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

And here's a flag.

I'm still seeing some male arsewipes on FB Fife news crowing that Sandie Peggie harassed Upton.

This has been driving me nuts, @WearyAuldWumman. Didn’t Upton say that there was no way that Sandie Peggie could have expressed her discomfort that could have satisfied him and not hurt his feelings?

In EJ Kemp’s and Upton’s world, there’s no alternative for women but to shut the fuck up, while simultaneously being expected to speak out at the earliest opportunity in a fully legally satisfactory manner and tone (the details of which are secret).

The Bananarama Paradox. You won’t tell me what say nor how to do it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0y07959djo

'Trans people could be asked about whether they should be accessing single-sex services based on their physical appearance or behaviour, according to proposed new guidance seen by the BBC.
A code of practice, produced by the equalities watchdog and awaiting ministerial approval, says it may be legitimate for businesses or services to ask people to provide confirmation they are of the eligible sex "by proportionate means".
It acknowledges that there is "no type of official record or document in the UK which provides reliable evidence of sex" because documents such as passports can be changed.'

For all Kemp's embarrassing mishaps, he appears to be trying to do something fairly close to what Philipson has hinted at.

'The interim guidance, which was withdrawn in October, is being challenged in the courts.
During the hearing in the High Court, the lawyer, representing the government, suggested the interim guidance may have been too simplistic and that access to spaces such as toilets could be judged on a case-by-case basis.'

This is what I was wondering; that he wants the decision taken out of his hands so he can’t be blamed by anyone for his choices.

I know it would be truly awful but then so is his judgement. It just seems to be such a monumental mess that it doesn’t seem
possible to have done it accidentally.

Well, one way forward would be to settle with NHS Fife. No need for a big flagship judgment in the Peggie case, which would entail starting again, as a) the ship has sailed, really, the witnessses can't be put through another two years of that and b) we have Darlington to be decided, and that could be the big flagship judgment. It's not Scotland, but Scotland has dug its own grave as to gender mania in the law

........ it really is underpants on the head and wibble time.

Big Sond's Big Balls Up is going to follow him around for the rest of his public life. Comedy gold.

Re the case by case scenario which Nauticant mentions above. On the one hand you have the Dr Dame Katy Denise regularly posted non "passing" pics on X. On the other on I think mainly US reddit sites you have self described unaltered selfies in which the subject could be seen as "passing" in a still photo. I walked by someone the other day. Tall. OK women can be tall. Face? Well yes but it's apparently amazing what ffs surgery can do. There was just something which I can't quite describe - the shins? The gait? I found it very disconcerting. I don't want to offend or stereotype but the butchest of butch women I can immediately register as a woman. It was just odd to second guess. And this was just a fleeting encounter as we walked past each other.

THIS

If Beth is allowed in, on what grounds would Petra be excluded? The activists know that case by case means permission will be granted all the time as no one will want to deal with the inevitable consequences of refusal.

I've reported the colon-spitting as a bug on Site Stuff.

The Equality Network quoted:
The judge said “Some of the messages she sent are indicative of views which could be described as trans-phobic”,
but I can't see where the judge said that SP sent such messages. I may be wrong- can anybody find it?

At 658 there is a comment on Mr. Peggie's social media posts
' Whilst the messages would be regarded by many as highly objectionable at the least, with comments that appeared to be transphobic..'
Mr P, not SP.

What the judge actually said about SP's alleged transphobia:

633 These remarks we consider to be consistent with other evidence of her making comments the second respondent was liable to find offensive that went beyond the simple expression of a gender critical belief, but amounted to personal attacks on the second respondent.

635. These matters collectively could be described as transphobic, but transphobic is not a term of law, it is very generic, and there was other evidence for example of the claimant treating trans patients entirely appropriately, and with no complaints against her. Overall we did not consider this aspect sufficiently clear to be held to amount to a lack of credibility from her answer.

Which suggests that if the judge actually said
“Some of the messages she sent are indicative of views which could be described as trans-phobic”
it was probably followed as in 635 with something saying that although it could be described as transphobic, the judge was not doing so, because transphobic 'is not a term of law'.

