NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #51

[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 resumed 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 #50 can be found in this thread: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 50: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5387893-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-50 7 August 2025 to 1 September 2025

Danny Kaye is also my earworm for cases like this. The trouble is I segue into The pellet with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon.

I'm awake, Im dressed, stylishly, and I'm ready to log in and hear @WFTCHTJ dulcet tones (who of course has the voice of an angel 😘) as it's going to be the most interesting part of the talking we hear today.

I am absolutely howling at the credits on that movie poster... Special Creature Effects! 😂

Now you lot have me looking at Roman to find out what's so bad about it. I've reached the age where I have no fucks left to give if someone doesnt like how I dress.

I can tell I'm not suited to post on S&B, as I detest a good 99% of the clothes the fashionistas like! 😬🤣

While WFTCHTJ I was musing about why I don't really care if I have to refer to Upton as Beth rather than Theodore (though I don't think I do, nothing the judge said has that implication). I think for me, a name becomes a female name if the people I know who have that name are women - not the other way round, there's no, or only a very little and temporary, inclination in me to think of a person as female because they are called Beth (say). I think this is because the association between names and sexes is so situated in time and place anyway. Example: that lawyer who decided to be Robin, female, when for those of us on the Fife side of the border Robin is overwhelmingly a male name anyway. Many other examples could be given, and if you start on names in countries outside the UK (Andrea, anyone?) even more so. In short I don't mind at all using anyone's chosen name, while pronouns are another matter entirely.

ETA It so happens that I know one female Beth quite well - were it not for that fact, I'm sure I'd already have thoroughly reclassified Beth as a male name by now.

They'd have a cow if I told them this combination is my favourite outfit. I can hear the vents in their hearts packing up and failing from here.

This is the image.

😂😂😂

@Jimmyneutronsforehead, you'd be chased out with pitchforks! 🤣🤣

Oh, hell. Does that mean the rozzers might be back? 😂

I'm following, but mostly silently as I'm keeping up in between working.

from herald
9:30am
One of the key moments from yesterday's session was the row over the “deadnaming” of Dr Beth Upton.
Deadnaming is the act of referring to a transgender person by their previous or birth name, rather than the name they currently use.
Naomi Cunningham, for Sandie Peggie, told the tribunal she wanted to publish her client’s written arguments in the name of “open justice”. But Jane Russell KC, for NHS Fife and Dr Upton, objected, insisting Dr Upton’s previous name must be redacted.
She described the use of the “deadname” as “harmful”, “deeply delegitimising” and said “no one should be outed, everyone should be treated with courtesy and dignity.”
Ms Cunningham argued the name was already “out there” in public reporting.
She also warned of what's known as the Streisand effect — where a bid to keep something confidential only makes it spread further.
In the end, Employment Judge Sandy Kemp sided with Ms Russell, ruling the documents must be redacted before publication.

I'm WFTCHTJ and wondering what this knock out case JR has been keeping up her sleeve that she left us in such suspense over.

I am here to post Tribunal Tweets posts. I’ll usually put From TT at the top to distinguish them from my own comments, but it’s not an infallible system.

I'm sure we'll still be in a state of suspense once she's finished!

It was best boy that made me properly snort 😂

After her excruciating filibuster yesterday I do hope JR will be on double speed this morning in order to cram everything into the single hour she has left.

And then we can see where Big Sond's head is at when he starts on the questions.

Yes, I like this @betterBeElwinNextIGuess I had never heard of a male Beth until I heard of Dr Beth Upton. It makes me think of Dr Hilary, remember him? I had never heard of a male Hilary until I heard of Dr Hilary Jones. So now Beth can also be a male name, lovely, just like Hilary. The beauty is, you can do that with any name. To massively mis-quote another much loved transwoman in his youth, 'It's not a girl's name, it's mine'.

I'm most looking forward to the questions.

Maybe Big Sond will just give a big sigh and slowly shake his head, then stand up and do an interpretive dance. Men in white coats will come through the squeaky door and slowly usher him away and the case will need to be adjourned again.

I hope she gets limited to her remaining hour! I can see her getting latitude to wang on way past that, but I hope Big Sond puts his (probably quite large, manly man sized) foot down if she tries it.

<waits anxiously in lobby, only slightly soothed by the WFTCHTJ every now and again>

Hurry up and let me in its nearly 10 am.

We have a fan in the room!

Scooter stunts by Humza Yousaf!

He's probably in his office right now looking at a bottle of gin and a can of red bull wondering which is the better option!

I was thinking about other famous men who had names that we'd consider female. The one that immediately came to mind was John Wayne who was christened Marion Morrison.

Also I’m listening to The Hallmarked Man by a really obscure male author called Robert Galbraith. I don’t often read books by men, but this one is quite good.

But it’s over 31 hours long!

😱😨😮😵‍💫

Oh and a TRA has posted the ending on Twitter, which has annoyed me, but I’ll get over it.