NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #41

[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
Thread 37: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5378200-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-37
Thread 38: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5378463-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-38
Thread 39: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5378747-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-39
Thread 40: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5378996-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-40

is there any info about where this extra bundle has come from? Will it be stuff that Fife has previously failed to disclose? Can it be from Sandie Peggie's side?

"Isla Bumba, the hospital’s diversity officer, was questioned at a hearing last week where she stated she had not consulted the relevant regulations before telling Upton they were allowed to use the female facilities."

For this article (thanks for sharing btw) does "consult the relevant regs" relate to her consulting policy, or relate to a policy (not that NHSF have such things) being wrong? As presumably this scenario applies to many workplaces - mine included - where they still have a policy that encourages/allows trans-identified to use whatever facilities they wish to?

It's an image of Dr Theodore Upton who is now known as Dr Beth Upton.

Talk about 'errors'.

I'll never feel ashamed for my typos again.

The detail of a medic transwoman trying for a child with his wife is the Darlington case so I'd suggest we are wary about saying this is about Upton.

IIRC Sex Matters said in their reply to the NHS Fife statement that they weren't funding the case.

I'm sure we can all speculate as to who IS funding the case...

The extra bundle has presumably come from Fife, as at the end of this afternoon's session, the Judge said that he had been given a supplementary bundle and asked if there was any objection. NC replied "No objections".

Yes, I'm sure the one trying for a baby is the Darlington one. Easily confused when they are both about TW in hospital changing rooms!

Say no more!

On a hen related note, the sexing of chicks is a controversial issue at my allotment. We aren't allowed cockerels but a few have appeared, claiming they thought they were hens. Others disagree. Whispered conversations on the grassy margins. Drama galore.

I seem to remember Fife issuing a statement following the previous tribunal sessions which said something along the lines of that the truth would be out, that there was a lot of info that hadn't been covered yet which would prove their case.

Do you think they meant the racism allegation?

The odd thing is that NHS Fife do sort of understand the concept of single sex spaces, because they provide male and female changing rooms.

However, what many of the staff can't comprehend is that this is because there are situations where, as the equality act puts it, 'a woman might reasonably object to the presence of a man', and that this is simply because of the fact of his sex and has nothing to do with his identity.

BBC today says the i/x report was completed in December 2004. However Sandie was still getting a warning she might be sacked when they wanted to call her into a disciplinary in February and they only admitted there was no evidence for the patient safety claims recently, so July. Did anyone mention December 2004 in evidence? If so it looks like the report got rewritten a time or 7 (as the recent FIFE statement).

I seem to remember Fife issuing a statement following the previous tribunal sessions which said something along the lines of that the truth would be out, that there was a lot of info that hadn't been covered yet which would prove their case.

I remember that also, but all I can say is that if that is the case they seem to have presented a spectacularly duff set of witnesses to prove it.

BBC Reporting Scotland News has just described Dr Upton as biologically male but identifies as a woman.
You see, its not that hard to get it right.
🤷‍♀️

Apologies if this has already been raised, but if someone says 'I don't know what my sex is because I haven't seen my chromosomes', isn't the answer 'your body is an expression of your chromosomes, is your body male or female?' *

*Excluding those people with DSDs obvs and please no further explainers on that, plenty of good info elsewhere!

Apparently it is extremely hard to sex chicks and it is a really well paid job dont know how true this is but i watched something on tv that contained this nugget of info i think lol

Another question for lawyers (am still thinking about JR's proposed argument that the SC judgment irrelevant) :

If there were no Haldane ruling or SC judgment, given that Dr Upton doesn't have a GRC wouldn't Croft v Royal Mail be relevant here?

https://a-question-of-consent.net/2020/08/16/croft-v-royal-mail-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place/

Sexing chicks is very difficult unless they are sex linked breeds {chick colour or markings determines the sex) you usually have to wait until they start to develop different feather shapes and wattles appear to sort the boys from the girls

I met a chicken sexer once long ago. He told that the training took several years, but once trained up, he could sex them swiftly.

Trying to catch up on an (by now) old point…

In response Ms Russell said: “It is unfortunate what I have just heard did not contain an apology.

JR trying to trap NC into agreeing to use preferred pronouns/make an apology because a significant element of this case rests on SP confronting a man in the F CR.

If JR can, in any way, force acceptance or use of female pronouns for DrU on NC etc, then it’s much easier to convince the ET panel that SP was wrong in confronting - and being ‘aggressive’ towards - another woman.

Really shows up the insidious and perfidious psychology in play of compelling people to use female pronouns for males.

It’s very difficult to sex tortoises; we had a ‘male’ called Toby, who then became ill due to retained eggs. However, I still can’t believe that a senior A&E consultant finds sexing a human baby is at all problematic. If she can’t do that I wouldn’t trust her to diagnose a cut finger.

I can't quite believe JR tried to send NC to room 101 for the rat treatment in the middle of a tribunal. I assume we will have a delay in the morning while the J hears from JR why NC should be put in the stocks so people can throw rotten fruit at her.

Say leave the chromosomes out of it, you dont need chromosomes to tell a peacock from a peahen, to sex a dog, tell a stallion from a mare, or tell a cow from a bull (unless you come from a city).
Chromosomes are a red herring to hide their dishonesty.

I think there is a method that works when chicks are very young, but as you say it takes a lot of training to learn how to do it. Most of the backyard chicken keeping groups are full of pics of chicks asking if anyone can guess their sex and the answer is invariably no, wait and see. We have had quite a few that looked like girls ended up being boys