NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #48

[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 was 29 July 2025. It will resume again on 1 to 2 September for closing submissions.

The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton gave evidence from Thursday 6 February to Wednesday 12 February 2025. Sandie Peggie returned to give evidence on 29 July 2025.

Access to view the second part of 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 #40 can be found in this thread: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 41: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379334-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-41 24 July 2025 to 25 July 2025
Thread 42: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379820-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-42 25 July 2025 to 25 July 2025
Thread 43: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379979-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-43 25 July 2025 to 27 July 2025
Thread 44: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5380196-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-44 25 July 2025 to 28 July 2025
Thread 45: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5381518-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-45 28 July 2025 to 28 July 2025
Thread 46: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5381640-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-46 28 July 2025 to 29 July 2025
Thread 47: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5382102-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-47 29 July 2025 to 29 July 2025

We come from such opposite sides of the argument that this is now pointless. On the matter of the law….the law used to say that men could rape their wives. That doesn’t mean that all men thought they could and should.

But some did......

Even if the law said that trans women could use the ladies (which it doesn't) some men would put on a dress (or not if they're the same way as Pete the Plumber) and go in for their own nefarious purposes.

No that’s not what I said. It might be what you thought I said….but it isn’t.

Men don’t need to put on a dress and enter the toilets to fulfil their nefarious purposes. I choose to focus my feminist efforts on the millions of actual violent men. Not the 79 trans women in prison for sexual crimes.

Naomi Cunnignham has been brilliant - but after the last few witnesses had undertaken a character assassination of Sandie Peggie there's a part of me that wishes she had turned round to Jane Russell and said, "yeah, so fucking what? Is that all you've got? I'm not even going to bother cross examining these people because everything they've said is completely irrelevant."

Ah ok, so it may be “unacceptable” to me but some entitled men are more important than any women’s feelings? Got you.

This is spot on.

I didn’t say they had rolled back. I said I didn’t think that rolling back trans rights makes anyone safer.
But I do think trans safety and protections have rolled back if that’s what you mean?

How? No law has changed.

No but the changing rooms are a place where women are exceptionally vulnerable - in their underwear etc. It means that NO men should be in there as some will find them a useful place to abuse women. I'm afraid that if the hurt feelings of a number of men like Dr Upton suffer to prevent women and girls from sexual assault/abuse etc that is a price well worth paying. If they don't like it in the mens they can campaign for third spaces that women can chose to enter or not.

ETA as press post to soon. I also wanted to ask why you think that the "actual violent men" do not include the 79 transwomen convicted of sexual assault .

The high minded nonsense some genderists come out with isn’t a feminist position. Privacy and dignity in single sex spaces is not just based on risk (and the risk element of allowing men into spaces where women and girls are vulnerable isn’t something which can be handwaved away either) it’s based on basic decency and respect for women and girls, whether from men or “I don’t mind” virtue signalling women.

We're back to the "single sex spaces don't have anti man force fields so they shouldn't exist or have any protection in law or social norms" bollocks again. Why is this ridiculous argument only ever used when women want spaces away from men? We don't have anti shit driver force fields on traffic lights, the hard shoulder or speed restricted roads either but nobody thinks that means the roads should be a lawless free for all.

Those 79 trans women are 55% of the total prison population of trans women. For comparison, 19% of the men and 4% of the women in prison have been convicted of sexual offences.

If you allow men to enter women's single sex spaces simply by saying they are women, that is an open invitation to any sexual predator who wants to access women when they are vulnerable. No, men don't need to enter the toilets to sexually abuse women, but why make it easy for them?

Correct - they do not need to put on a dress to enter the toilets for nefarious reasons. They only need to declare themselves women for some people to say that they should not be challenged.
Also, for those who do put on a dress, it's part of the fun of breaching women's boundaries.

The men who claim to be women who are in prison for sexual crimes are just a subset of all the men in prison for sexual crimes. At any point any of the men who currently do not claim to be women could decide to claim to be women, therefore theoretically all men could be in the "trans" cohort. They are all "actual violent men", it's just that some use the declaration of a transgender identity as a means to obtain unhindered access to women and children in situations where the women and children are vulnerable.

This.

They've not been rolled back. They still have all the protections they've always had. The equality act characteristic of sex has been clarified. Nothing has been taken away from those with a trans identity. Women's rights to single sex spaces in various places like rape crisis centres, domestic refuges, changing rooms, prisons etc were being ignored due to a misunderstanding or wilful misinterpretation of the law so that any man with any identity had the opportunity to go in. But the thing is, that wasn't lawful. Which has been clarified.

You seem unable to find or understand what I said so here it is -
I do now see that for some, the idea of changing in front of a trans woman or vice versa is an unacceptable position to be put in.
Does that help? It is explaining that whilst I don’t feel the same way I have empathy with those that do

Tangfastic, just remind me why you think it’s ok to remove single sex changing rooms?

