Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 9

[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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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

Thread 7 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4551757-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-7

Thread 8 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4552521-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-8

Allison Bailey - claimant

Witnesses for the claimant:

Nic Williams - Fair Play for Women
A Woman's Place
FiLiA
Kate Harris - LGB Alliance

Witnesses for the respondents:

Stephen Lue - barrister for GCC
Kirrin Medcalfe - head of trans inclusion Stonewall
Sanjay Sood Smith - Stonewall
Shaan Knan - LGBT consortium - on STAG
Leslie Thomas - barrister at GCC
Rajiv Menon - joint head of chambers
Maya Sikand - barrister at GCC and in charge of writing report on AB/complaints
Mia Hakl-Law - HR senior for GCC
Judy Khan - barrister at GCC

Current Witness - Charlie Tennant - Clerk at GCC

To come

Luke Harvey - Clerk at GCC
Louise Hooper - Clerk at GCC
Stephanie Harrison - joint head of chambers
Michelle Brewer - barrister at GCC at time, now left and a judge

I agree, but that was focusing on single sex spaces.

The harm they are doing to children both psychologically and physically is astounding.

There seems to be a distinct disconnect in this man’s thinking. For a professor and a barrister, I assume it is simply this issue he does it and maybe he needs to understand the deep dark place where his attitude toward women and in particular, women he aggressively disagrees with, comes from.

Mine too. It was very unpleasant.

one thing that always, always gets said by this type of person is that by saying trans women should not be in single sex spaces, we are painting all trans women as sex offenders. I just cannot follow this logic. If we know from ONS statistics that trans women sexually offend in the same patterns as men, there must be an acknowledgment of the risk being the same as from men. Excluding men from intimate spaces doesn’t mean that we think all men are sex offenders. It just means we don’t know which ones are.

From Renton's blog response to Maya. To me this illustrates how he doesn't really hear women, he's projecting his own assumptions. Why would Maya or anyone
I think that the Ladies' Robing Room being set up had anything to do with keeping out males who identify as women, rather than just providing privacy for women?

1) You write: “The reaction of a woman on perceiving someone who is male, in a situation of bodily intimacy/undress reserved for women is often one of fear and humiliation. Their dignity is violated or they fear it is at risk. This is one of the main reasons for everyday single sex spaces for washing and changing.”
I would invite you to reread and reconsider that. I don’t believe that what you’ve written is true. Historically, there were all sorts of reasons for single safe changing spaces. EG the women’s toilets at the Royal Courts of Justice or the women’s robing room for barristers weren’t introduced to prevent perceived men from dressing in women’s clothes. They were introduced because there were already single sex spaces – men’s toilets, in vast number, as there has been ever since the Courts were opened 100 years before. Women’s toilets were introduced in the 1970s because there was no possible justification (post the Sex Discrimination Act) for keeping a situation for having men’s only toilets but not women’s only ones.

Just going back to that very revealing blog exchange between Maya and DR. It jumped out at me that he uses the phrase 'I'm old enough to recall when the GRA came in…' I think he used it yesterday in his exchange with BC as well.

That was only 2004, not ancient history. Or am I just old and 18 years ago is indeed lost in the mists of impossibly distant time? To the current young proponents of gender ideology I suppose they just don’t know any different and they’d agree with DR when he says that the explosion in numbers of people identifying as trans since the GRA is 'a sign of our species growing up'.
I would respectfully disagree with him on that, however.

Just going back to that very revealing blog exchange between Maya and DR. It jumped out at me that he uses the phrase 'I'm old enough to recall when the GRA came in…' I think he used it yesterday in his exchange with BC as well.

That was only 2004, not ancient history. Or am I just old and 18 years ago is indeed lost in the mists of impossibly distant time? To the current young proponents of gender ideology I suppose they just don’t know any different and they’d agree with DR when he says that the explosion in numbers of people identifying as trans since the GRA is 'a sign of our species growing up'.
I would respectfully disagree with him on that, however.

She replied.

