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

You quoted a small part of a legal decision, but it looks like haven't read it in context, and you haven't realised that the judge raised an unlikely and specific 'what'-if' and then dismissed it.

Elsewhere, he is is very clear about men meaning men and women meaning women re the provision of separate facilities. From the same judgement

35 ... Short of this, the Claimants’ submission was that having provided a room for women, the 1992 Workplace Regulations do not prevent the employer adopting a policy that the room could be used by both women and trans women. Thus, the submission goes, regulation 20 requires no more than the provision of facilities and says nothing as to the manner in which those facilities should be used. I do not accept this submission. First, it places form over substance, disregarding the obvious purpose of regulations 20 –21 and 24 The obvious albeit unspoken premise of regulation 20 is the provision of private space for each sex for reasons of conventional decency.

37 It is clear from this that the objective of regulation 20 is that men and women should use conveniences in separate rooms, not together in the same room.

I'm with Ereshkigalangcleg - even if it's the umpteenth time Justice Swift has been quoted out of context, I can't let it stand.
Sorry for hastening the end of thread #67, but ich kann nicht anders😞

That's why to have an actually strongly held position, you need to set out under what circumstances you'd reject it.

Just a reminder I have setup a new thread to enable people wanting to discuss the Supreme Court Ruling they can. That way we keep the Sandie Peggie threads more along the lines that @nauticant set them up for and has diligently maintained.

Thread for SC ruling discussion is here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5584765-interpretation-of-the-supreme-court-ruling-biological-sex

I've only just seen the new thread,
Interpretation of the Supreme Court Ruling - biological sex | Mumsnet
and will post anything else I have to say about interpretations of the SC judgement on there instead.
Sorry I hadn't read about it before posting above.

I think you've missed the point.

It's implying that there's potentially an argument that it's not discrimination against men without the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

However it does not address the harassment of females because males are using the facilities, so you cannot support your conclusion.

He doesn't need to reveal it. It's patently obvious.

What this says is that it might not necessarily be discriminatory towards non trans identified MEN assuming the facilities are equal for both sexes. It DOES NOT say it wouldn't be discriminatory to the women that space was designated for and it explicitly says that the space would be mixed sex in these circumstances.

What it definitely DOESN'T say is that trans identified men should be allowed in women SINGLE SEX spaces. Only that a possible configuration of a MIXED SEX space might be one that included trans identified men but not men that do not identify as trans. Quite how that would work is not explained. It's a theoretical musing on the part of the judge and I think would not work in the real world.
He wasn't saying what you and the Fox Basher seem to think he was saying. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wishes that judge had kept his daft musings to himself. It was helpful to precisely no one

I have asked my previous post to be deleted and will move it to the more relevant thread. Thanks.

Building regulations and legislation deal with health and safety. That’s why, as well as being the cheapest, most space saving and quickest turnover, toilet cubicles are in a single sex washroom. And we have urinals in men’s. With cubicles, when you have door gaps, this design can and does save lives and prevents assaults. There are less pathogens from the toilet flush propelled over the sink and hand dryer as the toilet and basin/dryer are further away from each other.

However, when the environment becomes mixed sex, privacy needs override the health and safety advantages above.

We are all stuck with private, resistant to sound rooms - in the case of toilets with the washbasin and dryer inside. That’s the price of this ‘inclusivity’. It’s least worse for healthy men. This, I presume is the design end goal for @Lacksie .

This private design is the one Hampstead are having to implement at their Ladies Pond because currently the toilets are a single sex design and it’s not up to current building regulations. They have indeed announced they will be increasing privacy as a ‘solution’ to it not being single sex environment. It will be expensive to change, the private toilet and changing rooms will get mouldy (the current ones have been noted to be damp which is to be expected next to water, but these new ones will be worse due to lack of circulating air), they will be less easy to mop, there will be less provision per area, queues will be longer, and whatever is going on in those private compartments won’t be witnessed.

Single sex provision is healthier and safer by design. It’s why the set up in the locker room at Fife should have been a single sex space.

