NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #55

[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 3 September to 1 October 2025
Thread 54: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5418690-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-54 from 28 September 2025

You know, I've skipped an exercise class in case it's out at ten. Hope it's today.

<Takes day off work>
<looks out of the window to horrific weather>
<settles down for a day of vipering>

o wad some pow'r the giftie gie Potter,
to see hersel as ithers have clocked her

It's going to be massively disappointing if it's not today. Christmas is nearly four weeks away - we could be at least another three weeks before it happens!

I hope you're right, all of you, because the suspense is killing me.

Just logged on to see whether this was resolved yet. Will tune back in in an hour!

Place marking (yes I know I can book mark, but it never works)

A quick and random click on the judgements available leads to another GI case.

How anyone thinks any of this is workable in a workplace blows my mind.

"The claimant has been unable to identify who spoke to them that day, but
says that the nurse read the form and stated “OK so she is here for both a flu
and vaccination clinic.” Neither of the nurses are individual respondents.
45.The claimant was distressed by the incident. They did not correct the nurse
at the time, and considered that this was not a minor oversight, as they
considered that the nurse should have spotted their non binary status. The
form did not identify what pronouns the claimant preferred. The claimant
reported the incident to their line manager....

47.Further that the practice of the staff was to focus upon reading those parts of
the form which were clinically relevant to ensure safe and effective
administration of the vaccine. This had resulted in the gender field on the form
not being properly acknowledged. Patient safety and effectiveness were
given priority over patient experience. That the misgendering was not
intentional and that both nurses acknowledged the distress caused and had
both offered to make a full apology."

There are some very interesting references to the applicable law, with FWS featuring heavily.

The panel conclude that being non binary doesn't confer the PC of GR which is interesting.

Lots of stuff that is applicable to other cases ongoing at the moment.

It's really ridiculous.

I attended a beginners' Ukrainian class a few years ago. We were held up a bit at one point, because one girl insisted on asking about pronouns for non-binary people and got mildly distressed when told she had to choose "he" or "she" in Ukrainian.

A nice enough lassie, and quite sincere but it made me wary of interacting too much in case I offended her.

There are so many interesting points here:

111. Firstly, we do not find that the claimant has shown facts from which we
could conclude that any of the incidents had the effect of violating their dignity.
Violating is a strong word. Offending against dignity or hurting is not enough.
The claimant has suggested that they felt “unsafe”. They have not shown
what they mean by this, and we found no evidence of the conduct having that
effect. Much of their evidence about the effect of the conduct upon them upon
them is vague and imprecise. Although we do not dispute the offence, distress
and frustrations that these issues have had upon the claimant, we find that
viewed objectively the claimant has not shown facts from which we could
conclude that the conduct violated the claimant’s dignity.

I will start a new thread rather than derail this one. But it is a read that makes me feel optimistic for Sandie.

The panel conclude that being non binary doesn't confer the PC of GR which is interesting.

It can't do. It has been established in the Ryan Castellucci case that the GRA does not allow for the legal recognition of non-binary gender.

And the notes on applying for a GRC on gov.uk specifically underline this: "You can only apply to be recognised as male or female. Non-binary genders are not legally recognised in the UK."
https://www.gov.uk/apply-gender-recognition-certificate

I love the fact that this judgment pushes back against the ‘I felt unsafe’ claim. Am so sick of that phrase being used. It’s an attempt to control and compel speech.

Putting one protected group’s demands into practice and policy while either avoiding or ignoring legally required impact assessments is professional incompetence at best. When confronted with an employee who was detrimentally impacted from this practice and policy, a decision was made to continue to prioritise one protected group rather than following the law.

I can’t see how those choices can be assessed as acceptable.

If I was Naomi, I'd be really cheerful too! She's fabulous! Both Charlotte Elves and Naomi were so impressive in the courtroom setting. Really a demonstration of powerful, knowledgeable women that I find inspirational tbh.

I thought this was interesting too, especially given the conversations re Upton's pronouns among the legal teams

The numbers do
however have a bearing upon the familiarity of staff with non binary
colleagues. We live in a binary society and the use of the pronouns they/them
is unfamiliar territory for many of us. At times in this Tribunal, both counsel
and the Judge have failed to use the claimant’s preferred pronoun. On each
occasion the person involved apologised. The claimant says they did not take
offence.

"I felt unsafe" can mean one of two things.

"The situation appeared to be dangerous to life and limb, and as a result I felt unsafe".

"I lack maturity, emotional regulation and resilience, and my mental health is not good. I do not wish to take the time and make the effort to try to improve my mental health, and in particular improve my resilience. I would rather continue to behave like a stroppy teenager or typical toddler."

It seems to me that in the first scenario we need the police or the health and safety executive to intervene. In the latter scenario mental health service need to intervene.

I find this an odd comment. I'm not any type of lawyer but I'd imagine preparing a legal case and the doing the stuff in court is vastly more time consuming and way more of a commitment than doing media interviews, possibly remotely.

I mean the bit about NC not having time to represent SM.

Thank you again to the PP who posted the Scotcast link. Naomi Cunningham is such an inspirational listen - I loved the ending. She's in this fight for the long term.
[Also place marking, although I don't think it will be today. We all want it so much that I think we're adding 2 and 2 to make 42.]
[Please let me be proved wrong though, please.]

Hopefully the threats may have helped the BS to realise that it’s not just about being your authentic self and living your best life. That there are, actually, some valid reasons for being concerned about welcoming all and sundry to places where women are in states of undress and vulnerable.

Is there a reason to think ten would be the publication time? (fingers crossed, obvs)

You just need to use the Follow this thread function up the top of the thread.

It's rooted in 15-20 year old safeguarding fashions, lots of dissemination to schools and LA groups at the time, with the idea of 'everybody should feel safe all the time' (which is dodgy when really unpicked) but based in the idea of setting personal boundaries and appropriate work cultures.

Like DEI and inclusion, it was a good and well intentioned idea that has now been grabbed as a weapon and twisted out of all original purpose for bad actors to leverage power and abuse over others while making it sound 'nice' to avoid accountability. It's now the voice of the cry bully.

which is dodgy when really unpicked

When you unpick it the first thing you see if loads of conflicting rights. That leaves you at a impasse. The way to solve this is to turn to an oppression hierarchy. Which ends up with sacred castes. Which abusers will take advantage of.

I read somewhere that the decisions drop in the morning around ten. Apologies if I've got that wrong

Listening to NC being interviewed and that question about why people say TWAW but also believe in biology and biological sex is one that may puzzle others, but something that I see all the time.

It doesn’t even register by the trans identifying or non binary person (or just people who accept the gender ideology) that they are switching their language from gender to sex and back all the time.

Without hesitation even. If you try to call them out or point to inconsistencies they get riled up and don’t engage. Or say yes they acknowledge biology but believe identity is more important.