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'd be rather be treated by Sandie. I'm on MN FWR so the rest of the NHS would, if Fife is typical, see me as a transphobic bigot. I'm not sure I'd want to put my life in their hands.

I didn't know about the Jade Goody deathwatch. That's appalling. She was a young woman with two young children. Whoever participated in that should be ashamed of themselves.

As a patient I'm more concerned about:

Being in a vulnerable state where I'm unable to fully advocate for myself and despite asking for a female doctor, am presented with a male doctor who says he's female, but am in no fit state to challenge this.

Or:

Nurses being able to change in appropriate and sanitary conditions, not in the toilets because they feel unsafe and/or that their dignity and privacy have been disregarded, to enable a man who says he's female to use the female designated changing facilities.

Or:

Being treated by a nurse who discusses and identifies me in a social chat group.

Than:

Being treated by a nurse (or a doctor) who holds abhorrent views but is able to set them aside in performing their clinical duties to a high standard of patient care (which in Sandie's case has been the case for 30 years).

This needs reposting every few pages it seems.

I see a couple of our resident TRAs have crawled out of the woodwork because they feel they have something to hold on to so a little cheery wave at them and a wee reminder for everyone else. I love this picture!

Forgot to say thanks to @prh47bridge as well for all the legal information earlier, and like other posters would like to say thanks for the interesting discussion and the laughs along the way. Roll on September!

ETA: the picture that somehow deleted itself 😂

Again I'm not on Dr. Upton's side here but they seem to genuinely believe they are a woman and want to live as one.

I don't think DU believes DU is female.

The word 'woman' must mean something else here, but it's almost irrelevant what, because the case is about separate male and female changing rooms.

Oh no @EmeraldRoulette I entirely agree with racism having gotten worse maybe we could have a hypothetical drink sans Sandie? My family say it hasn't been this bad - and perhaps is worse - since the 80s. It seems to be linked with periods of high immigration mainly. I really worry about my elderly family especially.

But why would you be discussing your views on trans people if you were accessing medical care? And would you say the same if you were an Asian asylum seeker?

This, exactly.

Agree 100%.

Nah, we never did a risk assessment on a policy that Muslims would have had a stake in. Let them find out on a one-by-one basis. (And sack them one by one.)

But Look! A squirrel! SP does dark humour, racist b!tch!

Re the judge let's hope it's just a bad feeling.

I know nothing of the case in the X post below, but this woman did not have a good experience with him.

You wouldn’t need to “discuss your views on trans people”, just object to the presence of a man in a female space/doing your intimate care when you’d asked for a woman 🙄

I most certainly don't want to have a drink with Sandie, we clearly wouldn't get on given what's come to light. But nor would I with Upton. And I know which I'd believe would carry out their job in a professional manner and its not Upton.

I think it's interesting that there is a lot of media commentary about SP's forwarding of a racist 'joke' but not very much about the fact NHS Fife have a policy that means no Muslim woman can trust them to provide single sex care if asked/ attend their hospitals if they need a single sex toilet, ward or changing room. At best. At worst, they are actively deceiving Muslim women and putting them in a situation where a biological man can walk in on them at any time they are in the toilet undressed, share a ward or provide intimate care. Without seeking consent. In the full knowledge this may breach the rules of their religion.

This is extreme institutional racism. Which will have direct impacts on women. There may well be women excluded from healthcare right now.

Trans trumps all in the grand hierarchy. Every time.

Neither is good and this seems like a race to the bottom - but one is words and the other is deeds. So it’s the difference between belief and manifestation.

Also while individuals have the right to freedom of speech even if horribly offensive, the NHS does not. As a public sector body has a duty of care to staff and patients.

SP was straightforward about her beliefs and I hope she will reflect and reconsider going forward.

On the contrary NHSF seems to have been evasive, in denial, ignored policy, broke rules and played dirty - with mudslinging to the end.

I don’t think the 2 compare in severity at all no matter how much we dislike the views that SP expressed. The NHS behaviour in this case is orders of magnitude worse and directly affects people

But she was suspended. There could possibly be a finding that no, she shouldn't have been suspended for transphobia, but she could have been suspended or dismissed for racism. One way or the other, it could be argue that she hasn't really suffered any damage or loss.

Dr Upton is a man so his motivations are moot. And make no difference to the women displaced, discomfited, or retraumatised by his presence.

Sex matters.

Women's single sex spaces and services are needful and lawful.

Women deserve privacy, dignity, safety, rights and single sex spaces.

In other words, it's not about his potatoes.

Not just a “terf”, any woman who needs the privacy and dignity of female only care or spaces when vulnerable.

I think it's interesting that people are called "a racist" or "a homophobe" for example, but I've never come across "a sexist" or "an ageist". I suppose "a sexist" would be "a misogynist" or occasionally "a misandrist". It seems that some protected characteristics define a person's whole identity, or are considered a very significant part of it, and some are just incidental to a person's identity. Why is that? Is it an indication of how seriously the protected characteristics tend to be taken?

Religion/belief is interesting - there are atheists and theists, but there is a wider range of competing worldviews, not all of which are fundamentalist. Pregnancy/maternity doesn't seem to be an identity in the same way. Attitudes to disability are sometimes talked about as identities - ableist is used, but I don't think I have heard anyone described as "an ableist".

The difference between calling someone "racist" and "a racist" is subtle, but to me "a racist" is assigning an identity, something innate and irredeemable, as opposed to a racist action or comment, which suggests a one-off or intermittent attribute.

So Sandie Peggie has been tarred as "a racist" and "a homophobe" and "a transphobe" as if those things are all self-evidently true, and as if they define her whole character. We can dismiss "a racist" as a bad person, which allows us to ignore everything positive about her (can't we, Christinapple?) and to assume that she is also "a homophobe" and "a transphobe" (isn't that so, Jane Russell?). This is very lazy and reductive. I don't at all like her sharing sick jokes about a natural disaster, with racist slurs. I do not believe that this is a description of her whole character.

Upton has zero consideration for those women.

But they wouldn't have known about the racism without the tribunal, so I think there is an argument for loss in one sense. I'm not sure you can turn round and go ok, that reason was wrong but now we've found out about this one because she fought the first one. Without a whole new process and suspending on full pay.

all of this shows how difficult it is for us as women to demand our rights. Sandie Peggie deserves and needs a single sex changing room as do I. As do any females that want that. They have smeared her to the extent that she can never go back to work. They did that to deter any others. I don’t ever condone racism. There are a lot of people there than can never go back to work. I am guessing dr ‘ mr’ Upton is one of the few that can. He will be protected. To hell with the women. God help us all.

And nor do NHS Fife, the NHS in general, the BMA or the unions. It’s very stark.

Also, what counts as racism changes. As we've seen earlier on this thread, certain terms that are now seen as racist were, in earlier days, neutral terms.

To be fair, it wasn't SP forwarding a racist 'joke', it was SP forwarding at least six racist jokes. Plus admitting she still uses offensive terms.

In all honesty the minimising of her clearly racist attitudes on here as really depressed me. Two things can be true at once and are: SP is clearly quite racist, and she is also very brave and totally justified in standing up to having a man using the female changing room.

I do wonder though how many on MN would have reacted if SP had been using the N-slur and not the P- and C-slurs. I suspect the reaction would have overall been somewhat different.

Thanks. I thought the same. So hypocritical to decry SP for something similar and then post this right after.