Mick Hartley

Jo Bartosch at The Critic on the Sandie Peggie case:

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.”

Perhaps – one hopes – in a few years time the wretched Bumba will look back on her youthful and absurd obeisance to gender ideology, and cringe.

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.

It's notable how the NHS Fife doctors – "co-operative handmaidens" all – report on how upset poor Dr Upton was: sobbing, apparently, after his encounter with this woman who was prepared to stand up to him. Hard to imagine this six-foot burly man sobbing – only women sob, of course – but it's all part of the well-worn victim narrative in this and just about every other trans story.

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.