Sandra Peggie vs NHS Fife
12
KInda surprised there isn't already a thread about this ongoing case here. Maybe it's because it's Scotland and (correct me if I'm wrong here) they have a slightly different legal take on the whole trans self identification issue?
I think the thing that scares me most is how far the system is tilting such that the rights of the very few to dictate how everyone else must behave. All in the name of diversity and equality. Neither do I believe that the majority should be free to make the minorities' lives miserable. What this case amply demonstrates though is how mad things have got. How have we arrived in a world where there is so little attempt to understand someone else's point of view and find a way to live together if not happily then in a way where there is some give and take and consideration for others? Since when is equality a universal principle that means all of society must respect an individual's beliefs and the slightest lack of respect a reason to seek legal redress? I don't have any answers but I don't see a government capable of coming up with solutions either.
In any case here's an article from the Spectator that I'll copy and paste as well in case access to it disappears. The parts in bold really resonate with me and I wonder how far down the rabbit hole we're going to be in the near future.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-we-should-learn-from-the-sandie-peggie-case/
Across the UK, NHS services are coming under increasing pressure. Hospital waiting lists are too long while A&E departments struggle with patient demand. Nevertheless, at an employment tribunal in Scotland this week, we have learned that health boards like NHS Fife can apparently afford to suspend a senior A&E nurse with 30 years’ experience and an unblemished record for months simply because she dared to question the presence of a transwoman doctor in the ladies changing room.
Sandie Peggie’s remonstration with Dr Beth Upton was described as a ‘bullying’ incident by the junior doctor. However that did not deter nurse Peggie, who lodged a claim against both Dr Upton and the health board for sexual harassment, harassment relating to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation.
The otherwise cash-strapped NHS doesn’t have to worry about funding its defence: it has the bottomless pit of taxpayers’ money to rely on. Senior Counsel has been instructed to represent both the NHS Trust and Dr Upton, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds of public cash and the many hours of lost NHS time. To make matters worse the whole thing is proceeding at a snail’s pace largely because the health service appear to have failed to fully comply with a court order for production of documents. NHS Fife has been forced by the sterling efforts of Ms Peggie’s barrister to produce more files as the case progresses, necessitating frequent stops and starts.
The NHS legal team also tried, without success, to have the whole thing heard in private. There has been huge public interest, and the proceedings have been widely reported in the papers, on radio and tv and in social media. Hundreds of observers joined a daily live stream of the proceedings until – for reasons that were unclear – most of them were kicked out and prevented from further access earlier this week. A side issue of this whole farrago is the failure of the courts to keep up with the digital age. Open justice should not be an inconvenience. It is a necessity and for that we need live streaming of cases where there is such sustained public interest.
Not since the case of Isla Bryson (the trans rapist who wanted to go to a woman’s prison) has the Scottish public seen such a stark example of the results of embedding gender identity ideology. The painstaking work of a small cabal of lobbyists has poisoned our institutions with a science-denying dogma designed to elevate the rights of biological men who claim they are women above all else. A noticeable feature of the case is the silence of nursing unions. Women’s rights are not high on the list of priorities of most trade unions these days.
Far from turning a blind eye to this, our political class have by and large waived it through. While this may have happened in Scotland on the SNP’s watch it should never be forgotten that at UK level gender creep happened under the Tories – though they have now seen the light. This malaise has infected all political parties.
And while court actions have been pivotal in raising awareness of the issues of gender ideology in practice, the courts themselves have not been immune to the dogma of gender identity cultists. Lawyers for NHS Fife and Dr Upton wanted the judge to make an order preventing Peggie from referring to the junior doctor as a man because they claimed it was unlawful harassment. The judge refused, ruling that each side should ‘be in a position to argue the case in the manner that they see fit’ but warned that pronoun use could be classed as harassment if used ‘gratuitously and offensively on a repeated basis’. Peggie’s lawyers argued that it would have been impossible to prove her case clearly while referring to Upton as ‘she’.
