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

[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), 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

Oh good grief that's appalling!

This is what I will have to do next time around unless someone pulls their finger out!

Dear Sandy.

We’re glad you’re being exposed for the biased, homophobic and sexist person you are.

love Sandie & the Terf hoardes.

P.s. we will post you a copy of the EAT. 💪🏼

Extremely shrewd comment, and she is right.

I will vote for whoever locally is most likely to get rid of the extreme misogynist Labour twit we've been stuffed with, who is proving a chocolate teapot in multiple fields. However how nice it would be to have someone I wanted to vote for as opposed to having to vote tactically to avoid the worst option from a whole range of awful ones.

I listened to a podcast recently about the David Irving case (he took Penguin to court, along with the author, for publishing a book calling him a Holocaust denier). The point made by one of the historians (Richard Evans), who was an expert witness during the trial, was that all of Irving's misrepresentations, misquotes, switches of timeline etc all went in one direction and one direction only (to favour his argument), whereas if he had made genuine errors they would have gone in all directions.

Irving lost his case, Penguin didn't have to pulp the book.

Nuff said.

Surely it's only transphobic discrimination if they'd let men in but not biological men who identify as women. Anyone who glances at reddit will know how much that description annoys activists when the BBC uses it. That tells me that I'm on the right track. If I can annoy them AND the BBC at once then I'm almost certainly onto something. If they then tell me they're on the right side of history then I score the jackpot and am entitled to say 'till history makes it's mind up, you have to obey the law just like everyone else.'

Kemp's comments about Maya are appalling and in my view unjustified. He claimed her evidence wasn't reliable, skilled or expert. Maya is not a lawyer, she never claimed to be, her witness statement is quite clear about her background. Why would he think she was unreliable? And if anybody outside the legal profession is an expert on this area, it's Maya.
If I was her I'd feel seriously insulted, but of course being Maya, she sails on with dignity and calm.

I wasn't shocked at all. Nor do I think it's up to anyone to decide whose views are and aren't 'nice.'

Did she break the law? No. Is she the only medical professional to use dark humour as a coping mechanism? Almost certainly not.

Was she harassed by her employers who trawled through all those records to find things to use against her? Yes.

Might this be a time to say 'let he who is without flaw cast the frrst stone' while remembering that the 'nice' Dr Upton would have expected a woman to be treated by him even if she had expressed a preference to be treated by a woman, as she is legally entitled to do.

Remember, Sandie Peggie had a blameless career until NHS Fife decided to harass her.

She may subscribe to the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice

Theodore Parker 1810–60
American Unitarian preacher

1. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.
2. Ten Sermons on Religion (1853) ‘Justice and the conscience’; see King, Obama

Indeed

They are both protected by the EqA2010. But those protections do not including marching into the women's changing rooms. That's what the Supreme Court said - if they're women's changing rooms then as far as the Equality Act 2010 is concerned that does not include Dr Upton, with or without a GRC, with or without surgery, and with or without a pretty face.

The Equality Act 2010 may mean that Dr U should have been provided with a separate changing facility to respect his gender reassignment but that's a whole other bunfight.

Is it possible to sack a judge for incompetence?

I also will not be voting Labour as I know my MPs feelings on this matter and I found him quite intimidating as he towered above me on my doorstep lecturing me about it.

I think Reform will get in here. The people I know who voted Brexit had a sense of something has to change and voting Brexit will change something.

Thanks Chariot.

So there's a record on here.

First link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G7420J1XMAA6rcl?format=jpg&name=medium

is the image I've attached below

And the Not all Gays statement from the second link https://x.com/NotAllGays/status/1999407837898752491

is below:

"Yesterday, 11th December, just as the Certificate of Correction in the Sandie Peggie Judgement, with respect to the errors in citations and quotation of the ruling in Forstater came to light, we became aware of a deeply concerning error with respect to the reference of Not All Gays within the original, and amended Judgement. The Judgement makes reference to us, as the second interveners within the case, as 'Not for Gays' within para 1246.

Yesterday afternoon, at 16:08 we were forced into a position, wherein we were required to make an application to amend, under Rule 67 of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024. This application was submitted to the Edinburgh Tribunal, and both legal teams for Sandie Peggie and NHS/Upton were informed (as per ET requirements).

Not only is this a deeply troubling typographical error, but it also places a negative inference on Not All Gays as an organisation, implying or mispresenting that we do not support gay rights. To have this negative implication placed on us and recorded in an Employment Tribunal Judgement, which is so heavily covered by the mainstream media, both in the UK and abroad, is simply unacceptable. It is, in our opinion, entirely unacceptable to name us as ‘Not for Gays’, without correction, due to the implications this will have our our good standing and reputation, particularly in the unusually high coverage this case has, and continues to have in all forms of media.

