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

Oooh, thankyou @Boiledbeetle . If I was nitpicking I'd say that the leech lacked something of a bedside manner. But perhaps that is in the nature of leeches - they focus more on the practical aspects of care.

ETA: I see now that he has a sweet little bandage. Awww, I was imagining him looming in for the suck.

Can we drop the ad hominem attacks please? Don't have the headspace for that kind of thing today. Let's focus on the issues.

I can't see how being inclusive / supportive of trans people/ trans rights (in your words "captured by GI") can in itself be brought to bear as evidence of discrimination. Think about it. The equivalent would be that support for women's rights is somehow evidence of discrimination against a trans employee. That's completely absurd and wrong headed.

There has to be adverse treatment + a factual basis from which the court could properly infer discrimination. That has to be something that actually shows discrimination against someone for holding gender critical beliefs, it can't just be 'the organisation is trans friendly'.

Only just spotted this one. Loving it. Naturally they look a little stern when they are working, in difficult circumstances, but when they are together in mutual solidarity they reveal their true happy gentleness.

The organisation was so blind it could not or would not see that DrU is a man.
Why else would that be if not steeped in gender beliefs?

OMG that's going to stay with me

The detail you are referring to wasn't "missing" from the judgement. It fully stated the legal points at issue. But law rightly and frequently includes terms such as ''reasonable', 'proportionate' and similar concepts. Inevitably, legislation states general principles that are then mapped on to the particular cases tried in court.

That is why many pieces of legislation have statutory guidance attached. Look at the HSE website, it is full of statutory guidance that cashes out the practical detailed measures that count as adequate compliance with health and safety law.

Your line of argument is inattentive to the nature of law. It seems to be polemic rather than realistic.

"You don't have to be mad to be on here, but..." :)

Factually, the judgment did not say that “biological males should not be allowed to use female changing rooms”.

It held that “sex” in the Equality Act refers to sex at birth. The Act’s exceptions therefore allow providers to restrict services to those female at birth, where the statutory conditions are met and the restriction is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This enables the lawful exclusion of trans women in those circumstances. It does not impose a blanket requirement to exclude them from every facility or service intended for women.

The EHRC guidance goes further by expressly stating that admitting trans women means a service is no longer single-sex for the purposes of the Act. That proposition is not expressly stated in the Supreme Court judgment itself. Whether it necessarily follows from the Court’s reasoning is a question of legal interpretation; it should not be presented as something the Court explicitly said. It didn't.

I can't see how being inclusive / supportive of trans people/ trans rights (in your words "captured by GI") can in itself be brought to bear as evidence of discrimination.

When claims of rights are in direct conflict, choosing one is discrimination against the other, surely?

Upton claimed he had the right to access women's single sex spaces. He did not, and NHS Fife were wrong to permit it.

Sandie Peggie has the right to a female only changing room. That necessarily means telling Dr Upton he can't be there.

The RCN discriminated against Sandy Peggie because when she asked for help with in trouble for objecting to a man in the changing room, all they could see was she had misgendered a transwoman.

They were so conditioned to prioritise the wants of a trans identity doctor they couldn't even see the harm done to the GC nurse, even though they are the nursing union

I don't agree that the judgement did fully state the legal points at issue. I think they left too much for legal interpretation in a way that is now causing significant confusion in public discussion/ arrangements, policy development and in the courts tasked with hearing cases such as SP's.

I do sometimes think we all, well some of us, walked blindly into this acceptance of trans people because of the ‘bringing your whole self to work’/DEI/Be Kind narrative over the past 10-15 years. Most people want to go to work pay the bills and go home. These disrupters to society, trans people have tested those things almost to see how far they can push things.

If anything I would like to see how many ET are going on where trans people are saying they have been discriminated against by an employer.

My sense is very few as employers will have shied away from telling the truth to keep the peace. We have literally been going along in a warped sense of reality to appease people who need psychological support not surgery.

This morning I got a video up on SM from someone called Alexandra Austin, the Green councillor for Southwark. No doubt a very commendable person doing a job in an area of deprivation. All good whatever you think of the Greens. All good except instead of Alex speaking to camera with a head a shoulder shot we were ‘treated’ to his full torso including a set of prosthetic breasts under a roll neck sweater. If that is not sticking a middle finger up at woman or any one dissenting against woman face then I do not know what is. We are being tested on all levels to accept this.

Again, you seem selectively blind. You are cherry-picking single blocks in the jenga tower NC built. Naturally they don't sand up on their own.

It makes you seem cynical.

If you were arguing in earnest, with a commitment to looking at the actual logic of the case, it would be interesting to hear from you. This thread should be welcoming to sincere engagement from the 'other side'. But, at best, you simply haven't had time to follow the NC argument, and at worst you don't actually care. You just want to bang a tribal tambourine. And I can understand people on the thread thinking that a thread of GC people isn't the place to do that.

