Allison Bailey sues TRA vets

As someone in human medicine, rather than animal medicine, the vet practice came across as absolute amateurs.

You can't go writing perjorative comments like that in patient's notes, people have had the right to read their notes for ages now.

You can't have a SLT meeting that isn't minuted.

You can't ask people to leave without following your policy.

You can't say that you weren't sad someone's dog died, even if you were thinking it.

If your annoying client is a barrister, then all use your common sense and make sure your documentation is perfect or they will have you for breakfast, they do this kind of thing for fun.

And if Alison truly is the rudest person they have ever dealt with, I can't believe they actually run a public facing business as anyone in retail/healthcare can tell you.

Those were my thoughts exactly! Right up there with “the cows did not mind the cricket”.

Exactly this!

People complaining she was able to bring this case in the first place can't see they want to cut off the tree branch they are sitting on.

So pleased she’s won!!!

@KnottyAuty
Quite!
The letter sent in spite after she’d asked for her dog’s records to be transferred!? There would have been no case to answer without that letter - I bet Ms Cook is in trouble behind the scenes for bringing all this down on her employers and discriminating against AB in their name. What an idiot!

This is the part that gets me: she was leaving. Let her go. Send her records as quickly as possible and wish her well. Everyone is happy. But no, they have to get a last dig in by sending a fuck you letter. I don't know how you can see that as anything but pure animus. What was the point except to get one last jab before she left?

Yes, and while I'm used to misogyny, the stupidity is very striking. I mean, I'm in charge of not only all my own money but all my husband's, and I make the vast majority of the purchasing decisions for a multiple person household. This is not an unusual setup for women with dependent DC. That's a loooooot of money being spent, and not spent.

I was planning to get on with the hoovering. But now you mention it, I think I'll just sit here with a nice cup of tea and have a good old seethe.

@KnottyAuty
It's only Sainsbury's but I've been very pleased with them - prompt & efficient. Tbh we've got local local greengrocers, fishmongers, bakers etc that I use regularly but get lots of visitors so use online when there's babies, adults and animals coming to stay!
Not Ocado's biggest customer but just not going back in the light of their fuckwittery.

I've just checked the UK weather for you, wims - it seems to be a bit cooler at the moment, but the temperature will start rising again around midweek.

So now is a good window of opportunity for getting in some of that 'seething' that Bee is so interested in, before it gets too damn hot for anything as energetic as seething hatred.
HTH!

Absolutely. I don’t think they understand how deep a wound this is for many women…

It definitely smacks of misogyny. They seem to make these statements with a certain amount of relish. Absolute arseholes. It not only alienates customers, but also any employees who believe sex matters.

Ohh can you recommend them? I’ve been shopping around but am not quite settled

Quite right. I haven't used Ocado since Justine's revelation of how they cancelled Mumsnet for terfery. I wrote to them and got the old "it wasn't us, it was a contractor wot did it" They're evidently desperate for custom as I've just had an email offering a 25% discount on my next shop. But I'm now using one of their competitors.

Any comments, OP? @messybundles

It’s not “more” protection under the Equality Act.
Its the same as everyone else!

The Vet team are entitled to believe in and support LGBTQ+ causes but there are limits as to how they manifest their beliefs. Sacking Allison as a client in the way they did (reasons and method completely different to previous 2 client sackings in 5 years) revealed their prejudice against her GC beliefs. They discriminated against her.

If you don’t agree with the law as applied to Allison, I assume you’d be happy to be rejected from a service just for being trans? You’d be happy to give up any protections for those with the characteristic of Gender Reassignment? No. I thought not. You should be pleased that this case has been won as it strengthens the protections for GR imo.

