Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton, following Employment Tribunal judgment - thread #59

[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.

Following handing down of the judgment on 8 December 2025, on 11 December 2025, it was announced by Sandie Peggie and her legal team that they would be pursuing an appeal.

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
Thread 58: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5458443-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-following-employment-tribunal-judgment-thread-58 11 December 2025 to 12 December 2025

Yes I always felt that this was a strong point in Sandie's defence: she followed the policy

Didn't impress Big Sond though, did it?

She could never do right in Kemp's eyes. Someone here has said that he would have dismissed all of Sandie's claims if he could have, and I think it's true.

Big Sond obviously doesn't have an eye for detail.

You'd think a judge would. What a disappointment he turned out to be.

EJ Kemp doesn't deserve the epithet of 'Big Sond'. An honest Big Sond would have been aware of his social, cultural and sex-based biases and would have overcome them to produce a judgement built on an honest finding of facts and an accurate application of case law. EJ Kemp is a poor, thin shadow and is best described as 'Sleekit Sond'.

I noticed from the judgement that he did skim over some of the time line somewhat and did not cover the policy which she acted within rather than have knowledge of.

describing Sandies direct challenge to his presence flies in the face of the SC ruling, as it establishes her right to SS provision.

the fact that he describes her as proselytising is such a nonsense as Kemp is trying to equate a GC belief with religion, which it is not. Besides which it s equally true that DU was proselytising a view that is not protected.

But, it may be of significance to the appeal as we really could do with the courts developing on a protected belief belonging to sound scientific fact, and the law.

i followed the R v R rape case years ago about rape in marriage as it when through all the courts.

the legal gymnastics in that case were startling, but the courts got there in the end.

Yes!

Also, the others didn't follow policy. When Kemp questioned Esther Davidson, he asked if she had kept any records of the conversations with Sandie where facts are now disputed. "Judges love bits of paper" he said, but Davidson hadn't kept notes.

Edited because I forgot to say whose post I was replying to ... it was you @MarieDeGournay ... pointing out how the judgement leaned over backwards to condemn Sandie Peggie in the face of ALL THE EVIDENCE! Grrrrr

Thanks Marie for the analysis of the "proselytising" accusation - I've not had the patience to read through the whole 300 pages of the judgement. So thank you for alerting us to this situation ...

which I'm sorry to say has made me very cross indeed! Proselytising ... what?!? ... and yes as you point out, it CAN equally be applied the other way round, indeed it SHOULD HAVE BEEN, and it wasn't!

proselytising MY ARSE

V recent post on reddit. "The day someone steps in front of me in front of a toilet is the day they lose a f*ing kneecap". I don't have the words...

The very definition of womanhood.

I'm pretty sure most people recognize a trans man as a woman even if they don't say anything. Their height is the first giveaway, the smaller size of their head, more rounded forehead, smaller ears, nose, jawline, female hips, thighs & bum are a dead giveaway from behind, tiny hands and feet, small wrists, no adam's apple, narrow shoulders, visibly thinner facial skin compared to a man, even if it's hairy. Add in mannerisms, gait, how they speak, etc and really only the most skilled actors actually pass as the opposite sex in the real world.
On-line filters are a wonder to behold as are the posted photos which rarely show them standing beside men (or women for TIMs). Why, because we can see at a glance which ones are male and which are female.
It's all an illusion.

I'm going to be off-line now till late morning tomorrow so here's the continuation thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5461133-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-following-employment-tribunal-judgment-thread-60

As ever, please would you continue to post on this thread until it's full before moving over to the new thread. Thanks!

Beth and Rose

Indubitably male the two of them.

