NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #50

[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 over 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 more 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
Thread 48: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5382317-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-48 29 July 2025 to 31 July 2025
Thread 49: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5383443-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-49 31 July 2025 to 8 August 2025

I also think that this thread may get taken down if we use the cuddly toy name too mcuh

Yes I understand what you are saying, but in this case it just further helps to obscure the fact that Theodore Upton is a man. That is what this ET is all about.

Can you explain this to me please? Has this person been registered in the name Beth with a new gender ?

It is also possible, however unlikely, that he may now "pass" better than he did in court. We know that women are better at seeing this than men. Personally i will avoid using his previous name, I see no need to use it.

Yes he has a new registration as Elisabeth, I think.

Yes he has

As I understand it, the redaction of first and middle names only applies to the claimant's written final submissions. The judge is going to prepare an order for both counsel to see to make sure everyone is on the same page.

WHY HAS NO-ONE FIXED THAT SQUEAKY DOOR??

I have changed my surname twice and I regularly get addressed, on paper at least, by the previous names or people concoct a double barrelled version of any of the three names

Do I get upset? No, I don't.

They haven't oiled that door!

Hopefully they just redact rather than replacing with Beth.

It's JKRs fault, she has hidden all the WD40

But this is because you are a reasonable human…

As I say, I don’t like the decision, I can just understand the court’s reason

OK, I can post TT tweets here. It will take a bit of time to get up to where we are, but bear with me.

😘

You can also legally change a name by deed poll. I assume Dr Upton has done so, in which case it's approriate to use the new name. Even if it's a bit obfuscatory.

Thankyou Myrtle !

Thank you but wtf 🤷‍♀️

They should just stick with Dr Upton. He can't complain about that, and it undermines the point slightly less.

I asked an ai about the scope of rule 49 orders (in general), & it said breaches could be subject to contempt proceedings, so for the sake of the thread I agree, & urge caution. (& save the Streisand effect for twitter). IANAL

From Tribunal Tweets

Certain parties have been granted leave to intervene and have prepared written submissions.
https://x.com/NotAllGays

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FDwOMw_o9O0WfxQ2DanoMoE4XF0s-5TY/view

And
@ForWomenScot.

https://t.co/P36LgmhPuh

We understand that
@TransLucent_Org
has also been granted to leave to intervene. We have been unable to find a published copy of their submissions at this time. We invite them to publish and we will include.

Additional abbreviations NAG - Not All Gays TL - TransLucent

We have been admitted to the hearing room.

The Judge and Panel have entered.

from herald
10:59am
Ms Cunningham referenced the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman.
Because of that judgment the tribunal has "no choice" there are "indeed very serious and significant limits to the extent to which a trans identifying man” can expect to live fully as a woman.
The ruling, brought by For Women Scotland, linked the terms sex, woman and man to biological sex in the Equality Act 2010.
10:50am
It's not possible for a man who asserts a female identity to say that he is entitled by virtue of article 8 to use women only spaces, Ms Cunningham says.
10:44am
Naomi Cunningham, acting for Sandie Peggie, will give her remarks now.
She is arguing that Dr Upton must be excluded from single-sex female spaces based on the Equality Act 2010.
10:38am
Deliberations cannot begin until October 14.
Four days have been set side for this, employment judge Sandy Kemp said.

Any idea when the change was made? i.e. was he officially Beth when the event occurred or Theodore?

I read Not All Gays submission earlier and they objected strongly to the outing of Peggie's daughter - not a party to the dispute. Perhaps the 'win' over the deadnaming will come back to bite JR on the bum.

I checked again and yes it's there.

I take the various points about names and they aren't things I get overly bothered about generally as we have androgynous names in English, viz Evelyn Waugh (m) who married a female Evelyn. I've known male Hilarys, and obviously we have Francis/Frances, Lesley/Leslie ... on & on. But sometimes the original name can be relevant and I wonder if & how often that is the case here with Upton in the court documents.

But yes, a thin skin is problem for some.

That phrase 'proving far too much' that NC keeps using as an assessment of faults in the other side's argument - can any lawyers tell us what its implications are?