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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton, following Employment Tribunal judgment - thread #58

1000 replies

nauticant · 11/12/2025 13:09

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), 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 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.

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 2025 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
Thread 57: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5457132-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-57 9 December 2025 to 11 December 2025

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58
nebulousMoose · 11/12/2025 21:57

SionnachRuadh · 11/12/2025 21:50

Theodore Dalrymple says he once had two patients on his ward who both thought they were Haile Selassie.

He said either one of them could be very articulate in explaining why he was Jah Rastafari, King of Kings, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and the other guy was bonkers.

I wonder how EJ Kemp would have assessed them.

Both quite convincing, perhaps? Credible because they believed the absolute nonsense they were spouting.

bringonyourwreckingball · 11/12/2025 21:57

CriticalConditionUnamendedVersion · 11/12/2025 18:48

I'm not sure what the test is for finding an ET to be biased. Something along the lines of 'no impartial tribunal could have come to this conclusion'? That's a pretty high bar to reach but not impossible. And I don't know how an EAT can reach that conclusion without re- examining the evidence itself.
I'm sure someone with expertise can comment more helpfully.

ETA Maybe an appearance of bias is enough as in the principles surrounding recusal? So if there is something to suggest the tribunal was biased, even if there is no evidence it actually was, that's enough because even the appearance of bias damages public confidence in the impartiality of our legal institutions.

Edited

Appearance of bias is fairly easy to make out here by the sheer number of times the judge refers to sex assigned at birth. That takes a side.

ArabellaSaurus · 11/12/2025 21:58

WearyAuldWumman · 11/12/2025 21:45

@CraftyRedBird [ETA yes, agreed.]

All three were involved in sex crimes. (Laing/Green was convicted with others of the torture and murder of a man, but there were undertones of a sexual element according to some of the reporting.) D attempted rape. Scott stalked a 13 yr old girl and previously offended against a nurse. (He later used a chair, I recall, to hit a nurse in prison.)

I'd say that their cases are relevant because they're all men who tried to access women's spaces. (Two of them succeeded at various points.)

When SP mentioned men in women's prisons, she would have been drawing an analogy with men being where they shouldn't.

It's worth noting that TRAs have tried to turn Burns/Scott into a martyr, as per this Wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiffanyScott(prisoner)

Edited

I believe he was the only scottish trans person to be commemorated in TDOR.

FallenSloppyDead2 · 11/12/2025 21:58

Keeptoiletssafe · 11/12/2025 21:52

If the 1992 meaning is incorrect it has a massive knock on affect to so many regulations and standards and legislation that with have to be rewritten. If you look at the British Standards 6465 for instance, you can see where the terminology comes from. There are Approved Codes of Practice, Building Standards, Regulations like Part M. Then there’s Clauses in the Sexual Offences Act (2003) that will need to be refined. The implications would be huge. Plus, it isn’t workable for lots of reasons of being discriminatory to other groups and of course, plainly denying reality.

I would love to challenge Regulation 20. I think the most obvious is the Leonardo case and the judge mixed up her cubicles, rooms and blocks.

In the documents about implementing 1992 legislation and toilets, the HSE talks about separate-sex toilet washrooms then unisex rooms in relation to that.

I haven’t heard about Mrs Oakley! Will have to look her case up!

Edited

I seriously hope that you are being consulted by the GC legal teams. You have built up a very specific and comprehensive body of knowledge.

ProfLargofesse · 11/12/2025 21:59

GallantKumquat · 11/12/2025 20:33

Yes, and the quotes and reference can look extremely convincing - as in: it would be difficult to invent something as convincing out of thin air. For one in particular I was absolutely sure that the periodical's search facility must be broken.

Yes I agree that LLMs make shit up to please, it is not designed to give an 'I don't know answer' unless you force it into it, but my point is that I doubt Kemp was using an LLM. This is the guy who insisted everyone talk slower cos he needed to write his notes longhand. So I think he got it from someone else's analysis which may have used LLM but I think more likely the analysis he got it from was not LLM but a particularly captured mind that feels justified in altering meaning to serve own ends.

ie Jane Russel's submissions may have included the manipulated quotes and the fabricated one as TRAs tend to do that. Kemp should have still gone to source to check, however, and his rep won't recover from that failure even if he didn't fail because of LLMs.

nebulousMoose · 11/12/2025 22:01

bringonyourwreckingball · 11/12/2025 21:57

Appearance of bias is fairly easy to make out here by the sheer number of times the judge refers to sex assigned at birth. That takes a side.

I noticed that, in the 25 pages I managed to read out of the 300 odd. Sex assigned at birth. If sex is assigned at birth, surely there could be a problem with the process of assigning? The person (midwife) assigning the sex might have had a bad day or a bad night or been paid by somebody to give the wrong label.

Whoever thought up this concept is a prize numpty.

