Sandie Peggie: Employment Tribunal, associated legal claims, and related matters - thread #66

[nauticant]

TLDR version: Sandie Peggie vs Royal College of Nursing is currently being heard. The hearing started on Wednesday 23 September 2026 and is scheduled to end on Thursday 1 October 2026.

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 were of sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation. Dr Upton claimed 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 after a prolonged process judgment was handed down on 8 December 2025. That judgment is being appealed and an appeal hearing is expected to take place in 2027.

Additional legal claims have been raised. Sandie Peggie is taking action against the Royal College of Nursing, against three senior managers who were witnesses in the employment tribunal - Dr Kate Searle, Dr Maggie Currer and Esther Davidson, against Carol Potter, the chief executive of NHS Fife, for victimisation, against NHS Fife for discrimination, and against its director of people and culture David Miller for harassment. In addition, Sandie Peggie is being investigated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council over fitness to practice.
The past proceedings were live tweeted by www.x.com/tribunaltweets. Tribunal Tweets are likely to be providing coverage in current and future proceedings.

There's additional information on Tribunal Tweets' substack: www.tribunaltweets.substack.com/.

Links to previous threads #1 to #60 can be found in this thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 61: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5472628-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-following-employment-tribunal-judgment-thread-61 8 January 2026 to 3 August 2026

Thread 62: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5562302-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-following-employment-tribunal-judgment-thread-62 3 August 2026 to 24 September 2026

Thread 63: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5581909-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-63 24 September 2026 to 27 September 2026

Thread 64: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5583133-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-64 27 September 2026 to 29 September 2026

Thread 65: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5583663-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-65 29 September 2026 to 30 September 2026

From TT:

And it was held that the definition could not be amended.
FWS2 concerned guidance and it concluded (in effective) that woman included women and men with a GRC so certificated sex.
So that was FWS 1 and FWS 2. Now lets look a para 36 of FWS 1, the pcs listed in 2010 Act

included women and gender reassignment. And when referring to the pc of sex it is referring to men and women. Provisions for women exclude those who are biologically male.

from Nick Wallis
NC
Even those with protected char of GR. FWS2 concerned guidance that sex meant bio and certificated sex and decided it couldn't mean that.
So contrary to what DH says - and all this analysis may be somewhat abstract to what SF may have done or not done. It was not the law that anyone who considered themselves to be a woman was a woman. That was never the law, but it was widely believed to be the law.

From TT:

So contrary to what DH says, all this analysis is somewhat abstract in regard to what SF did or didn't do. It was not the law that any man without a GRC who considered himself a woman was woman. It was never the law. But it was widely believed to be the case. It was asserted

to be gender reassignment discrimination. It's not the case, a man without a GRC could be excluded because he was a man.

Why did SF believe it? Because of gender ideology.

And it was finally settled in FWS 3.

we need a brave judge, can we please have a brave (and sensible) judge in this case? I'm so sick of being let down.

I get the impression this is a very cautious judge. Is she long in the role?

from Nick Wallis
NC
FWS2 cleared up the misapprehension that having a GRC made all the difference.
In par 30 - he cites Adams v Edin Rape Crisis Centre - re using pronouns is just being polite, but it's not a reason when a man who is violating women's boundaries and privacy of a woman who is complaining about it.

She must be entitled to speak in plain terms about this. She cannot have to revert to the preference of the aggressor in that situation. Aggressor is the assumption her TU rep should be making in that situation

Given the choice (we don't get a choice, obviously, so hypothetically speaking) between a quick win here, or a loss here and a farther-reaching precedent-setting win on appeal at the EAT at the end of 2027, which would you prefer?

I’m quite well disposed to the professional DH, especially when you compare him with his counterpart (is that the word I want?) Jane Russell in Sandie Peggie v NHS Fife & Dr Upton.

From TT:

Para 30 DH sites Adams V ERCC, the last occasion we acted against one another. The tribunal observed that use of pronouns could be politeness. That was reasonable in the circumstances and might be okay in social situations but not in a circumstances where a woman is complaining

about a man in her changing room is not a situation where pronouns should be respected from politeness.