This case should have had involvement from the Health and Safety Executive and/or Building Safety Regulator.

Gentle reminder - This is a Sandie Peggie Thread. Can we try and take any discussion about the SC ruling over here on a thread dedicated to it to keep @nauticant threads tidy?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5584765-interpretation-of-the-supreme-court-ruling-biological-sex

Then what ARE your intentions in obfuscating the law as laid out in the SCJ and the subsequent high court ruling on the EHCR guidance? Because that's clearly what you are trying to do here. It definitely comes across as you trying to find a loophole whereby men are allowed into women's single sex spaces.
If that isn't your motivation, what is?

Argument for arguments' sake?

You would still think that if they had any cases of any type to prove that SPs case wasn't handled differently to others because of her "beliefs" they'd have shown them to the court.

Those passages concern whether trans-inclusive toilets fulfil an employer’s obligations under the Workplace Regulations. The judge rejects the argument that merely labelling a mixed-sex facility “women” satisfies those requirements.

Paragraph 61 addresses a different question: whether admitting trans women while directing other men to materially similar male toilets necessarily amounts to unlawful sex discrimination under the Equality Act. He recognises that it may not.

He does not subsequently dismiss that possibility. Paragraph 99 expressly confirms that trans-inclusive toilets could comply with the Equality Act.

The additional workplace requirements limit how employers can implement that arrangement specifically in the workplace. They do not turn paragraph 61 into a rejected hypothetical (dismissed 'what if') or establish a blanket prohibition of trans women from women's facilities/ services.

Well you tried very hard @BlueLegume et al.
Interpretation of the Supreme Court Ruling - biological sex | Mumsnet

Marie and I are both on the other thread. There are some good posts. Let’s respect the spirit of this one.

I’m going to try and pivot this thread and point out a relevant case that has just been heard.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5584773-community-union-members-bring-judicial-review-today-over-sex-and-gender-discussions

TT Substack https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/norma-hart-and-others-for-judicial

This is about a TU policy that treats women and people who identify as non-binary as one group. For example representation 50% women and 50% men could see 100% biological men if all the non-binary people are male. There is also a claim of victimisation on how the women who keep rais8ng this are being treated.

It’s conflating two categories I.e. women and non-binary which includes both men and women but excludes some men. It’s also testing non-binary again as it’s not a PC.

@Lacksie can we please respect @nauticant thread about Sandie Peggie? Several people suggested you start a thread dedicated to discussing the SC ruling. You didn’t so I have and it is here. I do feel at the end of the SP tribunal week you trying to re invent the wheel by challenging the clear SC ruling is a tad disrespectful. Looking forward to seeing you here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5584765-interpretation-of-the-supreme-court-ruling-biological-sex

Sorry but I think it's (well more than) a tad unreasonable that other people should respond to my posts with factually incorrect legal information, and then I should be told off for correcting them. An accurate understand of the what the SC says and it's limits is in any case very relevant to any conversation about the SP tribunal.

Regardless, I'm happy to take it elsewhere but if people keep tagging me with incorrect/ misleading legal claims in response to what I have posted, I'm going to reserve the right to correct them! :)

Can I reiterate PP's polite requests with a more vigorous

FFS people stay on topic

Respond on the other thread and @ the person you are responding to. They will then follow you to the more appropriate thread.

I don't think it should be left uncorrected here as it contributes to widespread misinformation about the law.

Sorry but I think it's (well more than) a tad unreasonable that other people should respond to my posts with factually incorrect legal information, and then I should be told off for correcting them.

But you fail to be convincing. I asked you whether you knew more than the Supreme Court judges. If you had been able to come back and say that yes, you'd been a senior judge for xx years and had you been sitting with the Supreme court panel, you might have dissented from their judgement.

As it stands you just come across as a back room lawyer - someone who might have read a law book or two, but doesn't really know.

Doesn’t even come across as that to me.

Not at all. A legitimate question when the subject under discussion has such profound significance for women's sex-based rights. Ducking it strongly implies you don't have an answer.