Mermaids vs LGB Alliance and Charity Commissioner - First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) Thread 3

[nauticant]

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

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.

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

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

(Also the witnesses, PR: Paul Roberts, JN: John Nicolson. BB: Belinda Bell, BJ: Beverley Jackson, KH: Kate Harris, and EG: Eileen Gallagher.)

Thread 1: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4629679-mermaids-versus-lgb-alliance-in-court-today
Thread 2: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4632780-mermaids-vs-lgb-alliance-and-charity-commissioner-first-tier-tribunal-general-regulatory-chameber-thread-2
Thread 3: 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 (13 September)

Witnesses for the respondent (LGB Alliance):

Beverley Jackson - Co-founder and trustee of LGB Alliance (13-14 September)
Kate Harris - Co-founder and trustee of LGB Alliance (14-15 September)
Eileen Gallagher OBE - Chair of trustees of LGB Alliance (15 September)

Witness Statements:

Paul Roberts: lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Paul-Roberts-Witness-Statement-Exhibits.pdf
John Nicolson MP - lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/John-Nicolson-Witness-Statement-Exhibits.pdf
Dr Belinda Bell: lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Belinda-Bell-Witness-Statement-Exhibits.pdf
Beverley Jackson: lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Bev-Jackson-Witness-Statement-Exhibits-1.pdf
Kate Harris: lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Kate-Harris-Witness-Statement-Exhibits.pdf
Eileen Gallagher (two statements): lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Eileen-Gallagher-Witness-Statement-Exhibits.pdf lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Eileen-Gallagher-Second-Witness-Statement-Exhibits.pdf

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)

post updated by MNHQ at OP's request

this: 'where sentiment matters' - seems to be a kneejerk response to the fact that many people are upset hearing about the offensive redefinition of 'lesbian' to include males, and possibly a dig at the fact that one of the LGBA witnesses was upset. I think he's saying that yes, this looks awful, but it doesn't matter if people think we are awful homophobes, so long as we win on the technical point.

'they see in them a way to benefit from triggering trauma. A vain hope, perhaps, but it would be good to interrogate more why the issues are so hard to discuss - and to be more mindful of bad actors.'

I think the 'triggering trauma' is just 'weaponising trauma' in another coat. He's seen women are upset about their personal boundaries being impinged, and this makes him cross because it might jolly well spoil his argument. The issues being hard to discuss is I think a reference to him being a privileged white bloke who desperately wants to tell women what to do and how to feel but knows it would look bad.

'bad actors' - not sure. Robbie Williams in 'Little Britain'?

Who is he please?

He’s head of the Good Law Project, which pursues political/fairness objectives through the courts. They do some good work on corruption eg on covid ppe procurement, and I think some work challenging some abuse of process around Brexit.

And they are involved in the case again LGBA, as he’s a TRA/ feels very strongly that TWAW, no ifs, no buts and fuck off if you’re a lesbian of the boring cunty type.

I used to support them as I thought they did (and do) some good work. But when I heard they were bringing a case against the LGBA I cancelled my DD and started one to Sex Matters instead.

He is also famous on Twitter for killing a fox while wearing a kimono, so you’ll see him mentioned as fox-killer etc. All very puerile.

One reason why many people stopped funding the Good Law Project is that they'd donate money thinking they were donating for a particular cause, and then find out that the GLP had apportioned donated funds to other causes, for example to promoting gender identity ideology.

Exactly this. The charity commission usually takes a dim view of funds raised for a stated cause then being used for a different cause. If the doners are not aware in advance. IME. I donated to the case about PPE, but stopped when all the TRA stuff started.

Precisely. So some organisations might prefer not to register as charities because being a charity does necessarily hold you to account in that way. One person's 'value free speech too highly', might be another's 'want not to be subjected to the checks and balances that charities are'. But only one way of spinning it will get you the moral high ground.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=hG9tgtI8kx0

‘The Madness of Mermaids’

An on topic clip from the longer main Spiked Podcast episode.

This. Yup.

Thank you.

Maya's tribunal exposed the sexism that is baked into gender ideology.

This tribunal has exposed the homophobia that is similarly baked in.

I couldn’t watch the hearing so thank you for this thread and all the contributions, which I have finally caught up on.

Will go and now catch up on RoF!