Of course, her trade union rep will want to hear the other side of any story, but when a member first comes to a union rep, he should be working to build trust,

They're all doing an essential job, in fairness.

DH has managed not to be as rude as JR. He's doing his job politely, she very much didn't.

From TT:

Comments from DH appear to rest on a misunderstanding of what FWS 1 & 2 decided.
DH takes pain to distinguish Smith vs Police from this case. And of course this court can't be bound by that case. We only relied on it for illustrative purposes, not legal authority.

And says that Forstater applies in that gender critical belief is therefore not inimical to gender ideology. It's not clear that gender ideology is WORIADS. And that question is not before you. And to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever been accused of being

Lower the bar far enough …

But its not just having heard of it, it is the context of thinking themselves one and that being affirmed. I think NC was making the point that in a medical setting if a child said I identify as a eunuch and this was affirmed as a valid identity the next course of action would be surgical. The fact that no one would feel able to say: how did you hear about that and what makes you think you are one is shocking.

My guess is that NC will respect opposing counsel doing their best for their client but won't respect opposing counsel doing their best to uphold a mad ideology.

Especially when someone fighting an ideological cause will feel free to fight dirty, because they're being righteous.

From Nick Wallis
NC
under the heading Institutional GI belief at par 48 where DH is put to proof of IGIB - distinguish Smith from Peggie. Smith was relied on by C as illustrative - to explain GI, what it is, what it means and how it manifests - it's not sought to be binding as DH appears to be tilting at.

The q of whether GI is WORIADS and it's another matter and its not before you on this occasion. and the reason for that is because no one has been accused of discrimming against anyone for their GI belief in this case or to the best of my knowledge anywhere else

Nobody ever does get discrimmed against for the GI belief - or at least nobody has yet.

I must leave in AT MOST 9 minutes...

From TT:

discriminated against because of GI belief. Whereas GC belief cases have become a flood in ETs. That may give you some understanding that this is the water the Rs were swimming in.

PM's responses to questions about 'Fair Care' for trans patients were helpless, its clear that the culture did influence the minds of those at the RCN.
Drawing attention to a familiar passage from Hendrix, [is reading out entire passage quickly].

If the GI crew want their opinion to be considered WORIADS, they have to put the work in to get it classified as such. And they haven't. Now whether that's because they're so used to never needing to is up for grabs.

HENDRIX??? can't wait to see what that will be

From TT:

EAT allowed itself to be distracted by whether a policy existed and ignored the substance of discrimination and treatment of officers.

There are two things here. There are PCPs that arise from the vise like grip of GI on RCN for many years. Unwillingness to support

SP at disc hearing and refusal to write to all RCN Fife members.
DH said that reference to men in women's prisons was insensitivity. She was experiencing a menstrual flood, wanted privacy, he stood his ground and would not leave. Under distress, she brought to mind a case

PETE!

(I know, I'm ahead of TT, sorry)

.

From TT:

that was currently in the news - Isla Bryson - and it was an apt and appropriate analogy. SP should not have to choose her words with care, she was not the aggressor in this incident.
DH says that SP should have said she had GC beliefs. SF was the union rep, he should have

been properly trained and capable of understanding that a woman objecting to a man in woman's only space was intrinsically a manifestation of a gender critical belief. She was objecting to a man in a woman's space. Before GI, if a man who didn't claim to be a woman was in the

from Nick Wallis
NC
[deals with limitation point Hendrix v Met Police in par 52 - she reads from it...]

DH raised the comparison to IB. SP was on her own at midnight in the F CR - she'd had a menstrual flood and needed to sort herself out - there was a man in there standing his ground and she was trying to defend the violation of her boundaries she drew a parallel with IB because here was a man in a female space and IB was in the news as a man who was in a female space. It doesn't mean there was a comparison between DU and IB because IB was a rapist.

DH SP's failure to declare herself GC in her first convo with SF is a straw man - it is obvious a man should not be in an F CR. Before GI came along or even after, if a man who didn't say he was a woman at that point walks in looks her in the eye and closes the door behind him