Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 7

[ickky]

The Tribunal started on 25th April at 10am. If you would like to view online you need to send a request for access as early as possible.

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“MEDIA OR PUBLIC ACCESS REQUEST – Case number 2202172/2020 - Ms A Bailey – 25th April 2022.

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Abbreviations:

AB: Allison Bailey, claimant
BC: Ben Cooper QC, barrister for AB
SW = Stonewall Equality Limited (respondent 1)
IO = Ijeoma Omambala QC, senior counsel - barrister for SW
RW = Robin White junior counsel to SW - assisting IO
GC = Garden Court Chambers Limited (respondent 2) (GCC would be a better abbreviation)
AH = Andrew Hochhauser QC, senior counsel - barrister for GC
JR = Jane Russell junior counsel to GC - assisting AH
RM= Rajiv Menon QC & SH = Stephanie Harrison QC (jointly respondent 3 along with all members of GC except AB)
EJ = Employment Judge Goodman hearing the case
Panel = any one of the three panel members (EJ and two lay members)

Thread 1 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4529887-Allison-Bailey-v-Stonewall-Employment-Tribunal-hearing?

Thread 2 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4542466-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-2

Thread 3 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4545725-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-3

Thread 4 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4546945-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-4

Thread 5 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4548160-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-5

Thread 6 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4550451-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-6

*UP the stonewall stone.

What I found really interesting is that she couldn’t tell BC what she thought about any of the evidence or links without referring to her conclusion - indicates to me that the conclusion was already made and therefore she couldn’t tell you what she thought at time of investigation without her conclusion, because there was never a time she was investigating without a conclusion

See the post by IDidntKnowItWasAParty just above about the justification MS found on the Internet that satisfied her that there was nothing wrong in "overcoming the Cotton Ceiling" Clymene.

this workshop explores the ways in which ideologies of transphobia and transmisogyny impact sexual desire.

Ugh.

The sexual desire of lesbians does not include attraction to males.

I don't think so @ifIwerenotanandroid - the workshop ran in 2012. Years before these events

Reading through MS's witness statement, I note she says she 'resigned' from GCC but then a few pages later says she is confused that AB says she has a boss as she is self employed.

Surely MS was also self employed so could not have resigned?

But (and this is the same with Maya's case) even if they did not realise what the issues were the fact that they assumed that Allison had deliberately got it wrong in order to stir up hatred stinks of racism and misogyny

So MKH next - at some point are we expecting MB & SH to appear?

If you followed the Maya Forstater hearing, the witnesses there went broadly from zealots, to enforcers, to high clergy. It worked very effectively in setting out the exercise of power.

'the ways in which ideologies of transphobia and transmisogyny impact sexual desire'

unpack that sentence. 'why lesbians don't want cock and how to fix that'

I mean, it's obvious enough but I want Ben to spell it out very very clearly several times very very slowly. Pretend you're explaining it to someone very stupid, Ben!

'overcoming knickers'

Thank you! I remain utterly unconvinced by her defence

Pyjamagame · 18/05/2022 11:41

Just a reminder as to what Nancy Kelly said last year

""But if you find that when dating, you are writing off entire groups of people, like people of colour, fat people, disabled people or trans people, then it's worth considering how societal prejudices may have shaped your attractions."

Was there anything that she said at the same time to make it explicitly clear what she meant when she was referring to trans people?

She clearly meant to imply to trans women that she supported their right to identify as people who lesbians should have sex with, but did she actually specifically say this?

Some people might think it's acceptable for male individuals to explore ways in which they can access sex with homosexual women.

But not a charity who advocates for homosexuals!

MS essentially says that because Planned Parenthood claimed that their workshop was not promoting coersion of lesbians, it therefore wasn't. She accepted their false assertion, and ignored all the evidence to the contrary.

Planned Parenthood state (emphasis added):
"The workshop does not and was never intended to advocate or promote overcoming any individual woman’s objections to sexual activity.
Instead, this workshop explores the ways in which ideologies of transphobia and transmisogyny impact sexual desire."

So whose "sexual desire" does this apply to, if not individual women's "sexual desire" for non-male bodies?

Hiding behind the obfuscation of meanings is their MO. A straightforward question would get round that.

eg

"Do you think that societal prejudices are responsible for lesbians not wanting to have sex with male individuals?"

I'm reminded of a point during the trial of Lisbeth Salander, in The Girl who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, when Prosecutor Ekstrom had a sudden moment of realisation. 'She's a victim.' I am wondering if anyone watching or listening to this is having a similar moment of realisation.

I hope so.

Delurking to say that I always start off with a diagram of all the parties involved in a case. I'm a lawyer in another European country, so obviously can't speak for the UK, but this is what we were taught to do at University pretty much on our very first day and I still find it very helpful now.

The workshop was in 2012.

This is a roughly contemporaneous response from trans elder Roz Kaveney and which, I would suggest, reinforces AB's interpretation of the event and its implications for lesbian sexual orientation.

rozk.livejournal.com/445853.html

I am now reading around the term from queer activists and even though they say that it doesn't mean breaking down lesbians' barriers so that they include transwomen, they all go on to say things like ', a term porn actress Drew DeVaux and other queer trans women are using to challenge cis lesbians’ tendency to support trans causes generally but draw the line at sleeping with trans women or including trans lesbians in their sexual communities.

It is included in this BBC article www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385
Along with the statement ""Sexuality is personal and something which is unique to each of us. There is no 'right' way to be a lesbian, and only we can know who we're attracted to."

@GCRich NK said in a letter to the BBC, in relation to an article the BBC were writing about lesbians who wouldn't sleep with transwomen and the coercion they felt, that such lesbians were 'sexual racists'
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10225111/Stonewall-brands-lesbians-sexual-racists-raising-concerns-sex-transgender-women.html

I'm getting zero work done at home and have had to request another week for work I'm supposed to finish tomorrow. Today has been gripping.

God, I’m raging that I can’t be watching this today. I’m on a long motorway drive and just had to make an extended service/station pit stop so I could catch up with the thread. It’s utterly unbelievable.

How could these people be so incredibly resistant to things that are staring them in the face? Just how? Some of the most (supposedly) educated, articulate professionals, whose actual job is to process, understand and explain complex facts at a level most of us could only dream of, are falling apart before our very eyes as they struggle with basic truths. I’d expect better of a five-year-old. I despair.

I googled 'planned parenthood cotton ceiling morgan page'. The first page was all links that would support AB's position. One told me it was a conferemce in Toronto. I added 'Toronto conference' to my Google search terms and the PP explanation (which I think is the same one) came up on the first page.

So now I think you would have to be looking for something that gave an alternative explanation to AB's to find it easily. That in itself is fine, but sue shouldn't have ignored the other explanations.

But it would have been different in 2019.

It's the bloody height of enough.

Coerce women into saying TWAW are women, and then have a go at them for not letting them be lesbians!

This whole, you can't say we're women on the one hand, and then not sleep with us as women in the other, is just the end.

Who can forget 'repeat after me, transwomen are women', or just 'let that penetrate'!

To use that coercion as the underlying justification to continue to coerce??

UGH.

I'm so glad this is getting sunlight.