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

It doesn’t work the other way round either. Was Dr Upton’s supervisor supposed to get the approval of all the staff of every rota and every new staff member before he ever went in?

Do you not think he has been writing it all year?

I think the judge is saying he cannot rule on the Workplace Regs because that is criminal law. It is not within his jurisdiction.

He goes on to say, but what is a poor employer to do? Then he outlines how the two PCs need to be weighed and talks about how difficult that is and mentions the rights and concerns of both PCs.
However, a couple of times he notes that it is particularly difficult if there are just male and female facilities - so maybe a steer for 3rd spaces?

So, if he cannot rule on Workplace Regs then an appeal will not solve this, though it may address other issues about the case.

So someone else needs to clarify the Workplace Regs, as pp have said
(IA definitely NAL)

Taking my own advice.

I'm troubled by the possible role played by the Panel's two lay-members in this tedious travesty of a ruling. The two lay-members are listed as a C Russell and an L Brown.

One is there to bring the experience & perspective of an employer, such as a business owner or human resources specialist. The second should provide the experience & perspective of an employee, such as a trade union official. This is supposed to ensure that Employment Tribunals have a balance of manager & worker experience to draw on while making their rulings.

But we know the Trade Unions are pretty much universally TWAW & No Debate diehards. Who on this Panel was providing experience & focus on the employee rights of someone like Sandie Peggie, rather than just those of Dr Upton?

Does anyone know the backgrounds of C Russell and L Brown?

I'm beginning to understand the concerns raised over the Tribunal Panel members for the recent Belfast Film Festival & Sara Morrison discrimination case.

Well, it's surely partly a class issue too? Here's a working-class woman up against a middle-class man, a scion of the local aristocracy. Who speaks for her?

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-act/article-8-respect-your-private-and-family-life

"The courts have interpreted the concept of ‘private life’ very broadly. It covers things like your right to determine your sexual orientation, your lifestyle, and the way you look and dress. It also includes your right to control who sees and touches your body."

"In some circumstances, public authorities may need to help you enjoy your right to a private life, including your ability to participate in society."

Peggie is justified in asking for a single-sex changing room as a means of controlling who sees her body, and Fife, as a public authority, should provide the single-sex changing room in order to facilitate her ability to participate in society by carrying on working at the job that she has held for years and is competent to do.

I'm trying to get my head around the logic.

So under the EA 2010 Upton has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment and Sandie has the protected characteristic of sex which are competing rights. FWS meant that sex, woman and female are all tightly defined.

So then we come to the 1992 workplace act, supposedly Upton is retaining the gender reassignment category of rights but sex, woman, female, we've no idea what that means.

Also if you applied the "logic" of this judgement what does this mean for changing rooms or toilets not in a workplace?

How often can they use the facilty before we can complain? They may use the facility an unlimited number of times until a complaint has been lodged. A single complaint doesn't count. A group complaint will be discounted because it is bullying.

How soon should we lodge a complaint and with whom? The instant a policy is implemented, but not until someone has been attacked. Not with your line manager; and not bypassing your line manager. Definitely not with any staff forum, or with HR.

What's a reasonable length of time to wait for a response? Indefinite, but certainly not less than a year.

Should we challenge any individuals directly? Absolutely forbidden, even - perhaps especially- if the policy mandates doing so before lodging a formal complaint. Direct challenge is harassment. Any formal complaint lodged before a direct challenge has been made can be dismissed for not following proceedure.

What are acceptable words & phrases to use if we do take that route? There are none.

How many women need to make a complaint before it's considered valid? N + 1.

Do we avoid looking directly at him/them? Or do we have to make eye contact? Yes. And also no.

How soon can we leave the room after a man enters, or we find him already there, without it being considered harassment? He must leave first. But you mustn't wait for him to leave.

Simple.

In Belfast the judge said the president set her workload, which would determine how quickly she'd be able to deliver the judgement. It wasn't about notice.

The timing on this seems supicious. All parties agreed 5 days. SP's legal team got 3 hours notice. The assumption - and proper process - is that Fife had the same. But just few days ago (less than 5?) Fife engaged a PR firm. 🤔

I see that P News is leading with a headline which focuses on SP 'failing' against TU.

That includes less-than-angelic female humans like Sandie.

"Right wing women are women." ~ Kellie-Jay Keen.

Well done for illustrating several of the ridiculous framings that transactivists use in an attempt to obfuscate, and for uncritically summarising some of the extraordinarily surprising conclusions of the judge (there was only one) and two lay panel members. There are several grounds for appeal, so you would do well not to crow so loudly. The judge didn't even proofread his definition of "transman" and that is indicative of the quality of his judgment. Plenty of words, but not much truth and wisdom.