We are aware of several other alleged clerical errors or mis-quoted, or misrepresented citations, upon which this panel, relied upon when reaching their decision in this Judgement. We cannot comment on these further, but as the facts stand, at least two Rule 67 applications have had to be made within the 14 day limit, thus far.

We await response from the Employment Tribunal, and urge reports to accurately represent and name our organisation. "

Is she the only medical professional to use dark humour as a coping mechanism? Almost certainly not.

I don't think calling people P$^* should be normalised as 'dark humour'.

If you're not shocked by it then that shows that racism is just endemic.

And I did say that even racists deserve SSS, but it's a bit rich to hear pp eulogise about 'some of the nicest, most decent, humans' who are Trump supporters as a comparison to Upton and yet not mention those things Peggie has said about BAME people which definitely do not paint her as the 'nicest, most decent human'.

For those of a linguistic bent, where I grew up (SW Scotland), the common diminutive of Alexander was 'Sanny'.
As you were.

Yes, also those with bad ibs and those who need to sort out stoma bags. But they absolutely, like accessible toilets, need to be checked and cleaned often as they require much more supervision. The unisex toilet in schools was designed by the entrance, near reception, for a reason. Accessible toilets are there for everyone who has needs, they are bigger and only should be in very highly visible places. Enclosed designs are high risk for safety of women, girls and boys, and men with medical conditions.

One of my bugbears was that document T said universal designs (no door gaps) could be used for single sex toilets. In practice, they are not that hygienic - they often smell because the ventilation isn’t great. When people flush, the sink is close enough to the toilet bowl so the ‘plume’ will land on there and the dryer. Dryers can actually increase the amount of bacteria you have on your hands. And once you have used that you touch the door handle. In terms of pathogen transmission from person to person, universal toilets are the best.

Your post has reminded me on my teacher training, I helped a pupil, who was sobbing her heart out, wash out her skirt in the girls’ sinks. Another girl came in and got her some clothes from lost property. I helped her dry her skirt with the hand dryer. Later, I got told off by the department head for exposing myself to a potential hiv risk. I was more concerned at the time the girl was terrified what her mum was going to do. I look at the private cubicles with mixed sex circular sinks in an open plan circulation space and think how does that work now?

Indeed, I thought it was extremely obvious. Yet, here we are. The entire judgement on the Upton side of the case (and this goes for the Kelly v Leonardo case too) can be summarized as: there are times when it's unwarranted discrimination against the protected characteristic of gender reassignment to treat men as though they are men.

I am very late to the party having only just had time to read the judgment, mostly with my head in my hands.

I feel sorry for the appellate court having to make sense out of this dog's breakfast. It needs to be re-heard, surely - it's going to be impossible to unpick a total bodge to "rescue" the findings of fact. How can we have confidence that the judge has considered the correct laws (or indeed any laws) when his continual mis-statement suggests that he hasn't understood a word of it? How can we trust his assessment of the evidence when all the "errors" seem to favour the Trust (and surely this alone suggests judicial bias?)

Why are certain parts of Scottish society so tenaciously clinging to the trans activists' agenda?

Someone has their wires crossed with this because gender identity - GI - isn’t a protected characteristic- it’s gender reassignment that’s protected.

Again, an interesting viewpoint. What do you think when people self describe as a word you dislike? With respect, the more you throw around accusations of racism, the more you devalue them, and I think the Bananarama defence applies here, along with an understanding that people from different backgrounds or places and are from different age groups have different views. There's a world of difference between yelling, p go home in the street and telling a bleak joke amongst what you thought were friends. I very much doubt Sandie, or a lot of other people will be that trusting again, and I don't like censorship.

I have known men who were surprised to be 'Shug' when they arrived in Scotland because in Belfast they were always 'Q'.

If you've got a judge in his late 60s, not far off mandatory retirement, who screws up a high profile case, I think the system might prefer him quietly taking early retirement to publicly having to bring the hammer down.

Bringing the hammer down is never pleasant. I can vividly remember a solicitor I knew having to be struck off, not because she'd done anything unethical, but because she was in the early stages of dementia, she was messing up cases, clients were complaining, but she was still lucid most of the time and refused to retire. It was a horrible business and I hope I never have to go near a similar situation again.

Why are certain parts of Scottish society so tenaciously clinging to the trans activists' agenda?

@Vinvertebrate DH is Scottish and despairs at how incompetent Scottish governance is appearing - he says this is just the stuff we know about, what else is happening that we don’t know about.

https://www.judiciary.uk/courts-and-tribunals/tribunals/employment-tribunal/employment-tribunal-england-wales/complaints/

We can but try