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

Fun facts: the size of a cubicle was originally based on dimensions such as how much room it takes for a man to go for a wee in a pub toilet and also recommendations making cubicles as small as possible to prevent people having sex in them.

It’s to do with intent. With toilets, a man can say he forgot and that’s legitimate.

It has been scientifically proven lots of times that men ‘forget’ to wash their hands too 😬. One of the reasons unisex toilets have more pathogens than female toilets.

If a man is content to use a urinal, he is unlikely to care much about closing the door behind him while peeing in a cubicle.

When they are using them to just to pass urine, frequently. NAM

Exposure is still an offence. However, one of the required elements is that the offender intends that someone else will see their genitals. A man peeing in a toilet cubicle will have his back to the door, so the only way anyone else will see his genitals is if they push their way into the cubicle. He is not intending that others should see his genitals and therefore is not committing an offence. It would be different if he positioned himself such that his genitals were clearly visible to anyone looking into the cubicle, but I have never known a man do that.

I have known a man turn while zipping himself up and then realise he had an audience and the chocolates he bought us were very nice! The poor man had forgotten that the loos were temporarily unisex while we waited for a plumber to arrive.

He was far more upset by it than we were, but it was so clear that it was an accident that we had to wait for him to leave before we could laugh.

You haven’t researched toilets as much as I have! An American transactivist toilet designer who is influential in ‘inclusive’ (ie.mixed sex, private) toilets in the USA and the UK, built his architectural career being influenced by the sightlines in male public toilets. He discusses it in a Harvard talk on YouTube and Stud journal. He’s never safety tested his designs though (as of April 2024 Harvard talk).

When you are thinking of partition/door gaps as instrumental in design for sex hook-ups, then it makes sense I suppose to close all the gaps when you have mixed sex toilets. Both Joel Saunders (and his partner Prof Susan Stryker) are not thinking about design in terms of health and safety for women or the medically vulnerable. For both these latter groups it is safer to not be cut off visually and audibly from outside the cubicle.

Emily Thornberry was rather an expert in defending men, discussing toilet sightlines and whether toilet activities were possible. I found it incredible that in the 80s police would hide in the roof of cottage toilets, drill holes in the ceilings and take photos of hundreds of men. Can you imagine the (rightful) outcry now?

Aside from my campaign, there is a fascinating history to toilets as it’s a need that is so fundamental. They really ought to be studied more. It’s certainly folly to mess about with designs without analysing how it impacts the vulnerable. I am hoping EHRC realise this.

I will shut up about toilets now!

@Keeptoiletssafe please don't shut up, what you say is so important!

I second what @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast says: please don’t stop talking about this. It’s of vital importance, and it is frankly astonishing that so little thought and research (and contrastively so much activism and wishful thinking) has gone into toilet design over the years.

Emily Thornberry was rather an expert in defending men, discussing toilet sightlines and whether toilet activities were possible. I found it incredible that in the 80s police would hide in the roof of cottage toilets, drill holes in the ceilings and take photos of hundreds of men. Can you imagine the (rightful) outcry now?

They also used good looking young constables as bait.

I've seen it. Only when a man uses the cubicle to pee standing up, which is fairly unusual but does happen at busy times when there's no space at the urinals. So all I saw was a back view of a man who appeared to be peeing.

Perhaps a suitable time to remind people that there is a petition on the UK parliament website for an inquiry into sexual violence in NHS hospitals. There's probably a link on the petitions section of mumsnet. Please remember to confirm your email address if you sign or it doesnt count and the link may go to your junk folder.

Thanks for the reminder - have signed.

Most signs for women's toilets show a woman in a dress/skirt, reinforcing the stereotype that dress=woman.

In 2015 Tania Katan created #ItWasNeverADress to reframe the dress as a superhero cape.

I spent some time taking pictures of toilet signs for an aborted project about stereotype signs and loved this campaign.

My favourite toilet signs were in a Thai restaurant where I had to work out what the signs meant. I've roughly recreated it here. The left hand image is a man, the right hand is a woman. Took me a minute to work it out.

@Keeptoiletssafedo you send your research to politicians, union leaders, education leaders, NHS ? It’s all wonderfully researched and so logical and effective. I would hope people in a position to actively use it had it in front of them that they would act on it. (A forlorn hope, I suspect, but you never know).

I was wondering that, too. It’s such an important issue and I’ve learned so much from you Keep

I get the man leaning back holding his member away from his body on the left, but what is the woman on the right doing? Is she squatting? Only I don’t think I’m quite that folded up when I use the loo…

It could be a squat toilet? It's ambiguous as to if the toilet was in Thailand or not, but they are quite common. Although I don't think I was quite so bent over when using one! I went on holiday to a country that mostly still has these and I still shudder at the memories of those toilets, although it really solidified the differences in how men and women view toilets. It was a group effort travelling around and using those, with the checking which type of toilet it was and the general condition and then the passing around of toilet paper and hand gel, whereas the men just didn't seem to care. It didn't matter if it was a literal hole in the floor of the moving train or a fancier one in a department store.

My DH will always snaffle a camping spot as far from the loos as humanly possible. I've spent years trying to explain that while I don't want to be right outside a toilet block /row of portaloos a massive hike to the loo isn't a bonus for me/ or small (now not so small) children. He doesn't care because he nips behind a tree for wee in the night while I have to hike to loo every time I need a wee and on a dark wet night it's not fun if that is massive walk.

Get a night bucket for your tent 😀

I used a plastic bottle plus a funnel. The botle could fit in a wash bag for the morning trek to the loo and a rinse in a basin. I kept it in the small porch of my tent, but one day I returned from my day out to find it gone. Scouting round did not reveal it having been blown away, so I had the conclude someone had acquired it, and chortled to myself as I wondered what it would be used for.

There are logistical reasons why that isn't an option.

What do you do with loo roll or do you manage without? I feel unclean if I don't wipe it doesn't matter how long I wait after I don't feel dry and think I'll end up with knickers drips.

On the fire with it! 😁