Sure. There is an interpretation of traffic law that one way signs are optional, but it's a wrong interpretation.

They always do that. Many TRAs don’t even realise Allison Bailey won a significant discrimination claim against Garden Court because all the focus was on her losing the one against Stonewall.

It’s just spin.

Can I ask a few questions- I am genuinely curious about how your thinking differs from mine.

What do you think is reductive about sex fundementalism?

Why do you support the actions of DU?

Do you think it is reasonable for females to be fearful and uncomfortable when a male enters a space designated for them to be undressed in?

The thing about feminism is that the personal is political. When we are talking about women's rights to privacy, dignity, safety, and bodily autonomy, the personal cannot avoid being political. When we are talking about a woman being forced to change in front of a human who was born with wedding tackle, we are talking about that woman having her rights infringed. This is a textbook example of the personal being political.

I presume that you are female, born with a vulva, right? So if you support Peggie being forced to change in front of a bepenised human, it stands to reason that you'd accept that for yourself, otherwise you'd be a massive hypocrite, and I don't think you have that character flaw.

Your personal stance on this case is not just personal, it is also political, and hence a legitimate subject for discussion on this thread. The initial commenter you objected to so strongly, and all the commenters since, were simply making that point.

It definitely is.

In the case of, e.g. HE institutions, where there is no distinction between staff loos and loos used by students and the public, an interpretation of the Workplace (Health Safety and Welfare) Regs 1992 that classes (some) men as women would immediately be in conflict with the EA2010 requirement that woman means "human with female biology" and "women's loos" means "no wedding tackle allowed". And turning the loos into explicitly mixed sex would immediately violate W(HSW)R92's requirement that loos be separate for men and women. So either your point has to hold up in law, or else universities will have to spend a lot of money on making all their loos single-occupant-self-contained, which @Keeptoiletssafe might have some strong opinions about.

I suspect, given what I've said about staff loos often also being the student loos, that the SC's "legally incoherent" argument could be made about any attempt to treat "women" as including some men for the purposes of W(HSW)R92.

I disagree with this. I know that JKR keeps making this point, but I don't think it is useful to the conversation to derail and point to other factors when the actual issue is still that males are;

1. Males are at least 2x stronger than females- there is evidence that after transition they maintain a significant strength advantage
2. Males are much more likely to violently attack female than other females.
3. Males are much more likely to violently attack females in private spaces as oppose public spaces like they do males.
4. There is evidence to show that the risk to females being violently attacked by males doesn't change after a male transitions.

This is the reason that for females to be able to participate equally in society as males, they have to have access to single sex spaces anywhere they would be removing clothing, attending to their private areas and engaging in physical contact or contest.

Gillian Philip was one of the early gender critical employment tribunal cases in Scotland, along with Maya in England & Wales. The ET judge in Gillian's case was Kemp and Gillian stated last year that she was not positive that Kemp was the right judge for this case or that he was able to make a non-sexist judgement. Her own experience of Kemp hearing her case was what she based her estimation on.

Here are some of Gillian's comments today:

https://x.com/GillianPhilip/status/1998033193191280736?s=20
"Kemp. Does. Not. Like. Strong. Assertive. Women.

He’s an old-school sexist, and that shines through in this judgment."

https://x.com/GillianPhilip/status/1998129035428380720?s=20
"I cannot endorse this enough. He WANTS women to be victims. In the absence of a weak woman, Upton sufficed."

https://x.com/GillianPhilip/status/1998029918983299439?s=20
"One of the things that did for the harassment case against Upton is that Sandie was too strong and together. Kemp does not like that in a woman: he’d give more weight to emotional weakness. That’s probably why he had so much sympathy with Upton, who played him just right."

https://x.com/GillianPhilip/status/1998122795784364456?s=20
"Everyone is all “Sandie Peggie should appeal!”

And I actually agree.

HOWEVER. Could everyone in England please understand that Scotland is its own — occasionally shitty — very small world. She’ll need ovaries of steel to confront these fucks again, and it’d be good to take into account how this affects HER on a personal level.

Whatever she decides, I’m behind her. But don’t be naive."

Gillian Philip's comment from last year:

https://x.com/Gillian_Philip/status/1883089733456380037?s=20

"Judge Kemp? He did not consider my account of my emotional breakdown (following recent widowhood and my sacking) to be fully genuine, and was inclined to disbelieve the psychiatrist who diagnosed me.

Good luck to the nurse."

Oh yes, i remember her comment.

Yes, that’s the issue, but I think the way SP has been treated is at least in part class based.