Rachel Meade, Social Worker, being suspended for 'transphobic' Facebook postss

[MidCenturyClegs]

A social worker, Rachel Meade, is in the process of challenging Social Work England - their professional regulatory body - as she believes she may have discriminated against her due to gender critical beliefs.

This is because during the GRA consultation, she shared posts on her private FB page, from FPFW, WPUK & Standing for Women, among others. These were being secretly screenshot by an ex colleague who then sent these to Social Work England, claiming that the posts were from groups who were discriminatory in nature, transphobic and who wanted to remove trans rights.

SWE decided that this was the case and sanctioned her, leading her employer to investigate her for gross misconduct. They placed a public Fitness to practice warning sanction on her record for a year. She has been suspended by her employer as a result of Social Work England's decision and will be facing a disciplinary process which she has been told may end in her dismissal.

She is taking both Social Work England and her employer to a tribunal; this is a really important case as if she wins, it will clarify in law that not only are employers bound to protect gender critical beliefs under EA2010, but Regulatory bodies are bound by it too.

This will mean that all regulatory bodies will have to recognise that the gender critical beliefs of their registrants/members are protected in law. This will cover social work, healthcare & law as well as any other areas covered by regulatory bodies so will have far reaching effects.

I have heard that she may be setting up a crowdfunder but obviously this is not the place to advertise that, but if people wish to donate should be easy to find.
Just saw that the Times have covered this too.

twitter.com/EmilieCCole/status/1481638709724270593?s=20

@PlayYouLikeAShark

This is not that case

I disagree. I think there's enough about this case that just doesn't sit right & RM is as entitled as anyone to ask for support. No one is compelled to do so, but she's at risk of losing her livelihood. If that's not a good enough reason to challenge what's transpired, then I'm not sure what is.

Yes I agree with this. I think Rachel herself may has been a victim here, and has been potentially caused unnecessary fear and anxiety due to the wrath of a biased ideology bearing down upon her. The threat being to lose her employment and reputation. I suspect she accepted this to try and make it all go away. It would be an understandable response. This process has too many questions hanging over it and transparency is necessary. I think this needs to be explored and the outcome clarified for other social workers in current practice.

The difference is that Marion Miller vehemently denied doing or saying anything wrong. RM admitted to her regulator that her posting pattern was unacceptable and agreed to accept their warning. The two aren't really comparable.

Motorina but could that because she was frightened over the very fact that someone had made a complaint about her posts? Could it not be that she complied out of fear? And maybe a genuinely held belief that she was being hurtful. It's not uncommon for even the most vehemently gender critical woman to waver when instructed to be kind.

I understand that a next step to that could be to explain it, though.

"Look, I accepted the warning because I was frightened and pressured and thought I was in the wrong. But now having looked at things like the maya Forstater judgment, I don't think I was".

Is it the lack of explanation that's bothering you?

Is it the lack of explanation that's bothering you?

Yeah, the lack of explanation in the face of what seem like quite significant changes in her position.

I totally understand why she'd agree her posts were unacceptable and accept a warning to make the regulatory process go away. I get that. But she's now attempting to fight that as unfair. I don't know but I assume she would have had legal advice at the point of deciding to accept the case examiners decision. It would be unusual if she did not. So it was an informed decision.

She had the opportunity to take it to a hearing and argue her case, and she decided not to. Which is fine - it's her choice. But I don't understand why she's now trying to have a second bite of the cherry in the employment tribunal.

If it's that her understanding has changed in light of the Forstater judgement then I think she needs to explain that. Instead, she makes no mention of the fact that the SWE outcome was an agreed one.

It doesn't tie up, and that bothers me.

An analogy... if you're charged with, I don't know, shop lifting say. And you plead guilty. There isn't a trial where the evidence is unpicked, and it's decided that you stole the chocolate but not the carrots. That trial doesn't happen because you plead guilty.

You don't then get to fundraise to appeal because the court got it wrong in finding you guilty. You plead guilty!

It feels like that's what she's doing and, in the absence of any explanation, that bothers me.

You don't then get to fundraise to appeal because the court got it wrong in finding you guilty. You plead guilty!

Although the impact of this is considerable on other social workers in practice, who are still not clear on how much they are allowed to participate in a national debate, particularly one that has implications for safeguarding in practice.

