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

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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

All right. Then how do you think we should categorise sex and gender? According to what criteria?

The post with “you’d be happy to” is clear to read on page 25 and was not edited.

I think what we have now is absolutely fine- although perhaps some legal recognition of binary identity should be possible.
What I object to is simply the interpretation of the SC judgement which insists that the law definitionally prohibits any trans woman from ever using any facility/ service for women, and vice versa for trans men. I think that has introduced a dangerous fundamentalism into understandings of sex/ gender in law which are harmful to everyone including women. Equation of biological sex with simple "sex at birth" is also a problem that can affect people with DSDs btw.
How does it work in your country?

fooking hell, the dogma 😆

if you’ve ever lived anywhere near a farm, let me assure you, you bloody know what sexual dimorphism is

I mean, we could get into chicken sex and fungi but humans are mammals

yes. It really is that simple

and gender just means gender stereotypes. Which is an important social consideration within social interactions as it’s led to restrictive and sexist attitudes

I think it’s relevant, so I guess you do you and I’ll do me.

I don't think these rights do compete re changing rooms and toilets. The GR protected characteristic means you can't be discriminated against for that. It doesn't mean you have the right to be treated as your chosen gender in all circumstances. Upton should've been discriminated against as a man in those instances (i.e. no men are allowed into women's changing facilities / toilets). And discrimination against sex in that circumstance is allowed. I think these rights judge is wrong about the rights competing in relation to the subject of this action. IMO. (IANADiscriminationL.)

The very fact that the term fundamentalism is being used in a discussion about basic biology demonstrates how badly ideological dogma has taken over basic science

Biology isn't basic.

It's a fundamentalist view of biology.

And this conversation isn't just about biology, it's about society.

You have been sexually harassed by the law. I don’t think it’s your friend.

And as a lawyer no one can draft for gender dysphoria.

It’s rather like drafting legislation to recognises multiple personalties in a person with the disorder or psychological delusions of identity in someone in an acute psychiatric episode.

Or recognizing someone’s racial identity as Afro-Caribbean when they are just plain old Anglo Saxon.

We don’t recognise trans-race
We don’t recognise trans-age
We don’t recognise trans-pregnant
We don’t recognise trans-maternity

So why do men with assert a trans ‘gender’ ideology get special treatment?

They want to compel people with biologically sexed bodies to witness them get changed to their boxers where their phalluses are evident.

They want to turn every single sex space into a mixed sex space because of their dysphoria and elaborate cos play way to address that mental ‘incongruity’.

People who have ‘fluid’ sexual identities when you drill down are in the main homosexual or heterosexual. That being said they get to do those activities with consenting adults and at any given moment their sexuality is protected under one of two limbs. They don’t remove other people’s rights. They don’t insert themselves into groups who believe sex should be limited to between men and women. Etc etc.

You may be struggling to grasp any of this given your current position re comprehension of like and happy.

EJ SK has said women who know that men remain men despite how they dress or whatever physical treatments they undergo to manage their mental distress - they have rights and employers should now accommodate their legal right to single sex spaces.

What is it that upsets you about women having single sex spaces? Do you want women to be sexually harassed by pretending to be happy to get undressed to their underwear in front of men?

Now women have a clear choice and their rights are protected. A step forward and more steps will be made to protect biological women’s rights. This is a good judgement and the illegal parts of it will be appealed.

It's not that simple though. That's the entire point.
If it were that simple we wouldn't be having all these court cases for a start.

That's a nasty thing to do, isn't it? Just like the unwanted, unconsensual presence of a biological male who said under oath that he was a biological woman complaining that a woman wouldn't use the changing room while he was there.

What people are saying is that every woman should be able to say 'no, I don't want to get undressed or use toilets in the knowledge that a man can walk in at any time and no one will do anything unless I complain, and they quite possibly won't do it them either.' They shouldn't have to talk about deeply personal things to gain a legal right, and people need to remember that one in three women will suffer sexual abuse in their lifetime and that women are not 'validation aids' for men who believe they are women.

If a person chooses to share facilities, that is their choice. If a person does not want to share facilities, it is, apparently, not their choice. That makes a lot of us angry. Stirring up that anger for fun is another reason why we don't want to share facilities.

We don’t recognise trans-race
We don’t recognise trans-age
We don’t recognise trans-pregnant
We don’t recognise trans-maternity

No. because there's no evidence that these things exist as real axes of human diversity. So there's no need to recognise them in law. There's never been a person who was born trans-race or trans-age.

Being transgender is a real thing, despite the ignorance of the majority of women on mumsnet.

Which wasn't said.

It’s an unscientific or delusional view to suggest sex isn’t binary.

Please provide scientific evidence that sex isn’t binary.

There are two sexes. There are disorders of sexual development but they arise from binary states.

Saying humans have two eyes isn’t eyeball fundamentalism. And if someone loses an eye or has one surgically removed it doesn’t make humans mono eyeballed species.

If I’m a sex fundamentalist then what does make you? A gender evangelist? Not sure you’re spreading your ‘faith’ to the easily converted.

We’re all too busy being fundamental with science and stuff.

It didn't. I said it and I know what I said. I certainly didn't edit it.

No a trans woman using a women's changer is not nasty.

Thats why DU was cleared of all wrongdoing. If she had made comments to SP about her being happy to get undressed jn front of a man, the complaint would have been upheld.

