NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #56

[nauticant]

Judgment was handed down on 8 December 2025:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6936ce28a6fc97b81e57436a/S_Peggie_v_Fife_Health_Board__Dr_Upton.pdf

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
Thread 55: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5447019-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-55

His appearance.

My theory is an extension of that one about some men can't get their head round a TIM also being a man. Maybe the judge feels accepting Upton as a male somehow diminishes his category of male. Maybe, having spent hours in close proximity to Upton, he finds him so Other in various ways that he can't or won't accept that he and the Dr share the class of male. Therefore he must be female.
Like how a "no, where are you really from?" racist can't accept that person from a global majority background can be British; he can't be like me at all, he's too Other.

Given that the judge used Uptons appearance as evidence in this case I see no reason why we cannot comment on it.

Sex Matters ran the numbers in 2023 and men who say they are trans are 5x more likely to offend, so yes, we should be making more of this as it is likely they'd have a previous conviction.

Generally speaking, there are plenty of people I'd engage with/listen to on this subject, but people who prove themselves unable to articulate any difference between who they consider men and who they consider women simply aren't going to have anything meaningful to contribute - least of all because they're not interested in communicating their position clearly.

Thanks BB - I was confused

Yes, but with interesting new additions.

The logic appears to be:

‘ if men (or maybe men who look feminine (?)) are barred from using and presumably undressing alongside women in the female changing room - then said changing room may fall into a terrible state of disrepair as tradesmen would be similarly and entirely unable to enter to carry out any necessary work there’

If you want the toilets to flush or the lights to work then you must also accept blokes undressing with you in there?

And also the reverse - no female plumber could come in and fix the urinals, as women who believe they are men and want to undress with men would be barred.

Which kind of begs the question of why all these female tradespeople can’t carry out the repairs in the female facilities and tradesmen in the men’s. Or something….

Really. Just shameful that a judge could write such total dross.

I really don’t understand why the harassment claim against Upton was not upheld. Not the sexual harassment claim, that seemed incredibly weak to me anyway, but the harassment related to sex one. I’m going to need to read it again

Tone of voice and facial expression have been deemed relevant in other cases, please advise,

Given that autistic women are frequently undiagnosed and are nearly three times likely to have been sexually assaulted than their neurotypical peers, and autistic women by definition have communication difficulties: what are you going to do to ensure that autistic women who have been sexual assaulted, and need single-sex spaces because of that, will not be discriminated against by the tone of voice, choice of wording, and facial expression rules they have to adhere to when requesting a single-sex space?

I genuinely want to know the real story behind the IT teams chat file-sending glitch. I guess we'll never find out!

One of the points being made by the judge - apparently - was that Upton passed as a woman. Not in A&E he didn't. My comment is completely relevant.

Absolutely. The judge only saw Upton during the tribunal and did not see what I saw.

Because his appearance seems to have been a fundamental determining factor in the judgement - and those who have seen him think that this is very masculine. There therefore seems to be a discrepancy between the judges eyesight and everyone else's which is relevant to the case.

If the judge thinks his appearance is important then we should continue to address it.

HTH

I will say that, having not seen photos of either Upton or Peggie before today, it wasn't obvious to me which one of thr two of them was trans (although it might well be more obvious in-person).

And those who saw DU during the tribunal also said he didn't pass. The judge's bias counting be clearer.

Saying a man looks like a man is not picking apart someone’s appearance. There’s nothing wrong or offensive about saying a man looks like a man.

You could say that many words in 1992 as opposed to now may not have meant what every ordinary person in the land thought they meant. Take ‘homosexual’.

That “may” is sophistry.

Likewise.
The whole thing is insane.

Are women going to be accused of 'proselytising' their DC when they tell their toddler DS that he is in fact a boy, despite his recent theft 'I only borrowed them!' of his sister's hair clips because they're purple and he likes purple?

Surely it can't be that they did nothing because she was the only one to complain? In Darlington 26 nurses complained and they still did nothing!

Even if Upton did pass, am I the only one completely unreassured by the notion that - no worries - men can completely conceal their sex when they enter the room where I am undressed!? Why doesn't Kemp J understand how creepy this is?

From what I can gather:

• The tribunal judged that the language and behaviour by Peggie during the incident — including the use of male pronouns and (what were described as “intrusive and highly offensive” remarks) — went beyond a “simple expression of belief or concern.” That conduct was found to likely amount to harassment of Upton rather than being lawful or protected.

• The tribunal added that if male pronouns or other misgendering were used “gratuitously and offensively on a repeated basis” it could cross the line into unlawful harrassment . In this case, they found Peggie’s words did cross that line.

• The tribunal found there was no evidence that Upton had acted falsely in making her complaint. The tribunal saw no grounds to uphold the allegations that Upton had misled or manipulated evidence (for example, by deleting notes)

• the judges ruled that granting the transgender doctor access to a female changing room was not automatically unlawful at work despite the recent SC ruling . What mattered was how the complaint and any adjustments afterwards were handled.

• Once the complaint was raised, the employer should have considered interim measures — but they failed to do that promptly. That failure, not the presence of the trans doctor per se, was the basis for the harassment finding against Fife .

The Workplace Regs are clear on allocation of changing facilities and toilets. It's a well-established legal principle that statutes are read as per the meaning of those writing them, and there is no way that legislation from 1992 didn't mean man and woman to mean biological sex.

It is quite clear that this judgment has interpreted the law incorrectly and will, eventually, be corrected by a higher court.

As for the rest of your post? 🙄

DU is a trans woman: therefore it is profoundly personal , demeaning and hurtful.

The BBC 6 o'clock news actually featured this judgement as a main headline, so I was definitely interested, but also nervous to see how it was presented. TBH, it did seem to focus on the success of the ruling against Fife NHS, rather than on the rejected claims...but it also did leave the feeling that the judgemnt has served to prolong the confusion and uncertainty. This is down to the incorrect application of the SC ruling by this judge. It will have to be appealed.

I'll add an explanation here: I'm particularly conscious of the repercussions of 'misgendering' because I worked in a school where we had three girls identifying as boys at the same time. Only one of the transitions was supported by the parent. (As it happens, all three girls eventually destransitioned. I'd say that other pupils were more invested in their transitions than the girls actually were.)

Staff all got an email requiring us to use male pronouns with the girl whose parents supported the transition. The girl was 'stealth' at the time.

During a conversation with the head of Pastoral Support, I inadvertently referred to the girl as 'she' and was told 'Oh, oh! Misgendering!' It was done in a semi-jocular fashion, but we all knew that we'd finish up with a complaint to the Director of Education if we got it 'wrong'.