(Renton still didn't get it)

The statement “the women’s robing room for barristers weren’t introduced to prevent perceived men from dressing in women’s clothes.” is odd . Why would the purpose of a facility for women be to regulate the clothes that men wear?
Think of other situations – hospitals and swimming baths – there are separate changing, washing and sleeping areas not to divide people into two areas based on types of clothing, but on their sex. Most women don’t want to undress with strange men, colleagues, classmates (and most men feel similarly uncomfortable).
Similarly you state that women’s refuges were not developed “to prevent men being present in women’s clothes”. Indeed this is true. The clothes that men are wearing are totally irrelevant to whether they are welcome in a space.
Then “If the drive for women’s only washing and changing places reflects a fear of trans people” – no of course it isn’t. They are simply single sex spaces.

Aargh, sorry for the double post, the vagaries of the new site strike again….

On the other hand, what has struck me is the rage that has been displayed by GCC barristers that Allison dared say she felt discriminated against and that she felt unsupported. All the while, each of those raging against AB saying that have also discounted her abuse, have applied what seems to be a strictly applied legal usage of ‘coerce’ to sensationalise what AB said about Morgan Page’s seminar and have little depth of knowledge (and some won’t admit it) about what AB had been saying.

I can only assume they are unaware how often they have downplayed AB ‘s statement about abuse and discrimination because they have a very high bar for other people to be able to claim that, an almost non existent bar for a group they seem to be trying to avoid ‘harming’ due to optics or what SW or their chamber mates have said, and a low bar for claiming how offensive AB was for making her claims, particularly due to the many much more important issues, 1.34 am emails, the abuse AB seemed to not have mentioned enough, the fact AB should have picked up phone calls when people didn’t want a paper trail, the inadequate time and attention given at 4.30 pm in the ladies robing room while using an iPhone, or sitting at the dining table at 10pm still working ….

The hypocrisy is so clear. I really am now convinced it has to be part of their strategy.

Aargh, sorry for the double post, the vagaries of the new site strike again….

‘Excluding men from intimate spaces doesn’t mean that we think all men are sex offenders. It just means we don’t know which ones are.’

It’s also that we don’t want to share our intimate spaces with male people and we are entitled to have that taken into consideration under a democratic system. We’re not chattels.

Going back to discussion on detriments, unless something obvious comes up in the next week, I think it will be very hard for Allison to show financial loss (detriment 1).

IANAL but comparing with Sonia Appleby's case, which I could follow more easily because I work in a related field, there isn't the same degree of evidence demonstrating deliberate obstruction. SA had at least 2 witnesses who stated that senior leadership figures had told them not to take safeguarding questions to her. I think Allison would need something like this regarding clerking to have a reasonable chance of success. That's not to say that she wasn't unofficially frozen out, just that there hasn't been any evidence presented so far beyond the drop in income that demonstrates this. And I don't think that's going to be enough.

Allison's case regarding the handling of complaints seems a lot stronger. Several GCC witnesses have said that they did things outside their usual confidential procedure and that evidence of complaints Vs support for Allison was either very differently. Sonia Appleby was able to show detriment from inappropriate disciplinary actions using contemporaneous emails and meeting minutes. That feels roughly equivalent to Allison's evidence here, so I think she has a good chance of winning on that point.

I’d tend to agree.

evidence of complaints Vs support for Allison was either very differently should be weighed very differently

I'm heartbroken that I can't take time off work to watch some of this. Can I just say I am very grateful for the twitter tribunal tweets and the amazing work of the tweeters doing this. It's very difficult to listen to fast moving dialogue and to tweet at the same time. I know I can't do it - I have recently been transcribing a podcast and it has taken me HOURS, even by 1. Reducing speed of recording by x 1/2
and 2. Repeatedly going back 15 secs to re listen and check.

Coming to these threads, even though I don't know what has been said, I love the chat and comment and discussion of points of interest.

I frankly think it's a bit cheeky to ask posters here to give blow by blow accounts and context to their quick comments.