Only using the parts of quote that suits your purpose seems to be catching...

She is racist as evidenced by the ‘jokes’ she posted.

I can decide which views are nice and which are but I hope to have it based in logic and sound evidence not just opinion or feelings.

However even racists and unpleasant people have a right to single sex spaces just as women prisoners however heinous their crimes are entitled to be in housed single sex spaces and not with male criminals unless we are monsters as a society.

I very much doubt he has one

I was a very young teacher in Fife when the Challenger space shuttle tragedy occurred.

One of my S3/Y10 pupils, just after it happened: "Miss Weary - dae ye ken what the last thing was that NASA heard ower the intercom afore the shuttle exploded? The teacher saying 'I wonder what this button does?'"

This kind of joke would also be told any time there was a natural disaster. The children weren't making up these jokes - they were getting them at home.

I mentioned this on another thread once and was asked whether they ever made jokes about Lockerbie or Dunblane. The answer is "No." People tend not to see any mirth in tragedies which occur closer to home. (Though I've actually seen British comedians online joking about Jimmy Saville.)

I think it goes back to that inbuilt thing we have. We know some men can be a danger to us but most men are just going about their business being men. Men in women's clothing, or as I have seen quite a bit of in the last couple of years, men in brightly coloured "Hey, kids, look how fun I am" clothing with their dyed hair, buying the food for the youth club BBQ, ring an alarm bell.

It's dying out, but it's a very slow process. I recall products in the '60s being sold with the label 'N.... Brown.' It would now be unthinkable.

The p word is beginning to go, but it's taking its time. I remember when schools tried to address this via Multicultural Policies. This was then overtaken by Diversity Policies, but with an emphasis on trans issues.

I honestly couldn't tell you why the changed happened, but it was around 2014, I think, that my old school replaced its Multicultural Policy with a Diversity Policy.

Re recognition, I’ve had a couple of confused moments around people who are older- lower levels of hormones- and somewhat unkempt. When you can’t hear someone’s voice or see them move, without cues from dress or styling, people can be harder to sex. But that’s about two I’ve noticed in the last few years. I’ve clocked fewer androgynous people than transmen and transwomen, for sure.

And I’m so confused. This shit show of a judgement, yet on social media the algorithm is all about Sandie harassing that nice Beth Upton, who’s been put through appalling trauma.

Words may be racist, but the people using them need not be.

It's interesting to read contemporary accounts of the Rough Wooing. The moral dimension of Scotland being oppressed by a colonial power (England) and fighting against hegemonic class and economic interests is absent. The Scottish at the time, especially immediately after the conflict, freely admitted that they themselves were the cause of the conflict because of their own pig-headed stubbornness. The pride they took wasn't in being a scrappy nation fighting off an aggressive oppressor, it was that of being a head strong, quarrelsome, unruly, ungovernable people who couldn't act in their own best interest because they got themselves worked up over nothing.

The considerable brutality on the English side wasn't a ferocious desire to subdue or impose English might (as say it was in Ireland) it was mostly exasperation and irritation in having to engage in such a pointless and costly conflict for no good reason. And Scottish people conceded that they weren't exactly wrong. One can't help but speculate that good governance doesn't seem to be a characteristic Scottish trait.

Oh FFS!

This tweet, relevant to your comment, came to my attention via Nick Wallis:

https://x.com/catkaldir/status/1999036775331959041

When I saw Sandie Peggie say that she hadn't known what Gender Critical was but knew instinctively that there was something not right about a man being in a woman's changing room, I realised that she wouldn't have made up the tosh about Chromosomes - that's straight out of the trans playbook.

It was also something of a revelation for me that she could sum up what the case should have been about in one sentence, whereas the judge had to come up with 300 pages of drivel.

I can understand the point about the extremes and concerns about their motivation but would not automatically go down the peado route. My clumsily expressed point was more about not not feeling safe but more about ...well I'm not really sure. Just this uncertainty. And not wanting dr u to attend to my downstairs.

Do I even need to tell you the words that were in poetry and songs we got at school 55 years ago? Suffice to say were all present.