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

Post-FWR, wouldn’t Upton be misrepresenting himself as a biologically female doctor to vulnerable female patients?

I’m mind boggled that this is being ignored by EJ Kemp and his merry panel.

Is there a word for laws/legal judgement that does not take into account reality?

There is a theatre that has made all of their toilets "all sex". There are two toilets but at intermission the women all went to one toilet and the men to the other. A man did find himself in the toilet with all the women, and was confused and embaressed when he came out and saw women.

Having all sex toilets only benefits one group of people (Trans-rights activists) and puts the other 99% of people at a disadvantage.

Enjoying the Wings analysis - good to see the two texts side-by-side.
and agree here:
"The idea that the ruling means you couldn’t have a male cleaner or repairman in a women’s toilet is so farcically embarrassing that a random idiot on Twitter would be ashamed of it, let alone an experienced judge."

Agree. Yet that concept is one I've seen some of the less bright tra legal minds spout so presumably it's done the rounds in transactivist legal circles and he's picked it up?

I also wonder because "gender reassignement" is recognised in the equality act, does that mean in legal circles their sex is considered changed or it just adds to the confusion.

Maybe there does need to be a gender act of some description to guide judges how to view people who have undergone gender reassignment i.e. they aren't to be discriminated against, but they are only taking on their percieved version of the social role, rather than actually changing sex.

Glossed over because he gave evidence before the FWS SC judgment, IIRC

Nurses who trained before the mandatory graduate route were better still thoroughly trained and more than aware of the need for records.

They were taught the difference between males and females and everything.

Upton doesn't have a GRC so the SC judgment made no difference to his legal sex. The appeal prior to the SC already confirmed that men without a GRC remain legally men.

When I was in Key Stage 1 (so long ago it wasn’t even called KS1, but infant 1 and 2) we had one set of loos for all the children. It was 1 room with 2 cubicles and shared sinks. The children designated 1 as the boys and 1 as the girls. Everyone abided by our self imposed rules. I remember a dinner lady supervisor trying to rush us all through one day, and was telling the girls to use the empty cubicle on the right. ‘But it’s the boys’ ‘ we cried! She could not persuade us to use it. The boys didn’t want to use the girls’ cubicle either.

I just can't get my head round this at all.

Kemp would possibly argue that this only confirmed to him that Upton’s self identity was genuinely held 🙄🙄🙄

Can anyone explain in plain english why DU harrassment was thrown out. They are recognised as male, using the female only single-sex space and they didn't have a GRC? Surely that meets some threshold of sexual harassement?

I'm very poorly ick with a busy schedule for the next three days, so forgive me for not reading anything everything after 12.40pm today.

Also I seek forgiveness if this has already been posted, but is a fucking good summary of the case compared to the Supreme Court decision.

Particularly loved the Family Guy meme:

https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-valley-of-the-dolls/

But then various medical professionals Dr Searle, one of the senior nurses (forgotten her name and can’t be bothered to check, sorry), Isla Bumba (not a medical professional but she holds a degree in immunology and a Masters in Global Health and Management) variously claimed they didn’t know what sex they were or what sex anyone was and other bonkers claims. Seriously how do they work in A&E? How do they know what size catheter they need? How do they fill in path lab requests (ours still have F/M boxes to tick)?
Now that the dust has settled from their lamentable performances in the witness box I suppose it’s back to business as usual. Except for the ones who have Sandie’s further court cases to look forward to. 🤦‍♀️

To be fair, evidence from a woman who proclaimed that she was a man would be treated in the same way.

We could just replace the word “gender” with “stereotypes”. Be a lot easier.

ETA Stereotypes that have no bearing on biology. For people who need it to be clear. You know, like medical doctors etc

No I know, but I think that was the judge’s basis for ignoring Upton perjuring himself.

By which i mean its completely incomprehensible that a man with a degree in medicine and working as a doctor could have genuinely considered himself female in any way whatsoever given he’d taken no steps to “transition” other than clothing, hair, make up etc

The fact that it is credible for man to call himself a woman due to the fact that legislation prevents discrimination against a person who holds that belief AND that this results in women not having the presumption of single sex spaces in the workplaces shows that these laws which, were introduced almost by stealth by the Labour Party in their last administration, are far from innocuous.

Upton does not even have a GRC yet calls himself a biological female and he IS BELIEVED.

The world has gone mad and I do not believe that this was ever the intention of the legislators.

Ok, so setting my last paragraph aside... and a woman sat in a witness box and told that kind of whopper, it would still be a lie, wouldn't it?

And we're not supposed to lie in court. There are supposed to be grave consequences if we do. For good reason.

If I give evidence in a tribunal tomorrow and say something that is demonstrably false, would I get away with it on any other topic?

I am so sick of all this. I follow all these ETs avidly like many of us. I had some fears that this would happen. It’s all so obvious that these highly educated judges and the rest of them must be pretending to not understand. I have read all the theories here like maybe the EJ put out shameful judgement full of idiocies to force an appeal for higher court to make decisions. That is partly true but I think the sheer overwhelming aggression showed by the gender ideologists and trans activists, and the threats of violence to anyone standing up to them means that even big powerful male judges are too afraid.

Why can it be said in court does anyone know?

The issue here is that Upton, as with many trans-identifying females, genuinely believes he is a woman. He is not, therefore, lying when he states that in court, even though his statement is objectively false.

One of the reasons there are few prosecutions for perjury is that it is not enough to show that the witness said something untrue in court. You have to prove that they knew that what they said was untrue.

Personally, I think there was enough in Upton's evidence to discredit him regardless of what you make of his view that he is a woman. But, from the court's perspective, you may discount a statement by a witness if it is clearly objectively false, but that doesn't automatically discredit the rest of their testimony unless it is clear that they knew the statement was false.

There was a comment in the judgment basically saying that the court respected his beliefs but in coming to their conclusions did not agree with him in terms of his sex.

In which case it is clear that the PC of gender reassignment is completely at odds with women's rights. This man claimed in court under oath that he would treat a female patient who had requested female only care. He said he thought this was acceptable because he is female. This "belief" of his is obviously not based in reality and cannot possibly be woriads. I don't understand how this could be a PC.