Because that’s what we’re discussing.

All women- the confident ones, the shy ones, the religious ones, the Onlyfans stars and the ‘haven’t been swimming in decades, stay covered up’ ones.
All women lose single sex spaces if you think it’s ok to be nice to a few lovely men.

I don't claim legal qualifications either; but we're in the land of Torts here - civil wrongs, for which, as any lawyer will tell you, the remedy lies in an action for damages. The case isn't actually about whether men are allowed in the female changing room - the case is about whether SP suffered discrimination, harassment and victimization, and if so, how much money she deserves to put her right. Each of those things requires, according to the Equality Act 2010, a very definite set of findings from the tribunal which are very fact specific.

For example, under victimization, the act says "Giving false evidence or information, or making a false allegation, is not a protected act if the evidence or information is given, or the allegation is made, in bad faith." So one way for JR to proceed is to show it's more likely than not that the allegation is made "in bad faith". Even if the law says DU shouldn't be in the CR, if the allegation of harrassment was made "in bad faith" NHSF is off the hook on the count of victimization.

For harassment, the act says that in judging the conduct complained of, "...each of the following must be taken into account—
(a)the perception of B; (b)the other circumstances of the case; (c)whether it is reasonable for the conduct to have that effect."
There's a lot of leeway there for JR to argue that the "other circumstances" mean that what occurred doesn't amount to harassment. Say, perhaps because SP always changed in a cubicle, even when DU wasn't present. Even if DU should not have been allowed in the CR. JR gets the big bucks, not me, so that's probably a trite example, but you get the idea.

I guess in a way it's a bit like skittles: JR has a number of different pins that she needs to knock down. She may very well knock quite a few of them over, even if not all.

@Tangfastic71 there are regular posters on FWR who have being sexually assaulted by transwomen and have spoken about it.

A close family member of mine was assaulted as she slept because some idiot thought allowing trans-identifying men to use the women's accommodation was "being kind". A woman who was raped by a trans identifying man on an NHS ward was told she was wrong "because there are no men on this ward".

Transwomen are just as much a threat, if not more, than other men. And that threat escalates substantially if they are given access to supposedly women-only places.

The only trans right that has rolled back is their mistaken belief in their right to choose which services to use, Men’s or women’s.

That was never a right. They shouldn’t have decided it was.

Other than that nothing has changed.

I don’t really believe in Upton’s hurt feelings at being excluded anyway, having seen him give evidence the injury likely comes from being angry at the challenge from women (SP, NC) and having to deal with a situation he couldn’t control. As it appears he tried to do, given the forensic IT evidence.

I ducked into the ladies' very often as a young woman, to get away from men who were hassling me. Not one of them ever followed me in there. For several of them, it was the clearest possible communication that I wanted them to leave me alone and they could not possibly misread it. I always used the women's carriage on the train in Cairo too. No man ever entered.

It's almost as if laws and social contracts help prevent things from happening.

You don’t have empathy for other women on this though, that’s very clear. Just for these men.

I think you’ve misunderstood. I meant that if a man has nefarious intentions- he’s not going to go into a toilet to fulfil them in the vast majority of cases. Protecting the loo is not going to protect you. Anyway, I’m off to yoga. I’m quite aware that I don’t need to announce my departure but just in case anyone is disappointed I don’t answer the barage of questions 🤣
You are all back safe in your echo chamber

All the virtue signalling on this site in the last couple of days made me tired. Did Sandie Peggie make a couple of private comments to people she trusted that you disapproved of? Did she fail to live up to your personal standards. Well boo hoo! Then of course then she should be burnt at the stake, shunned and vilified. Let’s cry for her to lose her job as well. Who the hell made any of you judge and jury about the opinions other people must have. About who is or isn’t a worthy person? This sanctimonious attitude about what people must and must not say or think is one of the things I hate most about the transgender band waggon. Every single person on this site is unique, with different backgrounds, personalities, influences and experiences. We should all have different opinions on all sorts of things, To think that only our view point should be accepted is pretty bloody smug and self righteous and while your racist credentials maybe impeccable all of you have said something at some point that doesn’t live up to someone else’s standards on something else.

Tell some Ukrainian they shouldn’t make a joke about a Russian, someone from Garza they are a very horrible person to insult the Israel government. My Auntie (who I love dearly) regularly says racist things that make me cringe but is the personification of kindness and helpfulness to everyone from any ethnicity. I would not dream for a second of thinking I am a better person than her even if I have almost certainly reached the gold standard of never saying anything racist or himophobic.

I am gay, if I was in hospital and the nurse treated me with kindness and professionalism I really wouldn’t give a crap how many jokes she made about lesbians with her husband in private. Get over your smug selves - you have different views from Sandie on this subject. It might mean you would not choose her for a friend. You flatter yourself she might want you to.