NotanotherWeek · 11/12/2025 22:01

Sandie Peggie ruling in doubt after judge used ‘non-existent’ quotes

www.thetimes.com/article/4f61f889-935b-40a3-920e-094123dca4bf?shareToken=e5a5e51a038ca8aee8ee66f48f750828Sandie Peggie ruling in doubt after judge used ‘non-existent’ quotes

mateysmum · 11/12/2025 22:02

Without going back to the actual evidence I can kind of see why Kemp felt Maya was making general points, but wasn't she brought in as a 'general' witness not on the actual events to which she was not a participant?
I really take issue with his assertion that it is only an opinion that people can readily determine sex. It is something that every member of the human race does every day from birth. Very small children can accurately determine sex. This whole 'it's all so complicated ' crap is straight out of the trans playbook and shows how the ideology has become so embedded in the judiciary that they cannot see another viewpoint is valid and that they are in fact demonstrating built in bias.
Having said all that I do think there are learnings for the future in focussing on the strict legal process and letting that speak without getting sidetracked into what could be interpreted as polemic.

MetaCertificateAnnotationsJudgmentFINAL · 11/12/2025 22:03

bringonyourwreckingball · 11/12/2025 21:57

Appearance of bias is fairly easy to make out here by the sheer number of times the judge refers to sex assigned at birth. That takes a side.

Midwife what is the sex of my child?

Oh I don't know their chromosone but not to worry someone will assign them a sex shortly.

Jesus wept at these idiots!

NotanotherWeek · 11/12/2025 22:03

NotanotherWeek · 11/12/2025 22:01

Sandie Peggie ruling in doubt after judge used ‘non-existent’ quotes

www.thetimes.com/article/4f61f889-935b-40a3-920e-094123dca4bf?shareToken=e5a5e51a038ca8aee8ee66f48f750828Sandie Peggie ruling in doubt after judge used ‘non-existent’ quotes

This has got very hairy indeed for Sandy #sad times

DrBlackbird · 11/12/2025 22:05

ILoveLaLaLand · 11/12/2025 21:56

It beggars belief that any human being let alone a judge in a tribunal found Sandie less credible than a medical doctor who thinks he's female despite being a fully intact male, six foot tall (1% of women vs 15% of men), having male pattern baldness, size 12 feet, huge hands, big man head, forehead,nose, chin, ears, adam's apple, broad male shoulders, etc, etc, etc.

This is an elitist movement driven by posh men who have far too much time and money to spend on the internet.

Edited

That the judge deemed this person to be feminine in appearance is mind boggling. Never mind that he thinks that someone’s appearance is a valid indication of a person’s character. As if we can all determine someone’s trustworthiness by how they look? It’s hard to believe a judge would make that assertion.

Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton, following Employment Tribunal judgment - thread #58
ThatCyanCat · 11/12/2025 22:06

Does the judge have a wife? She should be hugely insulted if he thinks Upton looks like a woman.

bringonyourwreckingball · 11/12/2025 22:10

What I am really seriously pissed off about is that I AM a lawyer, I have spent a large part of the last 6 months advising clients what to do about this, it hasn’t been popular but FWS was at least clear, coherent and workable for the vast majority of workplaces with a little thought and then this crap happens and it’s incoherent dribble. Even if you leave aside the absolute outrage of women’s basic human rights to privacy and dignity being subordinated to some bloke’s hurty feelz - how exactly does any employer deal with this? They would have a trans woman either able to use the ladies or not depending on a daily basis who complained, whether they had shaved that morning, any manner of variables. Leaving aside how odious it is that a woman complaining basically has to give reasons for that which may involve disclosing trauma before her rights are centred. Fuck that.

CohensDiamondTeeth · 11/12/2025 22:11

Stopbringingmicehome · 11/12/2025 21:55

They got a PR firm in for that

Yep! Super good use of even more public funds!

If they had put out bins of cash and set them on fire at least it would have kept some people warm.

FallenSloppyDead2 · 11/12/2025 22:16

bringonyourwreckingball · 11/12/2025 22:10

What I am really seriously pissed off about is that I AM a lawyer, I have spent a large part of the last 6 months advising clients what to do about this, it hasn’t been popular but FWS was at least clear, coherent and workable for the vast majority of workplaces with a little thought and then this crap happens and it’s incoherent dribble. Even if you leave aside the absolute outrage of women’s basic human rights to privacy and dignity being subordinated to some bloke’s hurty feelz - how exactly does any employer deal with this? They would have a trans woman either able to use the ladies or not depending on a daily basis who complained, whether they had shaved that morning, any manner of variables. Leaving aside how odious it is that a woman complaining basically has to give reasons for that which may involve disclosing trauma before her rights are centred. Fuck that.

They would have a trans woman either able to use the ladies or not depending on a daily basis who complained, whether they had shaved that morning, any manner of variables.

Schrodingers changing room: until observed by a female employee, the act of a trans-identified male using it is both legal and not legal.

HildegardP · 11/12/2025 22:18

@ProfDrILikeDungs Chapeau! About time someone brought Uncle Ludwig into this mess, although I once had a Crit Theory fan straightfacedly claim him as an ancestor of their magical drivel. Reader, I bridled.

