Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 18

[ickky]

The Tribunal started on 25th April, witness testimony concluded on the 26th May. Closing arguments for council was on the 20th June.

There was also live tweeting from

twitter.com/tribunaltweets

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 )
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 = Judge Goodman, Mr M. Reuby and Ms Darmas

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

Thread 9 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4553181-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-9

Thread 10 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4553754-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-10

Thread 11 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4555145-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-11

Thread 12 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4555687-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-12

Thread 13 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4556235-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-13

Thread 14 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4556407-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-14

Thread 15 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4556803-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-15

Thread 16 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4557036-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-16

Thread 17 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4561850-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-17

Allison Bailey - claimant (4-9, 11-13 May)

Witnesses for the claimant:

Dr Nicola Williams - Fair Play for Women (29 April)
Dr Judith Green - A Woman's Place (29 April)
Kate Barker - LGB Alliance (3 May)
Lisa-Marie Taylor - FiLiA (4 May)

Witnesses for the respondents:

Stephen Lue - barrister for GCC (3-4 May)
Zainab Al-Farabi - ex Stonewall (10 May)
Kirrin Medcalf - head of trans inclusion Stonewall (10 May)
Leslie Thomas - barrister at GCC (13 May)
Sanjay Sood Smith - Stonewall (16 May)
Shaan Knan - LGBT consortium - on STAG (16 May)
Rajiv Menon - joint head of chambers (16-17 May)
Maya Sikand - barrister at GCC (17-18 May)
Mia Hakl-Law - HR senior for GCC (18 May)
Judy Khan - barrister at GCC (19-20 May)
Charlie Tennent - clerk at GCC (20 May)
Luke Harvey - clerk at GCC (20 May)
Louise Hooper - Barrister at GCC (20 May)
David Renton - barrister at GCC (20 May, 25 May)
Marc Willers - Barrister at GCC (23 May)
Stephen Clark - Barrister at GCC (23 May)
Liz Davies - Barrister at GCC (23 May)
Cathryn McGahey - Bar Council Ethics Committee's VC (24 May)
Tom Wainwright - Barrister at GCC (24 May)
Colin Cook - Head clerk at GCC (24 May)
David de Menezes - GCC, Head of Marketing (25 May)
Kathryn Cronin - barrister at GCC (25 May)
Michelle Brewer - barrister at GCC at time, now left and a judge (26 May)
Stephanie Harrison - joint head of chambers (26 May)
Closing arguments for AB, GCC, and SW (20 June)

Allison Bailey's

Witness Statement

allisonbailey.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Witness-Statement-of-Allison-Bailey.pdf

Supplementary Statement

allisonbailey.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/C-Supplementary-Witness-Statement.pdf

Closing Statement

allisonbailey.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/CLOSING-SUBMISSIONS-FINAL.pdf

I remember that "support person", too @nauticant .

Cynical ole trout that I am, I wondered if the "support person" was actually a more intelligent and articulate member of SW, who had intended to sneakily feed answers to Medcalf, but who certainly didn't want their face on camera because of . . . reasons . . .

But when the judge got wind of it, and insisted that everyone was within camera shot, they realised that they would be wasting their time and got out PDQ.

SW's barrister didn't volunteer any information about this, IIRC - it was only when somebody dropped their pen or something and made a noise, and EJG directly asked who was in the room that the QC came clean about it. Obviously directly fibbing to a judge is different from just not mentioning something.

It was a moment of high farce.

There were many elements that were farcical. I'll always be sad I missed that one though. Bloody work!

Indeed! Could even SW sink that low? (Rhetorical question, of course...!)

Yes, I was lucky to catch that moment. IIRC, Helen Joyce was on duty for Tribunal Tweets when it happened and said later that her jaw was getting in the way of her typing hands.

Yes, I was an online acquaintance of Hillbillyholiday, who successfully argued on Wikipedia that the Daily Mail was an unreliable source and shouldn't be cited. We exchanged a few emails after the news of the decision broke (it was covered in The Guardian and elsewhere) and he had a really tough time - he said that "Dacre's goons" had even tracked his mother down and were door-stepping her. Reprehensible behaviour.

www.gbnews.uk/news/the-clock-is-ticking-on-stonewall-because-of-brave-individuals-like-allison-bailey-says-mercy-muroki/344946

Mercy Muroki covering this on GB News - a video and written piece praising AB. I wish presenters on channels with bigger reach had the freedom to speak like this.

