Sandie Peggie: Employment Tribunal, associated legal claims, and related matters - thread #67

[nauticant]

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.

A second Employment Tribunal, Sandie Peggie vs Royal College of Nursing, has just been heard. The hearing started on Wednesday 23 September 2026 and ended on Thursday 1 October 2026. It is possible that a decision will be handed down before Christmas of this year.

Additional legal claims have been raised. Sandie Peggie is taking action against three senior managers who were witnesses in the first 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 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

Thread 66: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5584074-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-66 30 September 2026 to 1 October 2026

Canada? Is that recent? Ex-pat Canadian here and “changer” was absolutely not in my or my peers’ vocabulary. Definitely “changing room.” Maybe “dressing room” in certain fancy clothing shops/stores.

I have never heard the word changer used in Canada. Ever.

I suspect there's a fourth option:

that he felt entitled to do what he wanted and to go 'where he felt more comfortable' as part of his chosen identity,

and despite identifying as a woman, had no doubt of a hierarchy in which he held higher control and power and entitlement to that space than any woman.

And viewed any woman who failed to unconditionally provide the labour he wanted from her and see him as the only relevant person in the situation, was a bad person who should be punished and disposed of ASAP because it threatened his self perception and his believed entitlement.

And had no capacity to care that the women in that space actually had lives and consciousness and needs of their own that were equal to his, and that he wasn't the only part of the situation that mattered. Issues with social capacity and emotional intelligence would seem to be playing a major part.

Unfortunately for women; none of this precludes options 1 2 or 3 also being involved for a man demanding to be present while she changes her period flooded clothes because he wants to and perceives her giving this experience as his right and that she is distressed about it.... well at best, he doesn't care. At worst, it may well be adding excitement to the whole experience. And his personal inner motivations don't matter anyway to her experience which is I do not want to do this in front of a man.

It's extremely grim.

It’s supported by FWS3 https://forwomen.scot/19/06/2026/fws-v-scottish-ministers-iii-the-judgment/ Female prisons are for females only.

Whilst not case law, as first tier judgements both Darlington Nurses and Faye Russell-Caldecott judgements made it clear the women’s changing room was for biological women only. Plus Faye’s judgement found NHSEs transgender policy of allowing people to use facilities based on gender.had the effect of violating her dignity
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g4reakSeqk6GovkD7Sj-FCYYltpVWRsm/view

WRT why Sandie needed a private changing room with washing and toilet provision - any woman knows you need this basic level of facilities if you have menstrual flooding. Particularly if you are a nurse on duty and will be going back to nursing patients - basic health and safety.

I will not be derailed. Yesterday was a tough day so did a bit of skipping of the longer repetitive argumentative posts ( my opinion only). Decided just in case that was the modus operandi I would rinse and repeat. Didn’t want to throw the ‘Mumsnet’ baby out with the bath water. Read all the posts up to date, thanks to all the ‘learned’ posters for legal explanations. Even if you want something to be true if the law says it isn’t it isn’t, at least we women know the score and can demand what is rightfully ours.

@Lacksie I have asked you this direct question several times

Why are you so desperate to have changing rooms labelled “women’s” to surreptitiously permit transwomen to use them?

A transparent label “women’s and transwomen’s changing room” would give everyone the choice of whether or not to use the changing room.

What I don't understand is why Sandie's lawyers didn't remind NHS Fife that they were breaking the Health and Safety laws by allowing the female changing facilities to be used by the opposite sex.

The desperation would seem to be to be in a room labelled 'women' with no provisos.

The fundamental injury here is that to permit women single sex spaces creates a visible form of 'real' womanhood that a man cannot achieve or identify into.

Which I get, and I have sympathy for. But it is reality, and cannot mean that women are required to stop having needs or equalities or access because some men find that existentially distressing.

They tried to make that case in the hearing, but the tribunal decided that it would not look at the Workplace Regulations because they are criminal law. I haven't checked, but I think Sandie's lawyers did raise this with NHS Fife before legal action started. However, FWS had not yet been decided by the SC and many organisations were still wedded to the view that trans identifying men were legally entitled to use the women's facilities, notwithstanding Haldane's judgment that appeared to exclude anyone without a GRC.

