Mermaids vs LGB Alliance and Charity Commissioner - First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chameber) Thread 2

[nauticant]

The Tribunal started on 9 September, witness testimony started on 12 September.

There is also live tweeting from twitter.com/tribunaltweets.

To obtain access to view the proceedings, send a request email to [email protected] about case CA/2021/0013 - Mermaids vs Charity Commissioner and LGB Alliance and ask for permission to join. You then have to provide certain information and agree to a judge's direction in order to be able to join.

Abbreviations:

J or judge: Presiding Judge, Judge Lynn Griffin
AJ or Judge: Assisted by Judge Joe Neville
MG: Mermaids counsel is Michael Gibbon KC
KM: LGB Alliance counsel is Karon Monaghan KC
AR: Karon is assisted by Akua Reindorf
IS: Charity Commission counsel is Iain Steele

Thread 1: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4629679-mermaids-versus-lgb-alliance-in-court-today
Thread 2: ongoing

Witnesses for the applicant (Mermaids):

Paul Roberts - CEO of LGBT Consortium (12 September)
John Nicolson MP - Deputy Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global LGBT+ Rights (13 September)
Dr Belinda Bell - Chair of trustees of Mermaids (?? September)

Witnesses for the respondent (LGB Alliance):

Beverley Jackson - Co-founder and trustee of LGB Alliance (?? September)
Kate Harris - Co-founder and trustee of LGB Alliance (?? September)
Eileen Gallagher OBE - Chair of trustees of LGB Alliance (?? September)

Witness Statements:

Paul Roberts: lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Paul-Roberts-Witness-Statement-Exhibits.pdf
John Nicolson MP - Not yet available
Dr Belinda Bell: Not yet available
Beverley Jackson: Not yet available
Kate Harris: Not yet available
Eileen Gallagher: Not yet available

Submissions:

lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Volume-4-Submissions-CA.2021.0013.pdf

(Header format follows the gold standard established by @ickky)

Is he following the same case?🤔

Very nice work there from LGBA

i guess Kate is another witness? Anyone know who the third is?

<too lazy too find out for myself >

For years we've been crying out for a proper debate between the GC and TRA positions. Today was the closest to that that I've ever seen.

OMG that's incredible.

Is this Michael Gibbon?

Link to MG webpage

He seems woefully under-qualified. yes he’s got a bit of charity law on his CV but there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that he’s equipped to consider equality / discrimination/ human rights issues.

The major disconnect here is his brain cells.

To be fair he/they/whatever probably also thinks a woman can have a penis so I'm not sure how credible their opinion is.

What an excellent set of answers by BJ!
Makes the Mermaids people look pretty shoddy.

Early Autumn sunlight is always welcome.

He's not up to it, is he?
So far, this going very well for us.

^^ This

Tribunal tweets report verbatim do they not? What is he talking about?

Reading back that Q & A I can't see anywhere that BJ provide any of the points he was attempting to make.
All he did do was prove why in particular Lesbians needs an organisation to support their needs and rights.

For anyone following via text alone who’d like to see Bev speaking, both she and Kate from LGB Alliance were on Andrew Doyle’s show a couple of months back:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=M04O3Y8XGVs

(Bev is in green)

neither of them seems nearly as sinister as MP whatsisface implied to tribunal this morning…

I've been sitting here wondering why he's finding it so hard. I mean, he asked a number of questions that indicated how bloody stupid the Mermaids case is and how ridiculous gender ideology is, and Bev walked through the open door with calm grace and said what needed to be said. I imagine she'll be raising a glass to him for giving her the opportunity.

It's as if he doesn't actually understand anything of the complexity and history of all this. And no wonder if his usual caseload is tax and company insolvency...

You cannot change sex without somehow altering your dna that is an unrefutable fact.

There has, as yet, been no successful "sex change".

No human has gone from being a fertile male to being a fertile female, or vice versa. That would be the sole criterion for true success at "changing sex".

(I managed to figure this out around age 13, when I first heard about "sex changes" and a bit later realised they were telling porkies).

Bev is bloody marvellous. They are covering all the topics and she is so clear and knowledgeable. MG is basically giving her the floor to explain to everyone what's been going on. It's all being laid out in the sunlight.

The best he's got so far is 'we are all as bad as each other'.

Oh!...Michael! My mind's eye was picturing Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top.

Bev Jackson was awesome, even drew the politicisation of the Police. Should have been asked as the cost of living crisis, girl on a roll - would've sorted that too.

No wonder, 'no debate' as pp said it was 'can't debate' all along.

@NecessaryScene exactly. It's a biological fact you cannot change sex and I really don't understand why some people insist it isn't. It just makes them look not particularly intelligent imo.

An unintented consequence of the trigger happy reporters censoring is on MN is that everyone here is well versed in articulating sensitive points in a well constructed and thought out process.

Its been totally counter productive for all those lurkers...

... There is a delicious irony here.

I am not an idiot but I am very, very, very confused.

Is it wrong to be just slightly reminded of R Vardy’s decision that going to court would be a good plan

same.

It was the ‘sex swap soldier’ stories in the front few pages of my Nan’s News of the World and the classified ads for crossdresser makeover services at the back of the very same paper that made little me think, ‘Oh, aye?’

Lawyer here (albeit not with a great deal of experience of employment tribunals). There are quite a few misunderstandings about the legal process on this and other threads, so I thought it might be useful if I addressed some of them. Hopefully it will help, but apologies in advance if anyone thinks I'm being pompous!

Nauticant, the very last thing that an advocate should do is present evidence to the court. The evidence is placed before the court by the witnesses plus documentation (and real evidence if there is any - but not here). The advocates use the evidence as best they can in their client's best interests. When dealing with cross examination, the advocate must "put their client's case" to any witness from the other side who has evidence to give on that point and allow them to give their answer. It is Mermaid's case that lesbians are not being told that it's mandatory to accept male bodied people in their dating pools and that LGBA are exaggerating that fear.

When putting your case, the best approach is to put a proposition to the witness, as the KC here was doing. This approach sounds rude and possibly insulting to anyone who isn't familiar with the court process, but he is doing a good job with the material he has to work with.

I just jabbed my phone screen. Exactly this. The whole reason I got sucked into TWAW years back was this attitude of "you have to be very clever to understand the intricacies of this and anyone who doesn't is a terrible bad person" - I spent ages trying to get my head around it, not wanting to hurt people with my terrible bad stupid brain - I'll do it again, I'll fall in more traps, but this is mostly why I've stopped getting hooked into stuff online and propagating it. It's waffy intellectual maze speak, and if you can't see that the basic principles are screwy for all the trees, you're just left hoping you're not a terrible person and parroting stuff. There are a lot of stupid clever people on the internet just catching waves and passing them back, and I've realised I'm really susceptible to this stuff. Anyway. This comment is gold.

It's as if he doesn't actually understand anything of the complexity and history of all this. And no wonder if his usual caseload is tax and company insolvency...

Why have Mermaids been so irredeemably stupid in bringing in an insolvency lawyer to represent them? This is about the Equality Act, and the rights of homosexuals. I wouldn't hire a conveyancing solicitor to represent me in a family court. Genuinely puzzled.

Thanks @LeadingQuestion