Agreed. None of this should be necessary, but unfortunately, the organisations that are tasked with enforcing the Equality Act are failing to do this.
If Allison's employer (a law firm) cannot enforce legislation correctly, what hope do we have that other organisations will?

I would also like a central fund, but the admin costs for set up might be a problem. Plus who would manage it?

Exactly. I've been involved in many civil court cases where it's been clear on the face of it (i.e. an initial interpretation) that something (in this case SW unduly influencing GCC) happened but just not enough proof to satisfy the court on the balance of probabilities (i.e. 51%). On reading the judgment in this case I get the impression they were close (40-50%) but just not close enough.
Hardly a victory for SW I would say...for those claiming a 'win' I would suggest actually reading the judgment and considering some of its detailed observations.

I wouldn’t say Stonewall won. They didn’t lose. However, they don’t exactly come out of this covered in glory.

Absolutely. Paragraph 279 of the Tribunal's judgement states:

279. The beliefs for which Equality Act protection is claimed are set out in paragraph 8 of the further revised amended particulars of claim:

“She believed (and continues to believe) that the first respondent’s [Stonewall’s] campaigning on gender theory is sexist and homophobic. In particular, the claimant believed and believes that:

(a) Sex is real and observable. Gender (as proselytised by the First Respondent) is a subjective identity: immeasurable, unobservable and with no objective basis.

(b) At the root of the First Respondent’s espousal of gender theory is the slogan that “Trans Women Are Women”. This is advanced literally, meaning that a person born as a man who identifies as a woman literally becomes a woman for all purposes and in all circumstances purely and exclusively on the basis of their chosen identity. To all intents and purposes, the First Respondent has reclassified “sex” with “gender identity”.

(c) The tone of the First Respondent’s campaigning on this subject has been binary, absolutist and evangelical. It may be summarised as “You are with us, or you are a bigot.” Discussions on the subject have become extremely vitriolic, largely as a result of the First Respondent’s absolutist tone, replicated by other organisations with which the First Respondent works closely. This has resulted in threats against women (including threats of violence and sexual violence) becoming commonplace. The First Respondent has been complicit in these threats being made.

(d) Gender theory as proselytised by the First Respondent is severely detrimental to women for numerous reasons, including that it denies women the ability to have female only spaces, for example in prisons, changing rooms, medical settings, rape and domestic violence refuges and in sport.

(e) Gender theory as proselytised by the First Respondent is severely detrimental to lesbians. In reclassifying “sex” with “gender”, the First Respondent has reclassified homosexuality from “same sex attraction” to “same gender attraction”. The result of this is that heterosexual men who identify as trans women and are sexually attracted to women are to be treated as lesbians. There is therefore an encouragement by followers of gender theory (including the First Respondent) on lesbians to have sex with male-bodied people. To reject this encouragement is to be labelled as bigoted. This is inherently homophobic because it denies the reality and legitimacy of same sex attraction and invites opprobrium and threatening behaviour upon people who recognise that reality and legitimacy.

(f) It is particularly damaging to lesbians that the First Respondent has taken this position. The First Respondent had been the foremost gay and lesbian rights campaigning organisation in the UK and one of the world’s leading such organisations. The adoption of gender theory by the First Respondent therefore left those gay, lesbian and bisexual people who did not ascribe to gender theory without the representation that the First Respondent had previously provided, and left those people labelled as bigots by their primary representative organisation.

Paragraph 293 of the judgement says: “We concluded that all the claimant’s pleaded beliefs, not just the belief that woman is sex not gender, are protected”.

So everything in Para 279 is now a protected belief. Some victory for Stonewall!

Janice Turner acknowledging Allison Bailey and so many others here.

But there is only so long you can shut down questions, silence debate. Someone with true courage, who cannot live with their conscience if they fail to act, will eventually risk all.

The barrister Allison Bailey was aghast when her Garden Court Chambers (GCC) joined the Stonewall diversity champions scheme. She opposed its policies, which seek to erase biological sex in policy and law. As a lesbian, she was angry Stonewall had hired Morgan Page, a trans woman who’d run a notorious course, Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling, which, she tweeted, had the “sole aim of coaching heterosexual men who identify as lesbians on how they can ‘coerce’ young lesbians into having sex with them”.