Honestly, please don't change your style anyone, you don't owe anything to anyone reading the threads.

Also big thanks to @ickky for organising the threads so efficiently.

I'm sure that many working people will have been completely baffled by the continuous references to working hours, inconveniently timed emails and, pre-COVID, the travel etc. Aren't they such a common experience that most of us have no need to mention them and they're certainly not accepted as an excuse in many workplaces.

I don't know if they're doing this because they know that stressing this context is a known successful strategy in an ET. Are they attempting to garner the sympathy of whichever working judge is assigned the ET?

Agreed with all the above disbelief about gossip. It's impossible to believe that there were no comments, even if they called it local intelligence rather than gossip. If GCC are affecting not to gossip, I'm sure other sets do. And, once the news was out that AB was being investigated by her own chambers, it's hard not to think that instructing solicitors were aware of that. And, give the performance of GCC, I have to wonder if other legal sets or chambers were any more knowledgeable about the matters than they have shown themselves to be.

I agree, but that was focusing on single sex spaces. The harm they are doing to children both psychologically and physically is astounding.

Thanks @ickky I know I was derailing slightly.

Just musing on what Renton said, both in his evidence and that blog response.

When a general point is made about male harassment and violence and its effects on women and girls, these men hear it as a "dog whistle" that they have to confront. Because for him these aren't just women's valid and rational feelings, they are a manipulative, weaponised attack on MTF males' rights to self identify and expression. There is an element of discomfort, which is his cognitive dissonance, his knowledge that in other circumstances than this one he is supposed to respect women. He deals with that with getting righteously angry. How dare she? How dare these women?

You have articulated exactly what I felt listening to him yesterday. He literally cannot comprehend what a woman experiences when encountering an unexpected male. That reflexive response if a man walked into the women’s loos. Our bodies react whilst our brain does a rapid assessment of the situation. It’s uncomfortable. It’s entirely unreasonable that we should have to try to ignore our instinctive response and that we should be put in that position. He will not give credence to our reality. He is a vile misogynist.

I'm sure that many working people will have been completely baffled by the continuous references to working hours, inconveniently timed emails and, pre-COVID, the travel etc. Aren't they such a common experience that most of us have no need to mention them and they're certainly not accepted as an excuse in many workplaces.

Yes. It was almost like no one else in the world has shitty work life balances, major crisis at work and home, have difficult family situations to deal with and still need to perform at that work.

I found it very bizarre.

Well ignoring our instinctive response is exactly what that Morgan Page workshop was designed to strategise about.

‘That reflexive response if a man walked into the women’s loos.’

And he was pushing gender neutral toilets in schools as well, wasn’t he?

I wanted to ask him, has he ever been to a school? Ever walked through a corridor in a UK comprehensive and watched how the girls stick to the sides, how the tall, strong males dominate the space, how they hold their books to their chests and scuttle from one lesson to another? Schools are frightening places for girls. Upskirting, verbal harassment, non-consensual touching, the bulk of teachers’ attention on the boys.

The idea that gender neutral toilets can be introduced without cost to girls is fucking risible.

Looking a bit at the rest of his blog, I completely see what many previous posters have suggested - that there’s utter, unbudgeable certainty that all the correct, liberal causes are being espoused; the thinking is so convinced of its own bravery and progressiveness that it can NEVER be wrong, and doubt or disagreement are simply not permitted. Women are indeed just insignificant collateral damage as the shining sword of truth is brandished aloft.

Maybe Maya S thought it was a seminar to explain to transitioned males the reality of their situation that very few females want them as sexual partners and to teach them techniques to masturbate or to lower their resistance to dating other transitioned males, or to provide mental health support or something.

I really could not understand what else Maya Sikand thought the seminars were. What possible other take could you put on the objectives published.

Or maybe she thought it was a ‘how to attract women’ seminar with tips on how to style hair and make up.

I found her ambiguity around that seminar completely implausible.

I think she was utterly confused about what sex queer trans lesbians are and was a bit, 'which group are the group that Allison doesn't like again?'