It's interesting because this is evident in the disability world, too. DD1 goes to a hydro pool. They thought about the fact that some disabled people wouldn't be able to use a press-button shower in the shower next to the pool. They didn't think about that in the changing room.

Exactly.

It’s also thinking everyone classified as disabled will be using the accessible toilet. There are so many different disabilities. I would also love single sex toilet accommodation to be inclusive of non ambulant people.

We should be keeping mixed sex, private design to a minimum, not increasing it.

Very well put. We're only reading about it and she lived through it ...

over and over again

Yes, agreed. The preoccupation of the L poster seems increasingly to be the availability to Dr Upton of a woman-labelled facility.

No-one has any entitlement to use a facility with a certain label. The entitlement is to sanitary facilities that meet the legal standards. The label is an incidental way of ensuring that specific legal requirements relating to sex are met.

I think that the label preoccupation may involve an underlying assumption that Dr Upton is being denied an 'affirmation' that 'other' (ie actual) women are permitted, namely the affirmation received by going into a facility labelled 'women'. But that isn't true. Women do not need or receive affirmation by going into a facility labelled 'women'. The label is informational only. Only trans people require affirmation (ETA: ie in the sense of affirmation in a preferred sex/gender), and that isn't a need that the 1992 Regs deal with.

What an excellent summary! I can feel the angry and disappointed feelz in every line.

I’m really not trying to “wriggle out” of anything.

I accept that there may be reasons why the alternative private spaces used for changing in this case did not meet the regulatory requirements. The tribunal also acknowledged that possibility.

What I object to is the claim that the law prohibits, in principle, a facility or service from being advertised as “for women” while admitting women and trans women, but excluding other men. That arrangement is not automatically unlawful. Its lawfulness depends on the circumstances, details of the facilities provided, etc There is a really important distinction here. You and others are presenting the law as requiring exclusions that go well beyond what the legislation actually requires, and the case law has reasoned, in order to advance a political agenda. That is not democratic.

Providing trans-inclusive services for men and women may be lawful in a wide range of circumstances. There are particular circumstances in which separate single sex provision is required—for example, certain facilities in workplaces and schools. In those settings, additional facilities or arrangements for private, separate use may be needed alongside trans-inclusive provision.

Whether those arrangements meet the requirements then becomes a question about the specific spaces, facilities and how they are used, rather than establishing that trans-inclusive provision is unlawful in principle.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/scottish-politics/5540478/human-rights-sandie-peggie-legal-action/
Sandie’s solicitor back in court soon.

Providing trans-inclusive services for men and women may be lawful in a wide range of circumstances.

i claim those circumstances only ever exist in situations where any sex segregation at all would itself be unlawful under the EA2010.

can you give a single example where the obvious sex discrimination involved in a woman-gender service meets any of the schedule 3 exemptions that permit it?

This is such an important point I’m going to repeat it. If there is a “wide range” of circumstances where gender-identity segregated services are going to meet the specific requirements of the EA2010, let’s have some examples.

Fuck it, let’s have just one example, to start.

IANAL but I haven't seen anything which states that something can be provided for women and transwomen and still be labelled as women. I can see that with a GRC there might have been an assumption that this category of man could in some circumstances be deemed a woman so could assume that the women's facilities covered him. This didn't apply to Upton, he didn't have a GRC.

I was also musing on the fact that it was only because Sandie wasn't aware that she held GRC views that she spoke out - as far as she was concerned Upton was a man and any man in the changing room was unacceptable. Had she known about the trans debate she might have realised what she was letting herself in for and stayed schtum.

Following on from this, I realise that the Judge will now be aware of the debate. How captured is she, or is she brave enough to risk being on the receiving end of the vilification that sex realists attract from the trans lobby?

i claim those circumstances only ever exist in situations where any sex segregation at all would itself be unlawful under the EA2010.