Since who accesses which toilets is of significant importance here, I'm just going to mention that the Scottish Government has opened a consultation on updating the regulations that apply to school toilets in Scotland. It runs until March 2026. I'll have a look at it in detail before I respond but I'm giving a shout-out to @Keeptoiletssafe, though I'm sure others will be interested too.
Here's the link, assuming it's allowed:
https://consult.gov.scot/learning-directorate/proposals-to-update-the-school-premises-regulation/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOuvqVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR4wiX-I69qYd2qsGCvM3iLkS4MoRvZ_8kJc3VEamru9uah3jdWeseoEX-XVMA_aem_aX7V8nsDdKJ6GRSmEnR25Q
(blimey that's a long url, sorry!).
This was drawn to my attention by a pro-trans group on FB. I keep the best company, you know.

Agree. The judgment (as it was) gave a lot of weight to BU being 'consistent' in his belief that he is a woman. The judge noted that under strong questioning he maintained this position.

If, at the same time, he was trying to father a child it would undermine the claim that he was fully committed to being woman.

Having said that, this line of argument does also mean that if you have decided to live as the other sex then you have to give up the idea of having children that are biologically yours

Though, I guess that if you had the forethought to freeze some of your gametes for IVF then you might argue that you were still living as a woman despite also fathering a child.

But then you would have to call yourself the child's mother despite supplying the small gamete and not actually having carried the child in your womb.

It all gets a bit complicated when you choose to climb aboard the GI bus and arbitrarily change the meanings of words.

Thank you for the notification. I will have a good look.

I don't disagree but, in the Darlington case, I believe the issue around fathering children was raised as being of importance because of how the use and then discontinuation of hormone treatment may have altered Henderson's appearance over time, and how this may account for some of the different reactions to Henderson in the CR.

At least one nurse suggested that Henderson may well have had softer, more feminine features when he initually started using the CR, because he was at that time being treated with hormone meds but, by the time she encountered him in the CR, he had paused the hormones for fertility/family planning reasons, and looked distinctly like a hairy-arsed bloke (my paraphrase).

This argument was especially significant because Henderson had been in post years before any complaints were made, and then the sudden onset and relatively large number of complainants caused the respondent to be suspicious that a bullying campaign was underway.

I don't think any of the nurses was relying on Henderson's future family plans as 'proof' that he is a man and must know he is a man. It was more by way of offering a plausible explanation as to why Henderson may have 'passed' to more people, and had been able to persuade his manager to allow him access to female CRs from the outset of his training, but also why when they eventually encountered him years later they were shocked at first sight.

The hormone meds argument was made alongside the reminder that Henderson began his OPD training in Darington in 2019 and, by the time his cohort should normally have been fully engaged in placements, covid had kicked off. The use of OPD CRs was variable for everyone during the covid years because non-essential surgeries were cancelled; and students were high on the list for redeployment to other areas where they could do something useful despite their very limited experience.

So although Henderson was officially granted access to the CRs from 2019, relatively few people would have had cause to bump into him when stripped down to his holey underpants, and, if they were over the other side of the room and squinting, all they would have seen was his butter soft, oestrogen-boosted complexion.

Once Covid restrictions eased off, and his meds were paused, the game was up.

Appreciated!

Is it not just to demonstrate that he is an intact and functioning male, which poses additional risks to women should he turn out to be a predatory rapist?

man pretending to be a woman trying to get partner pregnant using what I assume are traditional methods may be tangential to the Tribunal but would still be male behaviour an army of social media sleuths might comment on. (Just as the attempt to label herself 'father' by the woman who signed off as seahorse would be)

Yes this, especially when added to the fact that "Rose" reportedly asked the Darlington nurses things like "are you getting changed yet?" repeatedly while watching them.

I actually think his heterosexuality and apparent intent to have a child with his wife is relevant when it comes to a case like that. I think all taken together shows a predatory voyeuristic intent from "Rose".

These people don’t care if it’s wrong, they only care that people believe their narrative.

It does demonstrate that he's an intact man. But it's irrelevant in the sense that even if he weren't an intact male and even if he weren't trying to get his wife pregnant, he's still a man. We're well past the era where castrated men were admitted to the harem because they couldn't impregnate anyone.

Not wanting to start his family isn't ammunition or evidence to use a women's service, and wanting to start a family isn't something to hold against him.