You've got discussion here, discussion on RoF, and if you want to go through the looking glass, there's this discussion:

www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/xfscoq/lgb_alliance_cofounder_breaks_down_in_court_when/?sort=old

There's a mid-thread diversion for the obligatory 2 minute hate against JKR, but the rest is on-topic although off-piste.

Thanks for the link, nauticant. Blimey, they really are down the rabbit hole.

That's a spectacularly insular echo chamber. As has been pointed out many times, people might say they believe that TWAW and TMAM but when it comes to it their actions don't back it up.

https://www.them.us/story/cis-trans-dating/amp

Virtually all heterosexuals excluded trans folks from their dating pool: only 1.8% of straight women and 3.3% of straight men chose a trans person of either binary gender. But most non-heterosexuals weren’t down for dating a trans person either, with only 11.5% of gay men and 29% of lesbians being trans-inclusive in their dating preferences. Bisexual/queer/nonbinary participants (these were all combined into one group) were most open to having a trans partner, but even among them, almost half (48%) did not select either ‘trans man’ or ‘trans woman.’

Surprisingly, among the 127 participants open to dating a trans person, almost half selected a trans person of a gender incongruent with their stated sexual orientation. For example, 50% of the trans-inclusive straight women and 28% of the trans-inclusive gay men were willing to date a trans woman, even though one wouldn’t expect either straight women or gay men to be attracted to women. Similarly, 50% of trans-inclusive straight men and 69% of trans-inclusive lesbians said they’d date a trans man, even though both groups are presumably only attracted to women.

open and blazen hate group

courtesy of the trans Redditors. 😀

Surprisingly, among the 127 participants open to dating a trans person, almost half selected a trans person of a gender incongruent with their stated sexual orientation.

Surely the only surprising thing there is the word ‘surprisingly’.

It is also possible that at least some of the trans exclusion is due to the fact that for some people, sexual orientation might be not (just) about a partner’s gender identity, but attraction to specific body types and/or judgment of reproductive capabilities.

Gosh.

Blazen eh?

sounds v bad

that reddit thread is bonkers

her statement “A lesbian is attracted to another biological woman, full stop.” would suggest a cis woman going with a trans man is a lesbian, which i seriously doubt anyone believes

really? you think no-one believes that one women in a relationship with another woman is a lesbian?

right oh

Hmm. So a trans man who was in the public eye although I won't name them here was previously in a lesbian marriage before transitioning. Was the wife no longer a lesbian after her partner transitioned?

“A lesbian is attracted to another biological woman, full stop.” would suggest a cis woman going with a trans man is a lesbian, which i seriously doubt anyone believes

Life experience might be a little thin there......

A lesbian is attracted to another biological woman, full stop.” would suggest a cis woman going with a trans man is a lesbian, which i seriously doubt anyone believes

I took this to mean that they can't imagine anyone in their circles being willing to say that they don't believe the orthodoxy. How could anyone say this when it would mean social death? It was an inadvertent assertion of the power of the ideology.

The line between butch lesbian and transman was paper thin for decades (with many butch ladies using male nicknames and not many transmen having surgery) and transitioned females rarely moved away from their lesbian communities and friendships, they certainly didn’t expect their long term female partners to start describing themselves as ‘straight’.

The new generation of ROGD girls who didn’t find a lesbian community prior to transitioning (or indeed, who aren’t same sex attracted and want to transition into being gay men, autohomoerotics, as Blanchard has called them) are perhaps a bit different. It’s a very new thing though.

a while ago I spoke to two former young transman who had reidentified as female and had recognised their relationship as lesbian after a period of identifying as a gay male couple.

one of them told me she had not ever thought of herself as lesbian growing up because ‘TWAW’ and she knew damn well she didn’t fancy TW and wanted nothing to do with penis.

in current day it was easier for her to avoid dick by calling herself a gay trans man who only wanted T4T relationships (ie, relationships with other lesbians who identified as men).

what a clusterfuck!

her statement “A lesbian is attracted to another biological woman, full stop.” would suggest a cis woman going with a trans man is a lesbian, which i seriously doubt anyone believes

Erm, that's exactly what she is.

Two sets of female genitalia and no male genitalia are involved here.

It seems to be a common declaration at the moment: "I never meet anyone with these opinions or experiences in my social circle! They don't exist! because I and my group have systematically punished and excluded anyone with any opinions or experiences that do not fit the orthodoxy "