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

I posted this v early on, but worth repeating here, I think @NebulousDog

This is not a clear official floorplan, but it is a very interesting 'scavenger hunt' map of the NHSFife Victoria A&E department, used as part of an induction session for a new rotation of doctors. The brilliant thing about it is that Upton co-wrote the poster and put it online by submitting it as a poster presentation at a 2023/2024 medical education online event.

Changing rooms aren't labeled but I am guessing they may be the rooms with double sets of doors at the entrance to each towards the bottom left of the image?

I found it by googling Upton's name early on in the Feb tribunal. I looked again yesterday and discovered that it has strangely been removed from sight on the NES main website but still shows up if searching google images.😁

PDF link (can zoom in to best view on this)
https://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/media/vdsbmvxk/194-x-marks-the-abg-machine.pdf

lower quality image for fun spoiler!

I don’t understand how Upton can fully retreat from what was said in the first part of the tribunal. But, I’m ignorant to the nuance of whether it was acceptable for Upton to refer to incidents without dates (non-specific) because what is in question here is whether it led to harassment (and the other claims) by Upton and NHS Fife.
I am biased towards supporting SP. I can’t see how NHS Fife followed due process or how there is a defence against SP’s claims.
However, so many times, it seems as if reality has very little to do with adjudicating outcomes. And thus JR successfully persuaded the 1st ET for Forstater that GC beliefs were non-WORIADS.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead she said that with the area we were in you could never tell. I think she means it wasn't the nicest area and people may became a granny at a younger age than average. I was so shocked I just left. Older me would have complained

We knew someone who ‘transitioned’ 20 years ago (a gay man who had been rejected by his family). He did not ‘pass’ in anyway. Every time he had an interaction with a man he believed that they were coming onto him because they thought he was a woman. He was part of a group who were supporting him and obviously telling him how convincing he was etc.
He moved away and detransitioned eventually.

But aren't people who have purchased tents, getting ads because they searched for them online? I doubt they'll know you've already bought one

Is this grounds for investigation into his own conduct? Making career ending allegations (could a person even go to prison for abandoning a patient in resus?) with no substance?

Yes, I must credit SupportPostcard for their superior sleuthing all those months ago. At the time I tried blowing it up, but struggled to read the text.

Sensibly, I suppose, you don't leave detailed hospital plans in the public domain.

@Lins77 As long as the loo doesn't say mens on it, I'll use it. It wouldn't even occur to me that one that is Universal was gender neutral.

Or either case yes I don't care if someone thought I was trans, which is an odd thing to think based on going in a single occupancy loo.

I suppose these managers and allies need to start using them to demonstrate (!) they are normal loos. "Wee together" ?

A broader issue, I agree with another poster, is when disabled loos are repurposed as gender neutral and the impact that has on disabled.

Excuse me, but do we know who the Elizabeth Upton is whose bright idea this was? Will Elizabeth be appearing as a witness? I think we should be told!

apologies, Elisabeth not Elizabeth.

or Beth?

He had to retreat or he would have been at risk of disciplinary action for not reporting the incidents when they occurred.

I bought a secondhand one on eBay, but I did some online research before that. I've been enjoying the pictures of tents much nicer than the one I actually bought. I'm hoping it won't rain so much in August.🙂🤞🏻

Are you thinking these rooms south of the Observation ward with the Wcs within them. I’m guessing those WCs are wet rooms / disabled access too. There’s at least six of those. So perhaps not those I’m guessing they are patient rooms. Otherwise it could be the room left of the screen which looks like perhaps lockers lined up.

@NebulousDogWhistleIsReality · Yesterday 21:41

"Why was my post removed? I stated a biological fact, trans women are men. Off to have a quick chat with MNHQ..." [from thread 32 - I'm trying to catch up...]

Slightly off-topic but I think it would be useful if the word "transwoman" was totally binned as it has the potential to create confusion. (See comments by ONS from the last census where it obviously caused confusion among people unfamiliar with the term)

Better and more accurate to use "trans-identifying man"

The "I will only use the ladies loo because anything else is outing" argument reminds me of the "I got up late but still managed matching bra and knickers" story from earlier. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of most women's priorities. By the time you're in perimenopause, or after you've given birth, an awful lot of us have pelvic floor/bladder issues that mean we don't care what it says on the door, we just need to get there before the dam breaks.

I sometimes go for cab rank if I just need a barrister for a costs hearing or something else procedural (even then Chambers tend to give you a choice of 3-4 to choose from).

If I'm getting an Advice with a view to using that barrister for Trial, I'll choose a favourite instead.

The whole choosing between his religion and his children ... I guess a number of KCs are in the same boat. Believe in genderwang or lose their children. Continuing believing in genderwang or accept they've made a horrible, horrible mistake. Must continue believing in genderwang because its become your job, your purpose and your identity as well.

I've had the opposite issue.

Single working mum, 10 years between my brother and I, so often left babysitting in my teen years while our mum worked.

Had to nip to the shops a few times, take buses, go to appointments, basically be a mini-adult and independent, all with my brother tagging along.

Have been asked by many people if he was my son. I was absolutely horrified that the default assumption was that I gave birth at 10 years old, and it caused a lot of bother when I objected to babysitting so sometimes I had to suck it up because there was no alternative but I felt really shameful, like at best people would have been envisioning a SA encounter, or at worst, been slut shaming a teenager with a 3, 4, 5 year old in tow out of necessity.

It carried over to when I was pregnant with my son, had already moved out, lived with a long term partner, that when I announced my teen pregnancy at the grand age of 24, I'd get a scolding and people would think bad things of me. At that moment in time I did feel as close to what you could assume feeling trans-age could possibly feel like.

I agree. There was a time when using "trans identifying male" or TIM would automatically have had a post removed, but it's an accurate and (should be) non pejorative description and I'd like "transwoman" and any other descriptor of these men that has "woman" or "female" in it to fall into disuse.

I remember there was a shift in Upton and the Wall of Sad when NC pointed out to him that his allegations against Sandie Peggie were very serious - for both sides.

Upton and the Wall of Sad

fantastic name for a band.

i found the planning application - and hospital plans - as 07/01142/CFULL on the Fife planning portal. When I attempted to reload from my history it was not available. So I looked up the number and it was there again.

Are the GMC not going to investigate him after this case is over, for not reporting at the time?

While I agree with you that psychiatry needs looking at and placing men on female wards needs to be abolished, were people detained for believing they were God, Napoleon etc. ? I've worked with staff who believed in Lizard people, reincarnations of Goddess, or thought they were chosen ones living in alternative dimensions. People are usually detained for being unable to function or posing a danger.

The Wall of Sad wasn't me. Some brilliant MNetter coined it.

Do they want to take a bow?

Re Upton’s retreat, do we know if it’s a full on ‘this could have happened but didn’t’, or more of a ‘It happened but didn’t impact patient safety or I’d have reported it. But it could have!’