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

Exactly! And when that juggernaut rolled in, all the chancers, the guys who'd fantasised about doing it, but kept that thought to their bedrooms, were now encouraged.

No I disagree with your presentation of "the camps" and I'm not in camp two.
Please stop talking about me , and discuss the legal case.

Thank you.

How is it that merely discussing getting undressed is more pointed and personal, than actually having to get undressed in person, in front of an unwanted audience, in the actual real world, and getting the entire weight of your employer's machinery come down on you like a ton of bricks for not obediently simpering while doing so?

🤔

I haven’t rtft and am new around here, but having been sexually assaulted 4 times this case is fucking terrifying! Where can we get changed now without some bloke in a frock barging in? Or some hairy arsed pervert claiming to be an transwoman? Are we not meant to go out at all??? Are changing rooms and loos over for us now? Is it US who have to use the disabled loo???

What the hell is going on?

We don't have offender data, because the MoJ doesn't collect it, but we do by a stroke of luck have ongoing statistics on trans-identifying prisoners which shows that a majority of them are doing time for sex offences.

That compares to roughly 20% of the total male prison population, and a minuscule proportion of female prisoners.

@HackneyMum1

Fourth point: do you think it's possible, or even conceivable, that men who are determined to be a risk to women (and who in no fashion should be allowed in a women's changing room) could be attracted to a career and lifestyle choice that some people (like you) believe gives them a free pass to do so?

Again this is nothing about DU himself, who could be pure as the driven snow in all respects. You have to see the issue with using "he's a doctor and decided to devote his career to the NHS" is dangerous.

Fifth point: the relevance that he's a doctor is rather diminished by the fact that this occured in his workplace, in a hospital. Not much surprise that he's a doctor, given the facts of the case: hospitals are where you tend to find doctors working.

Sixth point, by the same set of values, Nurse Peggie has devoted her career to helping people, with significantly less monetary and social reward than DU. Why do you care only what DU's chosen career is, and not the person on the other side of the dispute?

Here you go (rest of the document is an interesting read too):

Comparisons of official MOJ statistics from March / April 2019 (most recent official count of transgender prisoners):
76 sex offenders out of 129 transwomen = 58.9%
125 sex offenders out of 3812 women in prison = 3.3%
13234 sex offenders out of 78781 men in prison = 16.8%

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/

on the subject of doctors...

My doctor got done for 1000s of child abuse images.

Just because someone is a doctor doesn't make them good, honest upstanding individuals. Some of them are perverts.

https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/16062207.prominent-chester-gp-caught-almost-17-000-indecent-images-children/

Sorry to hear you have had those awful experiences, Solentsolo
Today's judgment seems to have set things back but it's obvious even to non-lawyers like me that there are flaws in it and hopefully it will be appealed.
Don't lose hope, don't lose heart, and we're all thinking the same as you, you're not alone.

edited to say- OK not all of us, but you know what I mean - you're definitely not alone

Mate, I know you think this is incredibly clever, but if you want to force women to get changed with men, you don't get to cry about boundaries when women simply talk about you getting changed with men. It really is not the stunning inversion you think it is.

This isn't about Dr Upton in particular. It's about men in general. Dr Upton is a man. HTH.

Seeing as the Brave & Stunning Warriors for Righteousness have been frantically reporting any suggestion that we not polish their "haloes" - we can clearly see that they only believe in boundaries for their Good Selves.

I know! A poster is advocating for the side that thinks it's great that a man gets to make Sandie do what they can't even bear to discuss.

I have no issue saying I don't want to get my kit off in front of a man in a woman's changing room! I certainly don't want to be in a state of undress if a man is allowed to walk in the door because he's said "I am a woman".

All I asked was that a pp not say to me.

"I get it: you like to undress in front of men".

I feel that was a sexually demeaning and unnecessarily personal remark.

It wasn't even related to my post.

I think it's gross that you are hammering this out and trying to make me look silly and defend myself for that.

Whatever you think about this case, there's no need to make those kinds of personal comments.

Im leaving this subject now.

Nope. 'You're happy to...' not the same thing.

Anyway, it still isn't / wasn't a sexual comment (harassment or demeaning).

You're the one advocating for mixed sex changing spaces, so the inference is you'd be happy to use them.

Boundaries for me 😇 and not for thee 😈

There was only one person in the changing room capable of rape
There was only one person in that changing room with the strength of a man
There was only one person in that room who had gone through male puberty
There was only one person in that changing room with a penis and gonads.
There was only one person in that changing room with male pattern baldness
There was only one person in that changing room who was capable of having a period
There was only one person in that changing room who was a biological woman.

I assume you agree with all these statements? If not why not?

All the people responding suggests that they do care.

I asked about the appeal process earlier - anyone know potential timescales and if the same sort of witnessess will be required or not?

Maybe we could keep this thread to legal analysis, in keeping with the previous ones? There is no point discussing matters of men and women with posters who don't believe there is a discernable difference.

But you have no wish for single sex spaces? Doesn’t quite work.

You're missing a word from the third statement

It’s not personal.

It’s now the law.

You have to choose - be happy to get undressed in front of men. Or say you’re not happy so you get access to a true single sex space.

Im sorry you’re experiencing cognitive dissonance. It’s hard when the lie catches up on you and you feel uncomfortable.

You are also happy for young girls to have to strip in front of men if you support this ruling.

It isn’t personal it’s a reflection of your well stated and obsessively repeated position. If you don’t like how it lands with you that’s tough.

@weegielass - Whichever appeal goes first sets a precedent that the second appeal must follow unless they can differentiate between the cases. It is, for example, possible that the EAT will decide the rules for toilets and changing rooms are different, although that seems unlikely. I haven't read the decision yet, but some of what I have seen suggests that the tribunal in this case has not given a decision on the interpretation of the Workplace Regulations regarding toilets, apparently deciding that this was unnecessary to resolve this case. So a failed appeal by SP does not necessarily mean that trans-identifying men are allowed in the women's toilets.

For what it is worth, my view is that the only possible interpretation of the Workplace Regulations following FWS is that the women's facilities are for biological women only. Anything else would mean they are mixed sex according to the FWS judgement, open to all men, so the label on the door would be worthless and the relevant provisions of the Workplace Regulations would be meaningless.

Article in the Telegraph quoting government figures:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/24/government-figures-70-per-cent-of-transgender-prisoners-are/

thanks for the legal view.