That the public have had enough was evidenced by a YouGov poll this week which shows that a growing majority are becoming more sceptical about the requests of the trans activist lobby. This result follows the bravery of women like Sandie Peggie who have dared to challenge the results of policies which have often misrepresented the law.
Legal regulations governing workplace health, safety and welfare provide that separate changing rooms should be provided for men and women. The case is being dealt with under the Equality Act in which ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are unambiguously sex-based terms – although a Supreme Court judgment on whether the obtaining of a gender recognition certificate modifies the meaning of ‘sex’ is currently pending. However, laws which once guaranteed single sex spaces will be meaningless if the meaning of ‘sex’ can be changed at will.
For justice to be done in our society when these kinds of disputes occur, both the eliciting of evidence and the application of the law depends on a shared societal understanding of how language is ordinarily used. This case illustrates how this shared understanding has been deliberately undermined. The Peggie case has been adjourned until July.
Written by Joanna Cherry KC, former SNP MP for Edinburgh South West and now returned to the Scottish bar this year
I think the thing that scares me most is how far the system is tilting such that the rights of the very few to dictate how everyone else must behave. All in the name of diversity and equality. Neither do I believe that the majority should be free to make the minorities' lives miserable. What this case amply demonstrates though is how mad things have got. How have we arrived in a world where there is so little attempt to understand someone else's point of view and find a way to live together if not happily then in a way where there is some give and take and consideration for others? Since when is equality a universal principle that means all of society must respect an individual's beliefs and the slightest lack of respect a reason to seek legal redress? I don't have any answers but I don't see a government capable of coming up with solutions either.
In any case here's an article from the Spectator that I'll copy and paste as well in case access to it disappears. The parts in bold really resonate with me and I wonder how far down the rabbit hole we're going to be in the near future.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-we-should-learn-from-the-sandie-peggie-case/
Across the UK, NHS services are coming under increasing pressure. Hospital waiting lists are too long while A&E departments struggle with patient demand. Nevertheless, at an employment tribunal in Scotland this week, we have learned that health boards like NHS Fife can apparently afford to suspend a senior A&E nurse with 30 years’ experience and an unblemished record for months simply because she dared to question the presence of a transwoman doctor in the ladies changing room.
Sandie Peggie’s remonstration with Dr Beth Upton was described as a ‘bullying’ incident by the junior doctor. However that did not deter nurse Peggie, who lodged a claim against both Dr Upton and the health board for sexual harassment, harassment relating to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation.
The otherwise cash-strapped NHS doesn’t have to worry about funding its defence: it has the bottomless pit of taxpayers’ money to rely on. Senior Counsel has been instructed to represent both the NHS Trust and Dr Upton, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds of public cash and the many hours of lost NHS time. To make matters worse the whole thing is proceeding at a snail’s pace largely because the health service appear to have failed to fully comply with a court order for production of documents. NHS Fife has been forced by the sterling efforts of Ms Peggie’s barrister to produce more files as the case progresses, necessitating frequent stops and starts.
The NHS legal team also tried, without success, to have the whole thing heard in private. There has been huge public interest, and the proceedings have been widely reported in the papers, on radio and tv and in social media. Hundreds of observers joined a daily live stream of the proceedings until – for reasons that were unclear – most of them were kicked out and prevented from further access earlier this week. A side issue of this whole farrago is the failure of the courts to keep up with the digital age. Open justice should not be an inconvenience. It is a necessity and for that we need live streaming of cases where there is such sustained public interest.
Not since the case of Isla Bryson (the trans rapist who wanted to go to a woman’s prison) has the Scottish public seen such a stark example of the results of embedding gender identity ideology. The painstaking work of a small cabal of lobbyists has poisoned our institutions with a science-denying dogma designed to elevate the rights of biological men who claim they are women above all else. A noticeable feature of the case is the silence of nursing unions. Women’s rights are not high on the list of priorities of most trade unions these days.
