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

I can care more about issues that directly affect more women.

How can you campaign for any issue that affects women if you take away the words that define us as a group?

All their posts are a bit “main character” tbh. Not surprising they see men like Upton as the important people in this.

One of life's little mysteries....
Why does a certain type of poster always flounce leave the thread because they have a yoga class/ have to feed the baby/have to pick the kids up etc?

Trying to reinforce their womanliness?

That was my instinctive response too

I understand that some women don't understand the full implications of this yet.

On a much more basic level, what I don't understand is @Tangfastic71 looking at a nurse, mid shift in a hospital, dealing with a flooding issue and wanting a male free space to deal with that and thinking ...

'Nah, she shouldn't have any entitlement to that'

This poster doesn’t actually care about women’s and girls’ rights IMHO, it just reads to me as self serving burble to allow them to appropriate the moral high ground, in their own perception, if not in anyone else’s. Just like “I now understand where some of you are coming from and how unacceptable you would find having to change in front of men”. Sure.

I’m sure that’s how the Kate Searles of this world see it too.

There's a link from nauticant on the first page of this thread.

Yup

I wonder if it's also a kind of blatant status signalling for someone like Searle?

Its not something she'd ever have to deal with. No one's asking her to change in front of Upton.

Is it an unconscious way of broadcasting that superior status, compared to women like Sandi?

Look at how 'kind' I can afford to be, because I'm a consultant doctor with my own facilities.

@TheKeatingFive I think a lot of middle class, sheltered women who support “trans rights” and don’t see any clash with women’s rights see it like that. There’s a reason it’s called a “luxury belief”, because it’s poorer, more vulnerable women at the sharp end.

There is definitely a sense of superiority among these people, as if they are enlightened beyond us. "Oh, I just can't be bothered about changing rooms, my mind is on higher feminist concerns" sort of stuff. And yet they expend so much energy in trying to get us to stop fighting for the things they claim are so trifling. Either it's important or it's not, guys.

A PP put it very well in a previous thread about the cognitive dissonance of the Fife witnesses. The thing they know most of all is that they are right and everything else bends to that. It's really a highly egotistical movement in many ways. A man's ego overrides women's rights and reality itself, supported by many people whose sense of rightness and superiority does exactly the same thing.

I can assure you we know what you’re saying.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I really don't have a problem with calling a handmaiden, a handmaiden.

If you think its rude, tough shit. My intention and I'm sure the intention of ours is not to be rude. Its to point out how unthinking and utterly in thrall to men, handmaidens are and how that harms the interests of all women. Aka as saying 'thats not fucking feminism'.

If you don't like being called a handmaiden, its quite easy to stop the accusation. By ceasing to be a handmaiden.

Women are not obliged to be 'nice' and spend their entire lives using soft language so no one gets ridiculously offended over petty nonsense. Otherwise women would never be able to say "no".

This case, gave the perfect example - when NC was asked if she would think about her use of language and pronouns and she replied "no".

Women have every right to use whatever language they see fit. On MN we need to be civil to keep within guidelines, however this doesn't mean we can't use terms that are accurate and descriptive to make a precise point.

The Tone Police can fuck off. This is MN and more to the point this is the feminist section of MN. We are direct and blunt. And thats ok. Women are allowed to be.

Women can say "no". We should do much more often than we do, because due to the fact so many women have this mentality that we should be 'nice' about everything and just be grateful for what we have, we aren't taken seriously when we should be. (Endless threads on maternity care where women are told not to complain or to be grateful etc etc are a useful example in the context of the visibility of a huge nationwide maternity scandal).

I would go so far as to say that women SHOULD be rude in certain situations for our own bloody good and self interest. Precisely because of all these numerous examples of when we aren't direct and blunt we get shat on from great height.

Or right there: "I've never known anyone have a problem with a transwoman, I'm happy to share spaces with transwomen, so why is there a problem?" So egotistical that they truly think they can consent for other people and their experience is universal. And even when shown cases of how it proved to be a safeguarding failure and women and girls were harmed... nothing. Nothing pierces the ego. They didn't see it, it didn't happen to them, so how can it be a problem? Is it not just the cost of freedom?

Exactly.

We shouldn’t worry about toilets…
we shouldn’t worry about changing rooms…
we shouldn’t worry about prisons…
we shouldn’t worry about rape crisis centres…
we shouldn’t worry about hospital wards…
we shouldn’t worry about police strip searches…
we shouldn’t worry about public health campaigns…
we shouldn’t worry about language…
we shouldn’t worry about data…
we shouldn’t worry about medical research…
we shouldn’t worry about free speech…
we shouldn’t worry about safeguarding…
we shouldn’t worry about schools…
…

There are far more important feminist things to worry about!

They have definitely started from the position that they are right.

Therefore the evidence has to fit that conclusion, not the other way around.

It reminds me of the guy who won't marry his girlfriend even though she wants to, because marriage is so meaningless and pointless. But it must mean something if he so adamantly refuses to do it...

It is astonishing to realise how many women think that they get to consent on behalf of other women.

Which speaks to that innate sense of their own superiority

If the pp's concern is really transwomen (100s of thousands apparently and notably not transmen) then campaign for them. Stop lumping them in with abused women whose plight is only blurred and made worse by including men with very different requirements. It's not working. Think of something else.

I can also care about the 100s of thousand of trans women who are abused and attacked.

"Also" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, I must say. In the context of "trans women" doing the attacking, in the context of single sex spaces, attacking means physical or sexual violence. In your context of "trans women who are abused and attacked" it's either not 100's of thousands, or you take a very different view of what to be attacked means.

That is:

We: women may be attacked in single sex spaces
You: 100's of thousands of "trans women" are also attacked
Me: total false equivalence

I can care more about issues that directly affect more women. I can choose to focus my efforts where they are most beneficial.

You can. Nobody that I've seen has sought to stop you in any forum where you do that. On the contrary, it is you who comes here to tell us how wrong we are, on this forum, where we prosecute our cause.

It descends into attack.

Pointing out the very obvious contradictions and illogicalities in what you say is not an attack. Unless of course you mean the same kind of "attack" suffered by "100's of thousands" of "trans women" suffer that you want to campaign about.

Indeed.

I'm sorry, I might be repeating points because I haven't read the last page before posting.

-This issue is not about safety of trans individuals. It is about the safety of women. The safety of women is preserved when only people of the biological sex 'female' are allowed in the women's toilets.
-If trans women wanted to be safe and genuinely feared having to use the toilet with people whose biological sex they match and with who they have grown up with, they would be happy to have a third space dedicated to their use.
-Transwomen do not want this because using the female toilets is not about safety, it's about validation of their womenhood.

The sooner we move past the fog and smoke into the clear air and say what's really happening, the better.

Where are these hundreds of thousands of 'transwomen' being attacked?

By who?

Hundreds and thousands.

If trans women wanted to be safe and genuinely feared having to use the toilet with people whose biological sex they match and with who they have grown up with, they would be happy to have a third space dedicated to their use.

Exactly this.

But that is not what they want in the main.