I thought the section in the judgement about Mr Ho was interesting. His activities on social media seemed to be/border on libellous. Accusing a black lesbian of being a homophobic white supremacist is quite a weird thing to do. I wonder how long it will be before there are court cases on that sort of stuff? So far people have posted appallingly hateful statements and haven’t considered they might be expressing their beliefs in a very problematic and unlawful way…

Can you think of any group other than sex-realist women that a CEO would fee free to to so publicly hate? It's chillingly misogynistic as well as stupid since women do more shopping than men. I buy absolutely everything for my kids, for example.

There are a few (male) CEOs of big companies who have made statements about gender-critical people not being welcome. They've discussed this a few times on the this isn't working podcast. Apart from anything else, it doesn't make a lot of business sense to alienate a substantial portion of your customers because they hold lawful opinions you don't agree with.

Id recommend the latest episode of the this isn't working podcast, by the way. It's got Helen Joyce and a really wonderful HR director on it.

The double standards are always what amaze me. They're so egregious. On the one hand AB is not allowed to be direct and assertive, particularly when it comes to treating HER dogs who she loves. On the other, the ridiculous and extremely rude and truly aggressive ask of 'preferred' non grammatical, sex deceptive compelled speech pronouns is something we're all just supposed to roll over about. A woman being assertive = not ok; introducing a whole load of anti-science authoritarian vocab in a team meeting (at a vets ffs) = fine.

Increasingly I think gender ideology is just a license for people to be bullies.

Allison Bailey is such a shero for standing up to bullies.

That comment about Middle Earth is the most male trans comment ever. LOL.

It’s pure projection.

I’m a vet and long term terf. I don’t think I ever peaked as such, because well reality innit.
This story has rattled me as I feel I can no longer leave the madness spoken by some of my profession gainsaid. Which means speaking out and I’m sure many of you are familiar with the repercussions of doing that. It angers me that I must stay silent while the manics get to speak freely. @PriOn1do you have some tips?

One veterinary social media site is run by believers and discussion of this topic is not allowed. To see the authoritarianism in real time is chilling. Another site I have more hope for. It remains to be seen how this story will be covered by official media - the VetRecord and VetTimes and what comments we get from our august bodies, RCVS, BVA, BSAVA - all captured.

What a rollercoaster these last couple of years have been - a hard one victory then a crashing realisation there is so much more to do (and a sense of guilt I am not more active myself). I find it distressing that so many people - WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER, vets, medics, scientists - believe in this ideology. If they can get us to believe (or say we believe) that 2+2=5, what else can they get us to believe?

Well I've read it. There's an awful lot of 'Dr H said' this or that by people interested in not losing the case, without him being there to be asked directly. His absence reeks to high heaven!

I don't think if Allison was a white, male, posh (i.e. from an upper class background) barrister her directness and expectation of high levels of service (no doubt at a cost) would have been considered 'aggressive' or 'rude'. In my experience, women get called 'aggressive' for things that would be entirely unremarked upon in a man.

Still, I can see she probably wasn't the easiest customer, but they managed the relationship in a positive way for years and then suddenly when she's involved in a prominent case about her GC views THEN it becomes a problem? And it's nothing at all to do with her views? Yep, pull the other one.

And the stuff they discussed in a staff meeting was pretty extreme activist material. Apparently the need to not be 'rude' doesn't count when it comes to demanding that everyone else comply with your belief system and demand for pronouns that break normal rules of English thus are very difficult. Seems pretty rude to me to demand everyone else with comply with what you want regardless of their beliefs, their feelings or their mental capacity to do so.

So he wasn't called - by either side - for whatever reasons. In the end it doesn't matter why he wasn't called, since Allison won her case.

• *From the judgment

Dr Hampson was not called to dispute this
account. He could have provided relevant evidence on several matters, including
Ms Bailey’s behaviour, his own comments about her beliefs and litigation, and
how widely known these were within the practice. It is evident that Dr Hampson
had important evidence to offer in response to Ms Bailey’s claims. His
unexplained absence allows for a reasonable inference to be drawn. I accept Ms
Bailey’s evidence that Dr Hampson showed interest in her litigation, that it was
discussed within the practice, and that while he supported her, others did not.