CriticalConditionUnamendedVersion · 11/12/2025 22:22

I see BBC1 Question Time is from Scotland tonight. I look forward to Fiona Bruce selecting a question from the audience on this disgraceful subversion of the FWS judgment.

<hollow laugh>

BettyFilous · 11/12/2025 22:23

MyThreeWords · 11/12/2025 18:40

The Guardian seems to have begun a whole new career of actually reporting on trans-related issues, rather than rehearsing activist talking points.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/11/nurse-to-appeal-against-hugely-problematic-trans-changing-room-ruling

This new leaf seems to have coincided with the BBC upping its game following the leaked memo.

#Gladtimes.

The clarity of the BBC reporting is astonishing compared to the absolute bollocks they’ve been spouting for the last 8 years. I paraphrase as closely as I can: on the 6pm R4 bulletin they described Upton as “a transwoman, that is, born a biological male who identifies as a woman.” Now the reporting is that clear the public will comprehend the issue with inclusion of “same gender” people in opposite sex spaces in no time at all. The obfuscating language has given cover. The spell is breaking. A proper conversation about how we balance different groups’ rights can now begin.

theilltemperedmaggotintheheartofthelaw · 11/12/2025 22:23

I haven't heard anything about whether Fife will appeal on the harassment finding. If they don't, I wonder whether this has created a weak spot via which to break the whole thing apart.

If SP's repudiation of Upton's presence in the CR had truly been equivalent to objecting to the presence of a black woman, or had been manifested objectionably, Fife would not have been found to have harassed her (though they could still have been found to have bullied her through their process failures).

Instead, both Kelly and Peggie lead to a worldview in which the protected characteristics of gender reassignment/GI belief and GC belief respectively are of equal weight and must both be taken into account.

The facts in Kelly were unusual in that there were few female employees and many transwomen employees (and unisex toilets), so Sutherland J could in good conscience say that the claimant's needs were more-or-less met.

In Peggie, Kemp J didn't have to say what the respondents should have done, only that they shouldn't have done what they did do.

So are we primed for a decision, that both GR and GC belief call for reasonable adjustment, and that this call is not answered either by forcing trans people to use same-sex facilities or by forcing GC believers to share facilities with the opposite sex? This would fit with Sutherland J's 'moral propriety' idea.

The beauty of this approach is that it does not require us to interpret WR1992, or prove that a penis in a women's CR always = sexual harassment, or that women are more disadvantaged than men by mixed-sex provision. It comes right down to whether GC believers are disadvantaged relative to GI believers by a failure to provide sufficient single-sex facilities (and works for both sexes).

Sutherland and Kemp are true believers and probably think that most right-thinking people are too. Maybe they are right. But if people are allowed to demand single-sex facilities then we will all find out.

bringonyourwreckingball · 11/12/2025 22:25

FallenSloppyDead2 · 11/12/2025 22:16

They would have a trans woman either able to use the ladies or not depending on a daily basis who complained, whether they had shaved that morning, any manner of variables.

Schrodingers changing room: until observed by a female employee, the act of a trans-identified male using it is both legal and not legal.

Exactly! And of course no one can ask them “so, have you had surgery?” Because that would be harassment.

SlackJawedDisbeliefXY · 11/12/2025 22:26

CohensDiamondTeeth · 11/12/2025 22:11

Yep! Super good use of even more public funds!

If they had put out bins of cash and set them on fire at least it would have kept some people warm.

Could be, my guess is £1,000 a word ...

ILoveLaLaLand · 11/12/2025 22:28

The thing that galls me the most is that so many women are cheerleaders for this men with a fetish movement and they gleefully throw other women, usually from further down the social hierarchy, under a bus to pander to men.

We need to stop teaching girls to "be kind" - it just means teaching them to switch off their brain and their natural instincts so they can become "good girls", behaving the way men want them to. It's a slave mentality.

SqueakyDinosaur · 11/12/2025 22:29

External advisors on comms (I've been one) very often spend their time persuading clients not to say particular things, or not to use particular language. Money - well, not well-spent, but less conspicuously squandered than e.g. on employing useful idiots like Isla Bumba.

alsoFanOfNaomi · 11/12/2025 22:32

SlackJawedDisbeliefXY · 11/12/2025 22:26

Could be, my guess is £1,000 a word ...

I was quite surprised by how relatively cheap the agency they've chosen is - a day's work for hundreds, not thousands.

ThatCyanCat · 11/12/2025 22:38

SqueakyDinosaur · 11/12/2025 22:29

External advisors on comms (I've been one) very often spend their time persuading clients not to say particular things, or not to use particular language. Money - well, not well-spent, but less conspicuously squandered than e.g. on employing useful idiots like Isla Bumba.

Is she even that useful? She cocked up interpreting the law and made a total arse of herself and, by extension, Fife, in the tribunal. The more I think of her earning more than the nurses while babbling about how she doesn't know if she's a man or a woman, the crosser I get.

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