But she didn't make any intrusive personal comments. She was just using the work facility as it was intended as she had been allowed to do.

I'm guessing she thinks it's been deleted as she reported it. Hence saying she now can't see it.

Being transgender is a real thing, despite the ignorance of the majority of women on mumsnet.

Even if it is a "real" thing, it's clear doesn't impact sex, or any sex-related behaviour. So why is it relevant to any laws or regulations about sex?

If there was any way in which transgender males clearly differed from other males, then maybe it would make sense to try to incorporate the concept of transgender in law. But even then not by trying to replace sex.

Sex has clear objective observable effects worth legislating for. What effects does "transgender" have?

These new gender identity evangelicals are a recent ideology.

Because it’s a religion of about 20 years call they don’t have much to stand on.

Attacking and disbelieving science is a fundamental part of their theology.

Reverse engineering the truth into a belief akin to their own is how they assert their ideology on others.

I'm a bit confused. You say what we have now is fine. But what we have now is a historical and cultural understanding that women are the people born with a vagina and a vulva, while men are the people born with a penis and testicles - aka, sex at birth. Obviously you don't agree with that, right? So you think this dichotomy should be revised? If so, what other criteria do you think we should use?

It works the same in my country as in the UK.

So I'm laughing my head off now.

Biological men are now born with incongruence of their gender identity.

Even if they have their mental disorder from birth (got any evidence apart from your magical thinking 🤔 oh thought not) it doesn't mean anything other than sex is binary.

Sex is binary because you have to transition from one to the other to fit your creed. You gender evangelical just make stuff up as you go along.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Interesting... I think I understand where we differ.

For me sex is the objective presentation of how the body will reproduce. In all sexually reproducing organisms there is a sex binary even in plants such as the hollybush that has a female plant (the one with the berries) and the male (the one with the spiky leaves). The female is defined by having a body and reproductive system organised around the larger less motile gametes and the male has the body and reproductive systems organised around the smaller and more motile gametes. I disagree that pyschology and socialisation are any part of sex as plants do not have a nervous system capable of producing emotions.

When you discuss social aspects of sex, this is what I understand as gender. I agree with the theory that you can change the way you present, but if you can present that way then that gender presenation is still part of your sex. For example having a certain asthetic or demonstrating a certain behaviour is a social expression of your sex, rather than being a demonstration that you can change that sex. What I mean by this is a that a male can demonstrate behaviour that is more commonly accepted within female e.g. wearing high heeled shoes, but in doing so he is doing he is not changing sex, or his gender.

I agree that gender can change, I just disagree that it can change outside of the restrictions of the sex. The gender expression of females in 11th century Japan is very different from the gender expression of Canadians in the 21st century, but their sex i.e. the way that their body has grown to reproduce is sitll the same. TI observe that feminism has increased the gender identity of women, and the with decriminisation of male homosexuality and marriage equality it looks like the same widening of acceptable gender expression in men is starting to happen.

I also agree that there the presence of DSD and intersex conditions tells us something about sex. I disagree that it demonstrates that sex is a continum and changeable, but that it offers proof that it is fixed. If you could change your sex these people would not exist into adulthood as they would be successfully treated to be able reproduce etc.

In reality though, all of these points are moot. In humans the biggest difference between males and females is the difference in strength. This fact is not only objectively observable, and subjectively felt, but it is also not able to be changed with any type of transition treatment. This means, that even if a male undergoes treatment meant to feminise them, the research that is coming up demonstrates that they still have a significantly higher level of strength than females. It also true that trans-men undergoing testosterone treatment are unable to develop strength comparable to that of even a weak man.

Therefore my theory is this conflict is not about gender identity but about the diffierence in strength and aggression between males and females. I have watched quite a few different transgender women talk about what it means to them to "live as a woman" from Contrapoints to Blaire White and not one of them has spoken about the feeling that they are not able to physically retaliate if attacked by a man. This is why I reject the idea that sex/gender is pyschological because it oversteps the fundemental daily experience of women navigating a world knowing they cannot fight back against a male over the age of 14.

You haven't followed the trial or read the judgment.

It's ok gender fundamentalists belief systems don't account for facts reality or clarity.

He used the changing rooms in absence of any policy and without permission. He informed his manager. He had decided he was a women a few months earlier.

He wasn't a think woman from birth just 2023. A late convert to your church of mind thoughts.

Let's be very clear. The SC judgement was very clear. It was tested against a variety of scenario and circumstance.

If a facility, service or category is officially designated as 'women only' - 'woman' means biological sex and that means female people. If a service or organisation has decided that female dignity, privacy or fairness is a legitimate aim then that is the end of the matter. No male person ( including those with a GRC) is entitled to use it.

Women have every right to expect that a facility. service or category designated as such is exactly that - and organisations and individuals ( in the case of men) who wilfully breach that rule are liable to having legal action taken against them. In the case of a man, he can be sued for sexual harassment.

The fiction of 'legal sex' does not over-rule the rights and protections afforded to the protected category of 'Sex'. A GRC makes no difference.

People are obviously struggling with the realisation that what they've been told is a fact or is true withiin the 'community' is actually not the case, and never has been.

The carefully constructed and perpertrated narrative and supposed bill of rights was an illusion. When an illsuion is shattered it can be very difficult to accept; especially when one has taken decisions based upon, and formed one's belief system around, that illusion.