NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #37

[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
Thread 33: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5376608-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-33
Thread 34: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5377387-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-34
Thread 35: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5377598-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-35
Thread 36 mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5378031-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-36

Like these medics in the tribunal who don't even know their own sex? Those medics?

Pretend they don't know their own sex. I am 100% sure that each one of them does.

A separate question - have these six medics just got a massive down on Sandie Peggie, or would they have behaved the same way to any woman who had dared to challenge as she did? I don't suppose any of us can answer that.

Re "re" - in emails, this is usually automatically added to to the subject line in emails replying to another.

It also can be used, as it is in formal letters, to just indicate a particular subject.

Hence why NC was asking if witness normally used it for the latter, as there were no prior emails.

The term is a shortened form of Latin "in re" which translates to "in the manner of."

I don't know why when email was being developed they used a phrase that could be subject to this confusion.

I don’t think she is very bright!

There was another thing she didn’t know maybe verbatim. Can’t entirely remember. But no, definitely not bright.

I do think if NHS Fife had gone down the route of a defence consisting of "we did this and had a policy and it was all based on Stonewall etc and here's what they sent us and made us do" and "we did ask for advice and guidance and were sent XYZ by ABC. We also had a policy based on the GRA and post SC we have seen that we were wrong and have made QRS changes to our policy..."

Then I'd have more sympathy. They'd still have been wrong but I could see where there's got it all from.

I know for a fact that my nearest NHS trusts have policies that word for word could land them in this position. Everything for staff and patients is based on self id. The policies expressly state that you should not question or enquire but take anything someone says as to how they wish to be accommodated at face value.

After this there HAS to be some way of blanket sorting this out. It is beyond ridiculous to know that so many could find themselves in a similar tribunal and that nearly all are operating illegally and not taken better blanket action to resolve.

I don't know why when email was being developed they used a phrase that could be subject to this confusion.

I don't see any confusion. In the days when offices were pen and paper and typing pools it was a commonly used abbreviation in correspondence.

It's yet another argument that devolved trusts don't necessarily work, one policy would be better. See also procurement....

They don’t believe this though. As a health service with an understanding of science and medicine they support trans people and reject the harmful / exclusionary ideologies that are so politically popular at the moment.

There was another thing she didn’t know maybe verbatim.

I have to admit though, that Naomi caught us out a bit with her tendentious - but it was a good word to learn.

So more useful stuff from Foran Towers.

I had not gleaned this from TT.

NC expresses surprise at the suggestion by KS that she thought getting SP together with DU to discuss why she might be uncomfortable might have been a reasonable option.

KC explains she thinks talking things through is always a good thing.

NC then cleverly gets KS to say, of her own volition, that women might have have experienced male violence.

NC gets her to agree that those women don’t necessarily say they have suffered male violence, they don’t wear badges and then, boom, asks KS if she thinks it reasonable to put a woman in the position of having to explain the reasons for her discomfort to a man who is making her feel that discomfort.

This is where the dawning realisation seems to have sparked.

As Foran puts it, KS has only allowed herself to assume, because this is what DU assumes, that the ONLY reason SP might have had for feeling discomfort was because she was a bigot.

The dawning realisation that there might be valid reasons for her discomfort had never occurred to KS.

That, at the very least, should spark some reflection overnight.

Foran also points out that NC is not arguing that a woman needs a valid reason to feel discomfort — she is making the point that it would not have been reasonable of her to expect SP to explain her discomfort to DU.

Obvs we can’t know who has and who hasn’t experienced male violence which is one of the points of SSS in addition to general safeguarding.

And they certainly knew DU’s sex, as each one of them revealed when they misgendered him.

What is it with that photo that at first glance they look like a group of refugees?
Honestly my first thought was what's that got to do with the ET.

We see this in schools where they try mediation between the bully and the bullied. The bully gets off on it and learns what buttons to push again.

Why are people so reluctant to the idea that “sex” isn’t just one thing? It’s a multidimensional variable. Why is that so hard to grasp?

This is probably totally irrelevant/ obvious to other people, but I was reading the BBC coverage there and noticed that none of the reporting on this has had a journalist’s name attached to it. The reason I looked was because, in the article referring to today’s evidence, it said something really strange - that KS said “she was both a doctor and honest”….which is quite the misrepresentation. She actually inferred that being a doctor meant she was honest, is what actually happened. So, anyway, I was like….who wrote this?!….and couldn’t find a name. None of the reporting on this case does. But almost every other article has someone named who’s writing it. Is the BBC trying to hide that they’re not as impartial as they should be…? Or is it AI?

I did feel that dawning realisation was genuine. All the more ridiculous for not having the imagination to have thought of it herself, but convincingly happening in real time

Unlike the disingenuous replies to knowing what being Gender Critical means for eg (I was desperate for NC to ask which bit of biological females having xx chromosomes KS was in disagreement with).

The defensive phrasing amounts to an error under pressure as she tried to tiptoe between the Scylla of non disclosure & the Charybdis of collusion.

I agree. They should have said from the outset that they had attended Stonewall training provided by NHS Fife (I would imagine mandatory to get further up the index).

And they had subsequently formed their understanding and judgement around that training.

since they are no longer part of Stonewall champions scheme O wonder if someone has instructed them not to discuss the training?

it seems odd, doesn’t it. When NC asked LC about Stonewall membership she was quick to say ‘not any more’.

I can see why NC is not going down that line — Stonewall is not a respondent. But it would have made for a more reasonable defence.

Because sex is a single dimensional variable with two possible values: male, or female. If you have something multidimensional in mind, say what it is, but it isn't sex, in law or in fact.

You’re asking why slippery, self-serving nonsense is hard to grasp?

They are probably afraid to attach names to it because of the personal abuse they might receive. Look at the behaviour of people on this thread when someone says something on this subject they don’t like.

But that’s simply not true. It’s bizarre
To insist that it is.

It's not 'don't like', it's fundamentally disagree with as it's wrong.

Well, it's categorically true in law. Aside from that forum, when I use the word sex, I use it in the traditional sense as in male or female, which is the same as is used on law.

If you think there is something else, that isn't binary, then say what it is, but it's not sex you're talking about, no matter what you call it.

I wasn’t talking about law, I meant medically/ biologically.

(in law if DU has a GRC she is legally female).