After this and other tweets, Kirrin Medcalf, Stonewall head of trans inclusion, contacted GCC to warn that Bailey’s views threatened their working relationship. GCC put Bailey under investigation. Most people in a tight-knit profession would back down, but Bailey sued her chambers and Stonewall. After three stressful years her case was finally heard, and the charity whose motto is “No Debate” was held to account.

You might think the charge that lesbians are bigots for refusing to date people with penises hard to credit. But Medcalf said he doesn’t believe sexed bodies even exist and Cathryn McGahey QC, vice-chairwoman of the Bar Council’s ethics committee, compared urging lesbians to embrace “lady dick” to racial integration in post-apartheid South Africa. Yes, really.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a8875ebe-0f73-11ed-93cf-b011fa7fe86b?shareToken=1c84012592892d00c67d6f0cd95e64d6

An excellent article, thanks Embarrassing!

Great work thank you, that really does get to the heart of the matter doesn't it.

Thank you for reproducing paragraph 279 @TheBiologyStupid

I think I am a bit In love with EJ Goodman

You're welcome, Clymene. The great thing is that the TRAs can't play the "but this level of Tribunal doesn't set a precedent" card, because the protected beliefs set out in the paragraph aren't specific to the ins and outs of Allison's case or her relationship with her chambers etc. Instead, they relate to gender ideology and Stonewall generally. Although that said IADNAL.

The fact that an organisation could read these paragraphs and take it as a win tells us all we need to know doesn't it?

We are a stunning and brave organisation who are complicit in encouraging people to make threats against women (including threats of violence and sexual violence)

Doesn't look so good on company letterhead does it? <shows age>

I also think, that in the court of public opinion it's not just that aspect, but the "I'd be proud to tell you that bit to your face, but I need my mum with me" side of things that has really peaked many people who were previously unaware.

Sorry I meant to quote your helpful summary @TheBiologyStupid!

Too busy thinking how old fashioned "letterhead" sounded these days

Mercy Muroki covering this on GB News - a video and written piece praising AB. I wish presenters on channels with bigger reach had the freedom to speak like this.

She's brilliant.

Para 279 is just a summary of Allison Bailey's views - it's not what EJ Goodman thinks. Maybe she does think that, but it's not something we can deduce from that para.

Para 279 should be read in conjunction with para 293 which is also quoted in @TheBiologyStupid 's post.
[The tribunal] concluded that all the claimant’s pleaded beliefs, not just the belief that woman is sex not gender, are protected”.

Stonewall must be fretting and fuming despite the spin they're putting on it.

What a month it's been for Gender Critical Feminism. I can't keep up with all the new articles, it's like a gag has been taken off.

I would like to say thank you to all the brave women who for years have been shouting the unsayable things, even though they have been injured and vilified for doing so.

As pleased as I am for Allison and Maya, I think the Tavistock closure is the best news this month. Thank god they will stop mutilating the children.

Now we just need the Education, Health and Police Authorities to catch up.

think the Tavistock closure is the best news this month. Thank god they will stop mutilating the children.

Other threads are discussing why the closure means a need for vigilance (doesn't belong here).

There's a huge amount of work to be done to unpick everything from captured organisations and institutions and I don't think we're anywhere near as advanced as people think we are.

This is an excellent article by Sonia Sodha but let's be realistic as to how many people want to end up in an employment tribunal.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/31/dont-buy-stonewall-line-gender-identity-cant-sack-you-now?

These are criteria that you must tick in order to have a belief protected.

the belief must be genuinely held

it must be a belief, not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available

it must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour

it must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance

it must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not be incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.

-

So although EJ Goodman doesn't have to believe it herself, she does have to believe that it's cogent, serious, cohesive and important.

Once again, thanks for all your work on these threads @ickky and to all the other posters.

What I can’t stand is that all these court cases talk about beliefs. As though it’s a feeling or subjective.

It’s reality. Science. Nature.

I hope people look back at this time and can say what a crazy time this was when language and laws were changed because some humans decided they could change sex and many went along with it as they were too afraid to do otherwise.

As pleased as I am for Allison and Maya, I think the Tavistock closure is the best news this month. Thank god they will stop mutilating the children.

Sorry to spoil the celebrations, but I can't see that anyone of those responsible have lost their licences to practice. Medical doctors have been thrown out of the GMC for far less than mutilating children to pursue some fanatical agenda.

There is a very real risk that these so called activists posing as "doctors" will simply spread all over the country and start doing the same again in the regional centres that NHS plans to open as replacement for Tavistock.