This needs to be picked apart in order to clarify that.

It doesn't tie up, and that bothers me.

If it bothers you, I completely accept that you have good instinct. Your expertise is well known!

In any event, even if there's a bit of jiggery-pokery going on, I still hope that this sort of case will provide a measure of forensic scrutiny over what is deemed acceptable for women to say.

I genuinely, wholeheartedly, believe that the gender critical position is defendable on every single point.

But also, I would like to see some sunlight shed on the inequality of opposing positions. Rape threats, violence, preventing access to meetings, etc, compared to rudeness or being a bit offensive.

The fact that women, who are constantly on the attack, are deemed in the wrong for displaying even a fraction of the aggression carried out by transactivists needs to be addressed.

And if what Rachel has said is deemed transphobic, then let's get a definition of what the hell that is.

You don't then get to fundraise to appeal because the court got it wrong in finding you guilty. You plead guilty!

Yeah, I'm still bothered by it perhaps not being a change of heart, but being a change of understanding over what constituted guilt!!

"Yes I said that transwomen are men and they shouldn't be in women's spaces, and I've been told that's transphobic. Guilty as charged!"

"I now realise that's not transphobic. Not guilty as charged!"

Ooh so many exclamation marks.

(!)

@Motorina

An analogy... if you're charged with, I don't know, shop lifting say. And you plead guilty. There isn't a trial where the evidence is unpicked, and it's decided that you stole the chocolate but not the carrots. That trial doesn't happen because you plead guilty.

You don't then get to fundraise to appeal because the court got it wrong in finding you guilty. You plead guilty!

It feels like that's what she's doing and, in the absence of any explanation, that bothers me.

Not a good analogy as power issues are ignored. A better one is if you are in a dictatorship state and you get put in prison for some crime or other which you did not commit and you plead guilty as that way you get off with a fine rather than 20 years in an inhumane prison.

If the fact of pleading guilty then follows you around for life with people feeling like they have the right to spit on you and call you a murderer you absolutely do get the right to fundraise for an appeal.

Sorry, also meant to say that explanations are tricky in a world where not agreeing with men carries with it significant risks of threats of violence, driving you out of your job etc. If she had an explanation how would she know whether trans ideologists would twist that to be another evidence of her failing to abide by their decrees? Our society is no longer safe for women.

One of the core arguments of so-called ‘gender critical’ ideology is that trans women cannot be fully ‘accepted’ as women because their experience of womanhood is not identical to that of cis women and trans women can therefore not fully comprehend or empathise with the supposedly universal subordination of women. This argument rests on the fiction of a single female experience, a fiction which has routinely silenced and side-lined women who experience racism, colonial domination and other forms of oppression that cannot be singularly attributed to their gender

I've read some clueless waffling shite about what I supposedly think as a feminist but that takes the biscuit. We don't think they have a different "experience of womanhood" because we don't consider them women in any way, shape or form, because they are male and women are female. They have a different experience of being male. Which I'm not particularly interested in, tbh. I only care because they are forcing themselves into everything which is for women, a very male-socialised thing to do. If they lived and let live, so would I.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

One of the core arguments of so-called ‘gender critical’ ideology is that trans women cannot be fully ‘accepted’ as women because their experience of womanhood is not identical to that of cis women and trans women can therefore not fully comprehend or empathise with the supposedly universal subordination of women. This argument rests on the fiction of a single female experience, a fiction which has routinely silenced and side-lined women who experience racism, colonial domination and other forms of oppression that cannot be singularly attributed to their gender

I've read some clueless waffling shite about what I supposedly think as a feminist but that takes the biscuit. We don't think they have a different "experience of womanhood" because we don't consider them women in any way, shape or form, because they are male and women are female. They have a different experience of being male. Which I'm not particularly interested in, tbh. I only care because they are forcing themselves into everything which is for women, a very male-socialised thing to do. If they lived and let live, so would I.

When I read that I couldn't even be bothered to eye roll.

No man has any experience of womanhood. It's physically impossible.

Every single thing he does is being experienced as a man, irrespective of what it is.

If I eat a Boneo I'm not experiencing what it's like to be a dog. I'm experiencing what it's like to be a human eating a Boneo!

