandie didn't want a pillow fight in her underwear (well in the ladies 'coz that where pillows being 🙄 but wearing just her underwear).

The gender neutral facilities are often the accessible ones rebranded. And yes I have pointed out that accessible toilets are a legal requirement so they shouldn't be used by other people. So yes a single unit with a sink

And yes they do believe no one knows they are trans. But more than that they genuinely (even though some are medics) believe they are women so will only use the women's toilets.

The female to male trans just go quietly about their day and no one even mentions them. Because pretending to be male doesn't give them the male privilege

If you go on TransgenderUK reddit, which honestly I wouldn't recommend, you will find stories of how well they passed in interactions that day.

Which normally boil down to the checkout assistant not making any comment about them. In the way that checkout assistants don't generally make any comments.

This will be taken as confirmation that they look 100% female.

Are you sure? Have you had a look at their Chromosomes, it is apparently the only way to tell.

Re: the need for validation and controlling the narrative. This is regularly quoted on FWR:

Gay Liberation Front journal - Come Together - issue 11: Lesbians Come Together. It's from a piece by the GLF Transvestite, Transsexual and Drag Queen group, originally published in 1972:

A more central question is how to relate to other women. When we talk about our hopes and fantasies, it becomes apparent that what we want above all is to be accepted as women, primarily by other women. But will we achieve this by looking for ways in which we share experience with regular women or by developing a unique transvestite consciousness?

Sometimes the second approach seems real militant and proud, at other times it seems a cop-out, accepting the prejudiced view that we're not women, that we're some freaky third sex (or fourth or fifth?). Possibly we can find some light by considering the situation of black women and gay women, who develop black pride and gay pride, but still explore their feelings as women. Think how much more inspiring and beautiful the women's revolution will be when it joyously includes all women. Think of a Holloway demo with transvestite, transsexual and drag-queen women, gay women and heterosexual women, black, yellow, brown and white women, working women, housewives and career women. Certainly, whatever course we take as transvestites, transsexuals and drag queens, we must first destroy the trap wherein regular women set up standards by which they accept or reject us .

https://archive.org/details/cometogetheryear00walt/page/8/mode/2up

Because this is such a long thread it would otherwise be unclear which post I was referring to.

That is a fantastic article about NC (all of it, not just the penultimate paragraph).

I've never had a checkout assistant comment on my sex. I'm unclear if this confirms I am a woman or means they all think I'm a man.

I had a check out assistant once ask me if my child was my grandchild - does that mean I'm trans age?

Good point

I understand check out assistants sometimes ask your age - is that to do with trans age?

When we were listening/MNing/reading TT back in the Spring, it became increasingly clear to most of us that it was really odd that our dedicated note-taker really couldn’t specify when one of the serious incidents had taken place. NC established that there was a witness who didn’t support the other patient safety allegation.

You would have thought that, in the run up to the ET and/or between week 1 of the Tribunal and the investigation somebody with a few braincells would have gone through old rotas and quizzed him further. They have had 18 months to twig that there was something amiss. Surely JR and NHS Legal would have noticed how evasive their client was being? People must try to fib all the time in Employment Tribunals.

Short of half the courtroom wearing “Liar liar, pants on fire” T shirts, I don’t think NC could have expressed much more scepticism.

My jaw just hit the floor. What did they say when you said no that is my very own child?

The only time I can imagine it happening is if they call you sir or madam. Which checkout assistants don't tend to do anyway, in my experience. Though I mainly go to the self checkout now because I'm antisocial.

I do recommend TransgenderUK Reddit. It’s important to see both sides of an issue, and there are a lot of lonely, isolated, confused and damaged individuals who write about their personal struggles there and with whom any reasonable person would empathize. There are also a lot of ill-informed screechy ideologues with contempt for others and the law, who function as good reminders why this issue deserves the support it gets in this place.

And, there are the tells, the moments of unwitting truth that appear: my favourites among those are the questions from tourists asking if it’s safe for trans identifying people to visit the UK. “Oh, yes, it’s fine here, you won’t get any trouble from people as long as you stay away from the dodgy areas” - which is the same advice you would give to any tourist.

I find it interesting that Upton appears to have retreated from his position on the alleged patient safety incidents being things that definitely happened, but he couldn't say when and anyone who disagrees with his recollection must be wrong. It seems that, by the time the disciplinary hearing happened, these had become things that he thought might happen. Perhaps he has woken up to the danger to himself from making false allegations.

@nauticant Thank you fir your excellent work with this. Please can I beg a favour?

When things actually start in the morning please can you do a big bold post to make it really obvious? There is so much, very interesting, discussion and if people want to skip that and get straight to the tribunal it can be tricky to find. Thank you!

Bloody work forbidding me from following live every morning....

I've found the map of A&E from February's MN posts. I had a go at blowing up the map (but couldn't really make sense of it).
https://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/media/vdsbmvxk/194-x-marks-the-abg-machine.pdf

The memes are meming on Twitter.

Im not sure if this will be a good quality image given we can only upload 6mb at a time but I've cropped it out.