This is completely incorrect.

can you give a single example where the obvious sex discrimination involved in a woman-gender service meets any of the schedule 3 exemptions that permit it?

To provide services for women and trans women and exclude men you don't need to meet schedule 3 exemptions.

This was the reasoning that people widely tried to claim to support an interpretation of the SC as banning trans women from all female spaces. (If you treat men and women separately you rely on single sex exemptions. If you admit trans women to the female service, it is no longer "single sex" for the purposes of the act and therefore you can't allow on these exemptions. Therefore it would be unlawful discrimination against men to exclude them from the service.)

However, the High Court helpful pointed out, that this reasoning doesn't necessarily hold, because discrimination has to be more than simply "different treatment". You can provide different facilities for different groups, it only becomes discrimination when the alternative is less favourable.

So the court provided the example of toilets - men and women's. If the facilities are the same and no less favourable, it would not be necessarily unlawful to admit trans women to women's and not men, including if the toilets are specifically labelled as for "women".

In workplaces and schools, there are additional rules that require single sex provision, but this doesn't make the above type of services unlawful, it just means that in schools/ workplaces you would at least need some provision that satisfy's "single sex" provision rules - no reason to say this couldn't be additional services for birth females, or private facilities that meet the requirements. Etc.

I have some points to make. I'm not a huge fan of the forced air dryers and will use paper towels if there's the option. I use male toilets and about 20% of men don't wash their hands, the filthy gets. So even people that wash hands correctly still have to get out of the place somehow, trying not to touch something that's been touched by multiple toilet fingered dirties.

I suffer from occasional gender dysphoria. Like when I don't know how to fix my car or do basic DIY, and have to 'get a man', I do feel a little bit sad sometimes that I'm not manning manlyly enough. That's gender dysphoria right there. I'm also gender non-conforming. I don't own any jeans, or work boots. I have funny hair. I do the school runs in crocs and socks.

I don't have any body dysmorphia thank goodness. I mean sure I wish my legs were still in their 20s, but they're 51 and pretty dinged up. My manufacturer warranty ran out decades ago, it seems like. That being said, body I've got is the body I've got - and it will have to see me out!

So I'm sympathetic to folk who suffer from the sads when they're not living up to sexist tropes associated with their sex by society - aka gender dysphoria. I'm sympathetic to folk who like me get unsolicited fashion advice because they're judged sartorially out of line. And of course, feeling like your body is all wrong must be horrendous and I'm sympathetic about that too.

Of course I'd love a ticket to use the much nicer female facilities but that's not how it works. I just have to slum it in the gents. And if some bloke comes in wearing a dress, he's safe to share the space with me. I'd really love it if he washed his hands!

If you made it to the end, this was my ted talk about gender asaman. Thanks for reading.

You’re aiming at the monkey not the organ grinder.

Give us an example of a lawful single-gender service. We can review it, and if there’s no detriment to either sex or any detriment is justified by the application of an exemption, it will be legal.

the reason an example is critically important to your argument is that courts proceed only by way of example. The example in FWS was representation on public boards.

Believe it or not, I’m trying really hard to agree with you. Help me out by giving an example of one of the “wide range of circumstances”.

if your example is going to be toilets then I’m going to point out that the court didn’t examine the inherent difference between what women need from toilets and what men need. Allowing men into a women’s toilet is inherently discriminatory against women. That wasn’t mentioned in GLP because it wasn’t raised by either side. Your comment that the judge didn’t consider it necessarily discriminatory against men isn’t an overall justification, it was just an argument against challenge (vi) that GLP made.

Wow. I bet the stories that come out at this tribunal will be wild.

I've been pondering a scenario where Fife offer two sets of changing facilities, one labelled 'Women and Transwomen' and 'Females Only'. And I'm thinking Upton would have insisted on the 'Females Only'.

@BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn I did have some studies on men v women and handwashing - I can dig them out if you need them.

@Lacksie 10/10 for persistence and 10/10 for being persistently wrong.