Far from turning a blind eye to this, our political class have by and large waived it through. While this may have happened in Scotland on the SNP’s watch it should never be forgotten that at UK level gender creep happened under the Tories – though they have now seen the light. This malaise has infected all political parties.
And while court actions have been pivotal in raising awareness of the issues of gender ideology in practice, the courts themselves have not been immune to the dogma of gender identity cultists. Lawyers for NHS Fife and Dr Upton wanted the judge to make an order preventing Peggie from referring to the junior doctor as a man because they claimed it was unlawful harassment. The judge refused, ruling that each side should ‘be in a position to argue the case in the manner that they see fit’ but warned that pronoun use could be classed as harassment if used ‘gratuitously and offensively on a repeated basis’. Peggie’s lawyers argued that it would have been impossible to prove her case clearly while referring to Upton as ‘she’.
That the public have had enough was evidenced by a YouGov poll this week which shows that a growing majority are becoming more sceptical about the requests of the trans activist lobby. This result follows the bravery of women like Sandie Peggie who have dared to challenge the results of policies which have often misrepresented the law.
Legal regulations governing workplace health, safety and welfare provide that separate changing rooms should be provided for men and women. The case is being dealt with under the Equality Act in which ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are unambiguously sex-based terms – although a Supreme Court judgment on whether the obtaining of a gender recognition certificate modifies the meaning of ‘sex’ is currently pending. However, laws which once guaranteed single sex spaces will be meaningless if the meaning of ‘sex’ can be changed at will.
For justice to be done in our society when these kinds of disputes occur, both the eliciting of evidence and the application of the law depends on a shared societal understanding of how language is ordinarily used. This case illustrates how this shared understanding has been deliberately undermined. The Peggie case has been adjourned until July.
Written by Joanna Cherry KC, former SNP MP for Edinburgh South West and now returned to the Scottish bar this year
Reply 1
Ms Peggie is likely to win. The arrogance of the doctor and the insensitivity of the NHS Trust are coming across badly. Ms Peggie is a survivor of sexual assault, and was traumatised by the male doctor entering the women's changing room.
In almost every case involving similar issues, the party standing up for the reality of sex has succeeded. Most recently, last week the Court of Appeal found that the dismissal of a school teacher for expressing sex realist views was unlawful.
The public sector in Scotland has suffered even more ideological capture by the trans lobby than its counterparts elsewhere in the UK, as this case shows. That capture has no democratic legitimacy. Surveys show that the public supports single sex spaces. There is nothing transphobic about this. Many public sector organisations accepted bad legal advice from Stonewall which mischaracterises the law. This has cost the public a lot of money.
In almost every case involving similar issues, the party standing up for the reality of sex has succeeded. Most recently, last week the Court of Appeal found that the dismissal of a school teacher for expressing sex realist views was unlawful.
The public sector in Scotland has suffered even more ideological capture by the trans lobby than its counterparts elsewhere in the UK, as this case shows. That capture has no democratic legitimacy. Surveys show that the public supports single sex spaces. There is nothing transphobic about this. Many public sector organisations accepted bad legal advice from Stonewall which mischaracterises the law. This has cost the public a lot of money.
Reply 2
Overreach, aggression, and intolerance by trans activists has led to a loss of support for their cause in the UK -
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51545-where-does-the-british-public-stand-on-transgender-rights-in-202425
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51545-where-does-the-british-public-stand-on-transgender-rights-in-202425
Reply 4
It's bigotry on both sides.
Feminists have been getting their own way for so long their are infuriated they have to cater to a new minority.
On the other hand gender activists are taking it too far and it's become like a new state religion.
Joanna Cherry is someone who comes across as a bigot and should be kicked out of the legal profession instead of getting privileges at the public's expense.
Feminists have been getting their own way for so long their are infuriated they have to cater to a new minority.
On the other hand gender activists are taking it too far and it's become like a new state religion.
Joanna Cherry is someone who comes across as a bigot and should be kicked out of the legal profession instead of getting privileges at the public's expense.
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