Sandie Peggie v. Dr Upton & NHS Fife is the courtroom drama that the public fought to see. After an attempt to have the hearing held in private failed, nearly 300 people took the trouble to email the clerk for an online seat. And no wonder. The case hasn’t just exposed administrative dysfunction — it’s become an unmissable performance of sexual politics, complete with villains, victims, and the sort of moral contortions that can only thrive in an organisation like the NHS.
The storyline is familiar: a man wreaking vengeance on the woman who bruised his ego, flanked by a chorus of co-operative handmaidens — the nice girls who shaft their sisters to get ahead. Sandie Peggie may be the central character, but she’s supported by a gaggle of hags — crones who won’t wheest. After a hiatus of five months, season two started this week.
First up was Isla Bumba, NHS Fife’s youthful yet handsomely paid equality and diversity officer — a woman who almost certainly sees herself as one of the righteous. Her answers could’ve populated a DEI bingo card. She disputed the term “biological sex” and claimed that men who identify as women pose less of a threat to women than other men. With the dead-eyed calm of the ideologically possessed, she told Peggie’s lawyer Naomi Cunningham that she would unquestioningly accept someone’s trans identity. But it was Bumba’s declaration — “I don’t know what my own body is made of biologically. No one knows what their chromosomes are or their hormonal composition” — that marked the moment many critical observers shouted “full house.”
Setting aside the obvious reality of her female body, the behaviour she displayed was textbook femininity. She has learned, likely without realising it, that putting men’s interests first garners rewards. (Perhaps a dose of unconscious bias training might wake her to the obvious.) It allows her to appear compassionate while taking a swipe at the women she resents for being just like her. Not only are women like Peggie just as unmistakably female as Bumba — they simply refuse to be ashamed of it. Moreover, they unapologetically put their needs and those of other women first.
Bumba is a typical and ambitious young woman; she wants to be liked. She wants to be seen as kind and compassionate — and the most expedient way to achieve that is to put her own interests as a woman last. In this, Bumba wasn’t acting alone — she was following a well-worn path in the female-dominated NHS, implementing policies that discriminate against women by centering the demands of men.
Meanwhile, Dr Upton, who during the hearing in February mystifyingly described himself as biologically female in court, is a bully with the swagger of a tomcat. He thought he was untouchable, presenting himself as part of an apparently vulnerable minority granted him unchecked power to push through demands. As the nice girls climbed the internal hierarchy by signalling their compliance with gender ideology, Upton saw an opportunity. He knew that women trained to be accommodating, those who valued seeming ‘kind’, would hesitate to push back. He was right.
The complaint he submitted against Peggie was finally dismissed after 18 months due to “insufficient evidence”. It was a year and a half in which Peggie, while the media picked over everything from her menstrual flooding to her husband’s political views aired in court, was still being put through the rigours of NHS Fife’s internal investigation. It’s almost as if Upton threw together a complaint in a fit of pique to punish a woman for not playing along with his delusion.
There’s no social capital in defending a middle-aged woman who refuses to play nice
These dynamics are woven into the operation of organisations. There’s no social capital in defending a middle-aged woman who refuses to play nice, and there is a risk to standing up to men like Upton. And so, despite begging the Nursing Union to do its job and represent her, Peggie has been left unsupported. Meanwhile the likes of Scotland’s Engender, which claims to “work to dismantle structural sexism to increase women’s social, political and economic equality” and the Fawcett Society have steadfastly ignored the case. Presumably they’ve found it more profitable to keep quiet.
In the end, it’s not kindness that drives women to prioritise men — it’s conditioning. It’s a pattern of behaviour that gives them status and mitigates the risk posed by dangerous men. Upton didn’t act alone; his allies were everywhere, smiling as they tightened the screws. That’s why this courtroom drama resonates. The names change, but the plot stays the same: a woman speaks, and the system rushes to shut her up.
