Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton, following Employment Tribunal judgment - thread #61

[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 #60 can be found in this thread: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 60: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5461133-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-following-employment-tribunal-judgment-thread-60 16 December 2025 to 8 January 2026

The fact the EHRC has limited its guidance in this way has no impact. The important point for Employment Tribunals is that Mr Justice Swift has ruled that the Workplace Regulations must be interpreted as referring to biological sex. Whilst that is not strictly binding on ETs, contrary to what was said in FayeRC, it is highly persuasive and tribunals must follow Swift unless there is a strong, distinct reason not to. With such a simple proposition, I cannot imagine any situation where an ET could justify departing from Swift. So, unless Swift is overruled on this point by a higher court, future ETs should not attempt to slide around the Workplace Regulations or the FWS judgement in the way that has happened in both Peggie and Kelly.

Hard agree

Thanks prh47bridge, good to know

Judges should be regulating themselves, however they are not doing so.

Most will learn from the experience and do better in future. But if they continue to get things wrong, they will not be promoted. There is no automatic promotion

So a "bad" judge doesn't get promoted. Peggie was such a high profile case that Kemp's judgement was analysed so surely there must be suspicion over his previous decisions. What guard rails are there to ensure he learns? It seems none...once in place, a judge has job security (perhaps with a few appeals against him) and the only sanction is non promotion?

The financial and personal cost of an ET puts most people off appealing.

No, that is not the only sanction. A judge can be suspended or removed from office, but that is only for misconduct, not for getting the law wrong. If a judge is consistently getting the law wrong they can be provided with guidance and/or retraining. Alternatively, the types of case they are allowed to hear can be restricted.

Thanks!
Although we must have done something good if lots of people are keen to take the credit 🤣

Anyone got any idea how this is going? Next stage??

Proceedings were issued against a couple of the individuals involved in the case and appeal documents were submitted. It takes a long time to get court dates. I wouldnt expect to hear more until there are court dates.

@anyolddinosaur Thanks so much!!

Under the subheadline Fighting Fife with FOI Nick Wallis has published an interesting article about NHS Fife repeatedly failing to make its/Isla Bumba’s 2024 Trans Policy available after an FOI request.

The Information Commissioner for Scotland has given them until 13 August to produce it.

But of course Fife have failed to release it! I'm glad Nick Wallis is on the case, thanks for this, OP.

Knowing Fife, they will probably send the most recent set of payslips for all their staff instead.

That flag at the top of the blog! NHS Fife literally erased 'intersex' people 😱

Good lord.

Have they got some sort of bet going to see how much they can pass off the Information Commissioner before he physically explodes?

can someone remind me on what the Information Commissioner in Scotland can actually do beyond a slap on the wrists?

Enforcement policy https://www.foi.scot/sites/default/files/2022-06/EnforcementPolicy.pdf

Some things are potentially criminal offences.

Still can’t get over Kelly decision. The school case (also in Scotland) should help with that too as it mentioned the Equality Act. I hope there’s an appeal.

Why hasn’t this all been sorted out by common sense? It’s not a great idea to create confined spaces in areas open to many because of the health and safety risks. But you have to have privacy from voyeurism. So over the years we have created semi private spaces that are within another space private to the opposite sex. This means emergencies (medical, building evacuations, being trapped by someone or trapped in the compartment) are easier to deal with.

So what’s the upshot of all of this? Creating more confined spaces in a mixed sex environment. That’s what Dr Upton’s suggestion was, was it not? That’s what the Good Law Project solution is as is Robin Moira White and the EHRC and Hampstead Heath Ponds and the Department of Education. All because of this preference of a few to go into the opposite sex spaces. How’s that helping? What about saying no to all facilities being mixed sex and no to more enclosed spaces and going back to using common sense for VAWG, and for medical emergencies. Health and safety first.

Quite!

unfortunately thats not how anything works - people know things are wrong/poor choices etc and do them anyway as they’re only a small cog in a bigger machine so what does it matter? … but all big tragedies consist of multiple small errors. Look at Grenfell for example. Until there are a series of high profile problems the enclosed spaces in mixed sex areas will be pushed ahead. Idiotic but entirely predictable

So what’s the upshot of all of this? Creating more confined spaces in a mixed sex environment. That’s what Dr Upton’s suggestion was, was it not? That’s what the Good Law Project solution is as is Robin Moira White and the EHRC and Hampstead Heath Ponds and the Department of Education. All because of this preference of a few to go into the opposite sex spaces. How’s that helping? What about saying no to all facilities being mixed sex and no to more enclosed spaces and going back to using common sense for VAWG, and for medical emergencies. Health and safety first.

When you read Nick Wallis’s blogs you realise how a few hardline activists have achieved so much damage to women’s and girl’s safety, dignity and rights just within the NHS alone. It’s extraordinary just how many ‘liberal’ professionals bought into privileging gender over sex and lost all common sense. To an Orwellian degree.

It was clever in making an intuitive or strategic appeal to left leaning people’s self belief as a ‘good’ person and in aligning gender ideology as a ‘good’ cause. Those lawyers at Denton’s were smart. It’s led to incredible harm and even deaths from surgery complications and/or worsening mental health, but still it achieved the intended objectives. Goal setting theory in action.

Thanks for posting that blog link - very interesting.

This week by chance I clicked on a podcast about the link between trans issues and the global race to eradicate HIV. It’s the first time I’ve heard a reason about why trans rights have been so effective in pushing forward. The Dentons document may have explained how, but it need not have succeeded - the link to HIV explains the “de-pathologisation” and de-stigmatisation of trans as part of public heath policy. It links in to the ideas in Nick’s blog somewhat - why are these health bodies in particular so caught up in this?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ESAQdqfOZE4

I need to get my thoughts together on this - might it be worth a new thread?

I haven’t looked at the enforcement policy, but three months in prison for a board member or two might focus some minds.

Here’s a link to the THT report - if you check out the list of those groups not engaged with services/treatment, it’s argued by some that these groups are all linked to “trans” communities - although not explicitly in this report.

As usual coded language is used “men who have sex with other men” because there is a group of heterosexual men who sleep with TW and don’t consider themselves gay. Therefore are a “bridge population” transmitting HIV to their wives and children because it’s too shameful to admit what they’re doing. It’s so shameful no one seems to understand how big this population of men is….

Global public health has attempted to bring the disengaged trans people into clinics for treatment destigmatising trans and offering hormones surgery as a condition of HIV treatment… So it is said - Ive not yet had time to look at the details but on the basis of very limited info the idea seems to hold water. So they might solve the AIDS crisis but have created a whole catalogue of unintended consequences …?

tht.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-11/THT%20Strategy25_Online.pdf

I was thinking the same thing! Poor bloke.