NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #57

[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 28 September 2025 to 21 November 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 19 November 2025 to 8 December 2025
Thread 56: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5456749-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-56 8 December 2025 to 9 December 2025

Re the no evidence that men in women's CRs are more dangerous thing: I think the judgment specified that there is no evidence that men in women's CRs in the workplace are more dangerous.

I suspect this may literally be true. There is probably no evidence that, say, men born in April who wear blue trousers are more dangerous on the top deck of buses than women are.

But it should surely be in judicial knowledge that men are more dangerous than women and that therefore, in the absence of evidence that work CRs make men less dangerous, it should be a reason inference?

Or is there an implicit assumption along the lines that in a workplace everyone is vetted, noone is anonymous and, as we all know woman are only vulnerable to stranger danger, so work CRs must be different?

Obvs none of this is spelt out in the relevant paragraph, but it all stinks of bullshit.

Yeah. The judge has achieved a Christmas miracle, and given both terfs and TRAs schadenfreude and despair in equal measure.

He qualified in 1983. That puts him in his late 60s. I suspect after this debacle we will hear that he is 'spending more time with his family'. He might carry on with a bit of consultancy with his firm but will 'retire' from judging. The judgment is that bad.

I've never encountered one. I have come across a woman in the men's loos in Disneyland Paris. She had clearly got fed up with the long queue for the ladies. I wasn't bothered and nobody else seemed to bat an eyelid.

Personally, if it were to happen I think I would make the same judgement I would with other men in the toilet - do I think this person is so weird that I want to keep away or represents a threat to me (for example, does their behaviour suggest they are under the influence of drugs or drink and becoming aggressive). Depending on my assessment, I will sometimes wait for a cubicle even though I only need a urinal. Or I may use a urinal further away from them than I normally would - you never use the urinal next to another man if it is avoidable, but I might go to the far end of the row from another user rather than just a few urinals away.

I can't speak for all men. I'm sure there are some who would object to and possibly abuse a TIM in the men's, in the same way that some homosexuals experience verbal abuse, intimidation or assault in public toilets. But I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Beerlzebub · Today 10:28
Sorry, I haven't RTFT. But I've been doing a bit of fossicking on the Reddit TransUK subreddit and found these comments, from about the only two transes on there who understand legal stuff and aren't just going "Rah rah rah! We won, Peggie lost, TERFs are fewmin!":

Thank you so much for reading the Reddit- so we don't have to😏

These posts are very revealing. Some of them could have been posted here - the same sort of criticisms, from the opposite perspective e.g. they fear an appeal, we think 'bring it on!' - subject to SP's wishes of course, it's entirely up to her, she has given up so much already to take it this far, and she owes 'the cause' nothing further, if that's her decision💐

I'm wondering if Sandy realised he was in way, way over his head, panicked, threw all his notes into ChatGPT, added a wee bit of 'be kind', a dose of 'wims be bitches', prayed hard, and then threw the whole resulting metaphorical Apocabundle into the largest folder he had and ran away.

Doctor, are you gathering honorifics every time you change names? I can't help but notice a very impressive array, there. Positively top heavy!

In the Kelly judgement 'They're vetted, and therefore OK' is explicit.

But there's also the problem that even if judges know that men are more dangerous than women, they don't know that men who say they're women are. It may be a logical assumption in the absence of other information and if you understand they are men. But it's not a given, and if you think they're somehow really women then it's not even a logical inference.

It does have that feeling. It would explain the incoherence, the hallucinated quotes, the lack of proper citations, the incomplete and twisted case references. I can't quite believe a senior lawyer with a long career and a decent reputation would do this, but this ideology makes idiots of people.

I have a default female assumption, and given this board/site, make no apology for it.

To be fair, I used to think like the judge in terms of safety of known/vetted work colleagues, until I naively allowed myself to be a vulnerable position (ie alone) with one and he sexually assaulted me. But a judge should be much more knowledgeable and less trusting than the very young me. I want to go back and give her a hug.

To be fair to him, the media interest in the case was quite possibly intense pressure he wasn't used to and may not have expected.

That said, this being Scotland, there's also a distinct possibilty he had politicians breathing down his neck, also. The heavy huffs of the government's vested interests are far too close to the judiciary for comfort, in my humble opinion.

That was NOT your fault. The only fault there lies with the fucker who assaulted you, and anyone caping for him, whether intentionally or not.

It's incredibly depressing and frightening in equal measure. He is clearly a man who, subconsciously or not, does not ever consider the safety of women based on ACTUAL STATISTICAL FACTS to be worth his while. Women just do not matter to men, even in highly important legal judgements.

I feel so despairing about this. The absolute melts in charge of my country right now have driven this forward, in policy, in the judiciary, in prisons, in schools. To the point that a very factual, clear case of harassment and WHY it's important for women to have single sex spaces is just ignored. I give up, I really do.

I try to have a default female assumption whenever sex is irrelevant and saying "she" isn't obviously contrary to facts. 😁 It started with reading Invisible Women and realising that everyone is conditioned to assume male - so I made an effort to call eg squirrels or cats or cuddly toys "she" so my DD would think female was the default human, and it went on from there...

(Edited for typo.)

WRT my second point, we can look to Quangos to see how they are reacting to this pig's ear of a judgement for clues.

My DD has a default female. What has been depressing has been how unusual this is, once you notice it. Every bugger, whether soft toy, animal, or imaginary friend, is assumed male until proven otherwise.

Really sorry if this has been posted already, it goes into some great detail:

Wings Over Scotland | The Valley Of The Dolls

The judgement is depressing and frightening, but there has been such a huge reaction to it - not just here where our reactions were a bit predictable😏 but in the media and even, as a PP has found out, on transgender Reddit, where it is dawning on them that the judgment was so bad there's bound to be some kind of follow-up, and even they seem to think it won't be good for the TRAs.

So yes, awful, but also galvanising and energising. Don't give up💐

I've asked a different question of my DH.

Would you ever use women's toilets?

No

Why not?

Because it would make women uncomfortable if there was a man in there.

Surely that's the nub of the whole thing isn't it.

It makes me happy when family members pick up eg a cuddly zebra shark and say, "So what's his name?" and my DD looks at them like they're crazy and says, "It's a she." (I seem to remember though that as a sex realist I was obliged to Wikipedia zebra sharks in case they have significant sexual dimorphism, and it was in fact a male. I might be overthinking.)

I've only name-changed once and that was for the last Belfast tribunal thread when I gave myself as many as I could fit into the box. I should probably shed them and go back to dull old CC but I'm stuck with it now until thread 58. Which with a press conference this afternoon won't be long coming!

Me too - thanks for digging those out @Beerlzebub and a tiny bit heartening to know that there are people on "the other side" who are comfortable agreeing how dire this is.

Hyperlinks or no, hadn’t Sandy made the point that any man in the female changing room constituted a psychological danger to her, a threat to her mental health, because of previous experience of SA?

I know this has been said before but it’s really bugging me. Whether or not trans-identified male colleagues are extensively vetted, I don’t want to get changed in front of them! They may be the gentlest pacifist man ever, but the fact that they want to be in my changing room or my toilet immediately compromises my privacy and dignity. How dare Big Sond ignore these issues? I bet he doesn’t strip down to his kecks in front of his female colleagues! Safety first, but privacy and dignity are valid concerns for women in the workplace.