I quote: Sharing a fundraiser on Facebook titled “Thank you to Glinner”. This post appears to refer to Graham Linehan who publicly denounces the rights of transgender people. The case examiners are aware that this individual was issued a police caution and cease and desist order relating to his harassment of a trans woman online. Concerns have also been expressed regarding his views of women which have been described as “misogynistic”.

If that was the original wording that Glinner challenged it sounds like it came straight from a gender ideologist source. Maybe the examiners themselves are, maybe they just googled.

Whatiswrongwithmyknee. That's a better analogy. That's more in line with how I see it.

Re the “Friends” or not, people do attach themselves to your FB profile precisely to monitor you and cause trouble.I never click yes when she’d to be friends but occasionally one slips through. Just like here in fact.

Sharing a fundraiser on Facebook titled “Thank you to Glinner”.
Just to put this in chronological context, as someone mentioned glinner's substack up thread. I think this means that this post by Rachel was back when glinner was on twitter, before he went on substack and before the lesbian dating app thing. There was a fundraiser at one point, and I'm sure it was back then when he was a twitterer.

@Datun I agree I have no idea of what it's like to be

1. a man
2. a man who thinks he's a woman

I don't understand how any man can feel he is just like me, as I cannot be just like him.

Tribunal Tweets say the admin hearing starts on Tuesday

Tribunal Tweets @tribunaltweets
Rachel Meade v Social Work England and Westminster Council Employment Tribunal discrimination case update: there is an administrative hearing on Tuesday, 29 March. She was sanctioned by SWE & may lose her job for questioning GRA reform during the consultation.

#MeadeSWETribunal

Rachel Meade (RM) is a trained nurse & social worker who was investigated over fitness to practice by SWE due to a complaint being made by a former colleague who screen shot posts RM shared in a private Facebook group over 2 years. >

The posts were about the proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act 2004. Many were from National newspapers such as The Telegraph and The Guardian as well as women's rights advocacy groups such as
@fairplaywomen and @WomansPlaceUK

twitter.com/tribunaltweets/status/1507497219364163588

Rachel could do with some more 🥕🥕🥕 if anyone has some spare to contribute.

Looks like an important case.

It's really important that social workers can deal with people's real lives and capture by any ideology will not help them win the trust of vulnerable children, whether teenagers who want to transition or children experiencing domestic or sexual abuse, including from transitioning parents(usually middle aged fathers) . It's a difficult line to tread. The 'children of transitioners' group have also posted about how important social workers are when they are subject to domestic abuse, coercive control or child abuse from transitioning fathers, or witness it directed to their mothers. The children in this situation know they have a mother and a father, and the GRA confirms their father remain their father- even if they 'transition' they don't become a mother.

It would clearly be useless if social workers deny reality or so alienate children by their adherence to ideological gender ideology (or any other religious belief) that the children can't trust them and don't speak up about abusive situations.
childrenoftransitioners.org/2021/09/25/not-shutting-up/

childrenoftransitioners.org/2021/02/27/gra-inquiry-submission/

Rachel Meades case is so important and she's bringing sunlight

children who need social workers, need the best possible support from them. They need experienced social workers Rachel Meade who are prepared to stand up for safeguarding and know what the existing UK law is around single sex spaces.

I was v interested to read this update on her crowd fund site. It's not the most recent update but is significant especially in light of discussion on this thread about how she didn't gave a fitness to practice hearing.

"Following on from the interventions of my legal team, Social Work England (SWE) directed the Case examiners to re visit their decision. The case examiners tried to be recused from doing this but Social work England insisted.

The case examiners have referred the case to a Fitness to Practice hearing and their original decision and report has been removed. This means I no longer have a sanction against me on my registration and on their public website pending the Fitness to Practice hearing. This is my chance to clear my name and professional reputation."

The hearing is different to thd tribunal.

If, for instance, someone's religious belief is that homosexuality is wrong,

This is the crux of it. Is it ok for Maya to say that the statement that trans women are women is a delusion? People shouldn’t have to play along with literal delusions like trans women are women?

Is it ok to say you won’t play along with the delusion that homosexuality is normal or ok because it says it’s a sin in the bible? It’s a protected belief as well. Surely regulatory bodies wouldn’t want professionals saying any of these things? Or most employers?