Denise Fahmy taking Arts Council England to an Employment Tribunal because she has been harassed for being gender critical.

[ChristinaXYZ]

Denise Fahmy queried why an award to the LGB Alliance was withdrawn and then faced harrassment at work.

From her summary:
" some of my colleagues saw fit to circulate a petition to all staff against me and any other 'gender criticals' working at ACE. The petition was hosted for 26 hours on the ACE staff intranet, gaining the attention of 700 staff and signatures from over 100 of them. People signed it, and made comments, citing gender critical people like me and LGB Alliance as parasites, neo nazis, needing to be stamped out ..."

Denise is gardening in the usual place - see "Fighting bias at the top of the Arts Council"

If you're able to help her out by planting or sharing please do. Thank you.

Michael Jenkins of Arc Legal wants to tell women all about the menopause:

'the menopause is a transitional time and can have a profound mental and physical impact on sufferers.'

'Women may not feel comfortable speaking to male colleagues, so it’s critical that support and other options are readily available and easily accessible.'

'’It’s important that employers make sure they’re protecting their staff and providing a safe, secure space for women to thrive in the face of these biological challenges.'

Careful, Michael, sounding a bit gender critical, there. But mind and do keep on patronising us the fuck out of the door.

https://www.arclegal.co.uk/insights/whats-going-on-with-womens-health-in-the-workplace/

The arts also have a big impact on academia. Lots of disciplines use the arts as case studies or as evidence of social values, cultural change and grassroots activism. So there is mutual reinforcement.

The Arts Council funding biases over the years have been obvious. Kathleen Stock's post Know Your Enemy on her substack discusses 'The Family Sex Show' and its ACE funding and lists the disproportionately high number of trans and queer art projects that were funded last year. https://kathleenstock.substack.com/p/know-your-enemy
(apologies if someone else has already posted this)

I wish Denise Fahmy the best (and have done a little digging). Her experience sounds horrible.

Hi all - thank you for your support and kind words - it's fuel ! I was on Free Speech Nation on Sunday - a new life experience for me I can tell you. Andrew Doyle was great - such a listening interviewer. here's the link

(Still not sure about my new bangs tbh)

Fab, well done. Queuing it up to watch.

I saw you on FSN, Denise, and you got your points across really well. If that was your first time being interviewed on TV, I'm bloody impressed.

It's all such outrageous bollocks.

I was alright in the end - not watched it yet - Rosie Kay told me be on your own with a large glass of something, ready to cringe !

You were great. Very calm, measured, and eloquent.

She is entitled to her views.

Her colleagues are also entitled to their views?

I've just watched it. Very clear. Very calm sounding. Sounded eminently sensible in your stance.

Good luck @DizF

Yes, but they are not entitled to harass or bully her.

Have gardened
as I remember it was crowd justice who did the dirty on Allison Bailey wasn’t it? A reminder that there is the option to uncheck the box to donate money to crowd justice themselves if you prefer not to support them

Depending on what the context is, out of her 700 colleagues there may have been LGBT workers amongst them (or had LGBT friends or family) who felt she was bullying them?

How?

You are missing a key point in that it's not about an entitlement to hold different views, it's about the harassment, abuse, bullying and attempt to discredit someone using totally inappropriate slurs to silence them and get them sacked.

Feeling hurt because someone is grounded in biological reality is not a licence to kick them into the gutter.

This whole "we are the most vulnerable" mantra is really undermined in the face of such tactics.

When you hold the power to silence people and get them fired, for views that are legally now deemed worthy of respect in a democratic society, claiming victimhood is a very disingenuous response.

there may have been LGBT workers amongst them (or had LGBT friends or family) who felt she was bullying them?

Presumably this will just be the standard false accusation whenever one of these employment tribunals takes place. We saw this with the Maya Forstater tribunal when trans activists spread the lie that her contract was terminated because she bullied trans colleagues. They think they can use the same tactic that they use on the internet to discredit people. Luckily the courts work according to evidence not what some anonymous liar on Twitter says.

Planted or dug or whatever...

But supported

Good luck @DizF

Thank you all - of course I would not harass or bully anyone for the views - that's what a democratic society is - we all have to jolly along with each other and work out respectfully conflicting rights. The problem is no debate contributes to intolerance - we have to debate the biggest societal changes of our day - but we must not harass x

I'm glad I watched that. The wider implication for arts funding, beyond the horrible treatment of Denise, is a slippery slope as she rightly points out.

Also struck by how measured, well-researched and intelligent Denise comes across compared with the unprofessional comments her critics saw fit to write under the workplace petition. It's always the way. The battle of wits is never stacked in their favour is it, really?

Can we dial in to observe this tribunal?

It's listed on CourtServe, for this Thursday and Friday, but there's no email address to contact the court in Leeds to request access.

I'm not sure tribunal tweets is pursuing this with the judge - the phone number is 0113 245 9741

Oh, thanks for the heads up

That's the court number

Many thanks @DizF

Wishing you all the very best, DizF. Thanks for doing this, on behalf of many, many women, and people who work in the arts.