NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #54

[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].

The hearing was 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 51: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5402652-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-51 1 September 2025 to 2 September 2025
Thread 52: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5403218-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-52 2 September 2025 to 4 September 2025
Thread 53: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5404208-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-53 from 3 September

Yes, .org was originally intended for non-profit or non-commercial organisations. However, this has never been policed and it is widely used by for-profit organisations.

My sister was on the Electoral Roll with a wrong name because they misread an H as an M. Learning this a colleague of mine deliberately wrote her name badly because she was worried a former partner would use the Electoral Roll to track her down. Her name also went on with a misspelling. Neither had any trouble from it.

My email address ends ".org.uk"

I promise I am a non-profit organisation!

Thanks, and you're right. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

That website is also not well written and uses the American spelling "organization".

It's vile isn't it? I hope nobody has been misled into spending any money. For some people £20 would be a big chunk of their weekly food budget.

It's so obviously a scam website, or at the very least trying to appear more official than it is (maybe they really will do the process for you if they can fool you into thinking it has to be done through them) that I have serious misgivings about the intentions of the poster who originally shared it as a legitimate site.

As a professional pedant, I have to point out that "organize" is also a UK spelling, used in the Oxford English Dictionary. It's "analyze" that's American.

Apologies for that. I can't help it. I'll go back to sleep now. 😞

I am guilty of doing that. I am sorry. I was fooled by the .org at the end of the website. Would you like me to ask Mumsnet if I can have it removed? Or should we leave it as an example that what you are being told isn't necessarily true and that I am pleased that people took the trouble to correct me? It's your choice.

Or should we leave it as an example that what you are being told isn't necessarily true and that I am pleased that people took the trouble to correct me?

Absolutely yes, we should do that.

Actually it's a relief to learn it's a scam site. I critiqued it thinking it was a legit Government, or Government quango, organization organisation.

Support Postcards are such a nebulous subject, it hardly seems necessary!

Thank you. I didn't know about all of these cases, or the proximity to Sandie's home town.

It's absolutely WTF-were-you-thinking territory the first time someone does this. Kate Searle's response to finding out in the August of 2023 - checking that Upton was happy to use the women's changing room - just beggars belief.

Would she be deadnaming herself if she did? If so, would she also need a split personality?

How else are we to ensure our psychological wellbeing?

Tribunal Tweets have posted the Respondents' submissions.

Respondent' submissions
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ul2RHE8pB5rYqucaf6znnjX7wjLv1AIs/view

Respondents' supplemental submissions
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o07UtnYMx_-boes2R-uH8NUrQAYsOEyD/view

From TT
Our Substack for Peggie vs NHS Fife & Dr Upton now includes the closing submissions for the Respondents and the submission from Translucent who were granted leave to intervene. Direct links to the 3 documents follow.

Main submissions here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ul2RHE8pB5rYqucaf6znnjX7wjLv1AIs/view?usp=drive_link Supplemental submissions here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o07UtnYMx_-boes2R-uH8NUrQAYsOEyD/view?usp=drive_link

Translucent submissions here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cc9-lje11kEGC_aFfY-_mOny5d3PDGfm/view

I'm reading TransLucent's submission first and I note that they mention that the 1992 Workplace Regulations include gender reassignment as well as sex. But they don't.

"c) separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside."
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/3004/regulation/20

Unless you believe that TWAW so they are covered by "women".

If this is the level of argument then it's going to be a poor submission.

I hadn't posted the above by the time I read the whole thing. It was prepared by Robin White and refers to European cqselaw onntrans people being able to marry and take a pension at 60, both supeceded by changes in legislation for same sex marriage and pension age. It is essentially an extrapolation that the European Court said TWAW and so the regulations mean TWAW (even though the regulations predate the GRA).

It also says the SC judgement was wrongly decided (despite it being a unanimous decision of all the SC judges), only applies to the Equality Act and the Equality Act doesn't mention toilets.

It's really badly written.

I felt that life was too short to read those pages and pages of submissions.
Can anyone summarise their arguments briefly?
Or does it just boil down to Trans Women are Women because they say they are?

That's what Translucent says. I haven't read the others yet. I'm in hospital with an infection in my surgical wound, so I'm taking it slowly.

It is likely I won't be able to copy and paste TT for the Darlington nurses tribunal and Maria Kelly's submissions, but we'll see how I am nearer the time.

I'm hoping Michael Foran will do an analysis

My head just exploded. Supplemental respondents' submissions:

17. In any event, the indirect discrimination claim can only ever result in a pyrrhic victory for Mrs Peggie. For it to be successful, she would require the Tribunal to conclude that a central element of her belief structure is true, such that her protected belief will no longer be a belief. Mrs Peggie cannot succeed on both the indirect discrimination claim and any claims relying on a gender critical belief.

I have not read it all (of course) and in any case IANAL - I think what she's saying is that indirect discrimination only works if TWAM, and if TWAM as a matter of fact then it cannot be a legally protected belief that TWAM...I don't think that's how anything works though, is it? Can any lawyers comment?

That sounds like an Alice in Wonderland argument to me.

Oh no. You must be in a bad way if you’ve been hospitalised. Really sorry to hear that.

Do you have everything you need?

Was on Foran's substack today don't worry wimm’s it was clear from his analysis of Judge Kemps question of both parties submissions that the big Sond was pretty sceptical of what JR was asserting.

And to add the same arguments were put in the black ball pool case by JR and the fragrant RMW which failed on all counts.

I am not worried.