They discussed at length what single sex actually meant. A single sex space requires only one sex to be present. Without this, it is a mixed sex space and other members of that sex may have their own discrimination claim, as do members of the sex it was intended for.

There is a difference between being inclusive/supportive of trans people and being captured by GI. You are inclusive if you accept trans people for who they are. You are captured if you regard GC individuals as bigots who must not be allowed to express their views or be supported. And NC has put forward plenty of evidence that RCN is intolerant towards those with GC beliefs.

I hope the judges of the UK's highest court are reading this thread, and are feeling suitably chastened, having had the inadequacies of their ruling pointed out to them in such a clear and authoritative manner.

Perhaps they should be called on write a reflection on all the trouble they've cause by doing such a shoddy job of Supreme-Court-judging?

Tried that. Got no answers.

The judgement was not offering instructions in the way you propose. Its purpose was to clarify the law and the appropriate workings of the law in practice.

'Proportionality' is not assessed on an individual case by case basis. Once proportionality has been shown, then a 'single sex' service means exactly that.

( paragraph 171):

“The definition of sex in the EA 2010 makes clear that the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man. Persons who share that protected characteristic for the purposes of the group-based rights and protections are persons of the same sex and provisions that refer to protection for women necessarily exclude men. Although the word “biological” does not appear in this definition, the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words corresponds with the biological characteristics that make an individual a man or a woman.”

The Supreme Court rejected as incoherent an approach that would include “trans women” (that is, biological men who identify as transgender) under the protected characteristic of being a woman, and “trans men” (that is, biological women who identify as transgender) under the protected characteristic of being a man. It said (at paragraph 172):

“We can identify no good reason why the legislature should have intended that sex-based rights and protections under the EA 2010 should apply to these complex, heterogenous groupings, rather than to the distinct group of (biological) women and girls (or men and boys) with their shared biology leading to shared disadvantage and discrimination faced by them as a distinct group.”

Once the gateway conditions are met for a woman’s service (at paragraph 221), the Supreme Court explains that:

“provided it is proportionate, the female only nature of the service would engage paragraph 27 [of Schedule 3] and would permit the exclusion of all males including males living in the female gender regardless of GRC status.”

No, there were public voices that were prepared to exploit public unawareness and tribalism to generate a sense of confusion about something that was clear. If you've been taken in by that, I suggest you route out a recording of the limpid account of the judgement given by the lead judge himself (as I recall) on the day that the judgement was published.

Anything worth saying can be misrepresented by bad actors. Look at all the deliberate health misinformation that is placed online by people seeking to make a buck. We live in an age of disinformation - that is how you have fallen for the illusion that the law is unclear.

Lacksie would benefit from, and others might enjoy, Michael Foran's lecture and q&a on the Supreme Court decision and its implications (it's billed as "in HE" as it was a session he gave by invitation of the Open University(!) but in fact almost nothing he says is specific to universities).

https://knowingius.org/p/examining-the-legal-context-of-sex

No, the judgment did not use those precise words but that is clearly the implication of the six references to changing rooms in the judgment, particularly paragraph 265(xiv) which says, "There are other provisions whose proper functioning requires a biological interpretation of “sex”. These include separate spaces and single-sex services (including changing rooms, hostels and medical services), communal accommodation and others (paras 210-228). "

Boily, the leeches look a bit like happy little dinosaurs

The Northern General hospital one is good for this. The behaviour of the man in that case was alleged by colleagues to be quite similar to “Rose” in the Darlington nurses case. He lost on most points and won on only one point I think, that it was discrimination because a “cis woman” wouldn’t have been asked about undressing in the female changing room. I think the actual c word was used. Showing the capture there. Predates FWS 1 and 2. Complete bollocks (pun not intended), not appealed. I doubt it would have gone that way after the SC ruling.

Don’t forget said poster also thinks the original Sandie Peggie judgment is sensible so maybe Big Sond can offer the lords and ladies some tips?

I am not sure at all how this will go. Iirc, to win the claim it first needs to be shown that there was a problem with how the RCN supported SP.

NC argued that the problem was treating the issue just as SP behaving in a discriminatory was towards DU. And that they should have realised that she was also treated unfairly in being exposed to a man in the changing room.
I thought that was presented fairly well from TT etc.

But the RCN were arguing that they did provide support - that her union rep was responsive, that they made lots of attempts to contact her etc. From a procedural pov I think that also seems reasonable - they ticked all the boxes they are supposed to and there's no obvious omission. So I'm not sure the judge will be receptive to the idea that they did something wrong.

Happy to be proved wrong though!