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

But there’s surely no reasonable basis on which he can genuinely think he is female, or not male. He has a degree in medicine. He must know full well he is male. He had taken no steps physically or physiologically to transition.

If you truly believe in the sex is a spectrum then you could believe that. If you are one of the people that think science is faith rather than facts, then you may think your own "facts" are more true.

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.

I have to wholly disagree with this.

He is a medical doctor. He absolutely does not genuinely believe he is biologically female. At least not in the sense of the meaning of those words that 99.9999% of humans on the planet attribute to them.

As we know, trans individual define the terms "male" and "female" differently.

An interesting watch but the Scottish minister answering questions continually got wrong the appeal period. He said it was 14 days. Instead, this seems to be the position:

Once the ET's decision is issued to both parties, parties have 14 days to apply to the ET to reconsider its decision and 42 days to appeal.

Yes but nothing in the Equality Act 2010 and it's provisions on gender reassignment mean that the law must give new meaning to the words biological female or male.

The protection of his belief means he cannot be disciplined, sacked or otherwise discriminated against simply for holding that belief. It does not mean that any and all manifestations of that belief are acceptable. If, for example, he conducts an intimate examination of a woman who has asked for a female doctor, he is likely to be guilty of sexual assault notwithstanding his protected belief.

Which, I suppose is where Kemp pressing the point that Upton gave evidence before FWS comes in

That Wings piece was very good, worth the effort to stick with it. One point in there that has been brought up in these discussions in the past - since before the SC ruling - is that the comparator for discrimination against a transwoman should generally be another man. The SC ruling gives the example of pregnancy related discrimination - a TW could not possibly be pregnant so is entitled to no more or less favourable treatment than any other man.

The judge this week said that gender reassignment has equal weight to sex as a protected characteristic, which it does, but only in the above context. It absolutely does NOT mean that a single sex spaces are equally available to women based on the PC of sex and TWs on the PC of gender reassignment.

The findings looking flaky on multiple grounds, this is just one of them.

I think Upton saying he's a biological female is ridiculous, but many people hold many beliefs that other people find ridiculous - religious beliefs, or conspiracy theories for example. That wouldn't totally discredit them in a court case. Even if they were a doctor who believed the Bible was the literal word of God. The same is true for Upton's beliefs.

I thought I had no chance ever catching up to the total number of threads for The Archers but these recent developments are giving me cause to be optimistic.

Terms in this ballpark:

• Legal fiction is stuff like corporate legal personhood, where a company can own stuff. Most jurisdictions have a term like "natural person" to disambiguate humans from corporate persons.
• De jure refers to what the law says is, or should be, happening.
• De facto refers to what's observably actually happening.

Example of de jure and de facto: Cyprus is de jure one country, but de facto is partitioned into the Turkish-occupied bit and the bit that the Cypriot goverment controls

Ok, taking that as a general principle for courts, I still don't see how it can hold in this case. Because as a doctor, Upton KNOWS he's not female. He can't genuinely hold that belief unless he is delusional/in psychosis. In which case he's either lying on oath(which would usually be viewed as perjury, no?) or he's delusional, and hence unfit to practice.

How can he have it both ways? Why is the court standing for that? It's like they're being taken for mugs.

It's not that he's saying he knows he's male, but presents in a way that is usually associated with a feminine gender and therefore sees himself as a woman, he's said he is a biological female. It's a lie. And demonstrably so.

I agree with you that there was enough in his other testimony to discredit him, the obvious obfuscation around the phone records wouldn't have fooled a 7 year old, I would have thought. Yet, here we are....

Since the law protects transgender individuals and prevents discrimination against them, it would be quite wrong of the court to find that someone is not credible simply because they claim to be female when they are biologically male.

The fact is that BU wasn't "simply claiming to be female". He made it clear to the tribunal that he would treat a female patient without consent. He was perfectly clear about how he would likely manifest his belief so it wouldn't have been at all wrong of the court to find that this man was not credible.

I'm not sure I agree with this. We can prove scientifically that Upton isn't female. And that he knows he isn't (or should).

We can't prove definitively that God doesn't exist, the most we can say is we can't prove he does. That seems to me a different test. Someone saying they believe something that is obviously false (rather than likely - but not provably - false) is either lying (so not reliable/credible) or delusional (so not reliable/credible). Yet they've lapped Upton's bullshit up uncritically. Baffling.

As someone has pointed out it is "single sex service" not "space". Presumably when the male plumber turns up the "service" can be temporarily suspended? Nobody has a problem with that.

No trans identifying male genuinely thinks they are an actual woman. They just know that if they show any faltering on their commitment to the idea the whole artifice collapses and they concede position on their arguments, particularly to women. Upton knows if he even blinked with doubt about being a woman, it looks bad. So men like him go all in.

Yes it is baffling. The thing is that if you believe in god it doesn't have to affect others. As a doctor, BU believing that his sex is female almost certainly has an impact on others. The women who are sharing a changing room with him; the women who have requested same sex care; potentially to the care that he gives if he truly believes that males can be female and vice versa. How can you even hold this belief and be a doctor? It's not discrimination if someone is a risk to patients because of their beliefs.

If the court had decided to reject Upton's evidence based on his claim to be a woman, that would have given an easy route for NHS Fife and Upton to appeal as it would be regarded as showing bias on the part of the court.

Like it or not, his belief that he is a biological female (albeit by a rather tortuous definition of what constitutes a biological female - "I am not a robot and I am a woman, therefore I am biologically female") does not automatically discredit his evidence on other matters.

The fact that someone says they will commit a criminal offence does not automatically mean that the rest of their testimony is not credible.

Do I think Upton lied under oath? Yes. However, it would have been wrong of the tribunal to decide he was not credible based on his mistaken beliefs as to what it means to be a biological female.

Agreed. It's baffling. And infuriating.

If DU said he’s trans and also a biological female, why exactly does he even need to trans. From what to what, if he just “is”. None of it makes sense.

If I stood up in court and declared myself a bird - the winged type 😝 - because I’d prefer to be a bird than human, and dressed myself in feathers, is that legal if I believed it and said so under oath, even though it is scientifically provable that you cannot change species?

The fact that someone says they will commit a criminal offence

It ought to mean that he's struck off.

If the court had decided to reject Upton's evidence based on his claim to be a woman, that would have given an easy route for NHS Fife and Upton to appeal as it would be regarded as showing bias on the part of the court.

This is an interesting point, thank-you. It makes sense. Though as I write this, I think back to reading parts of the judgement with gathering ire (which hasn't left me), such is the bias apparent in it, as it's so obviously written from a captured standpoint, uses TRA language, etc.

Thank-you for taking the time to clarify the legal approach, it's much appreciated! Even if some of it seems unfair, it's good to know the score.

Yet he would get a cross in red pen for his explanation in Key Stage 3 Biology.