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Denise Fahmy queried why an award to the LGB Alliance was withdrawn and then faced harrassment at work.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

But also the witness who brought up the pronoun issue can’t even get them right 😂

https://twitter.com/tribunaltweets/status/1660593540278235138

😁

PM: Paul Holmes prefers to be called 'they'
AP: PH isnt here is he?
PM: no
AP: are u suggesting I'm being disrespectful?
PM: no I'm just saying he preferred to as they?
J: can we refer to him as Paul?
AP: I'll try.
AP: Paul Holmes says he...right...
PM: I'm aware it's difficult

This exchange is illuminating. (AP is Anya Palmer, for Denise Fahmy. PM is panel member, for the Arts Council).

AP: it's right in terms of harassment a person doesn't have to be named or targeted in a petition for it to constitute harassment of them. Even if DF is wrong and not about her, this still equates GC with anti trans and homophobic views and clearly offensive to GC views?
PM: is it offensive in itself to GC views? I don't know if it is. You'd have to extrapolate that they mean GC views
AP: that's what this person is doing in statement
PM: the fact she did that is hostile?
AP: equating GC views as anti trans and homophobic is hostile
PM: yes

'Gender critical' views are not 'anti trans' and to equate them as such is offensive and potentially harassment.

AC seems to be admitting that harassment taken place but not specifically aimed at DF just the wider GC movement. It’s a weird argument (or I might be misunderstanding it’s a bit hard to follow on the tweets)

Just so I'm clear.

Did some of the members of staff at the AC put together a petition to get DF removed from her job??

That's all perfectly normal behaviour from adults at work...🤨

Yes.

'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 ...'

I can't link to the crowd justice site, but there is a fuller explanation on there.

'I raised a complaint about the petition – this was terrible harassment to experience at work. But in the end, even though the Arts Council asked me to write an Impact Statement detailing how upset I was, and despite the fact I was the only person to publicly support LGB Alliance, they decided the abuse had not been directed at me. What's more I had no right of appeal on the decision because they had chosen not to follow the internal grievance policy.'

Actually, rereading that, I'm not sure exactly what the text of the petition was.

26 hours?? Fuck me.

I'm convinced that they all have some sort of arrested development, cos none of that is a remotely normal response in a professional setting.

I know there are no certainties in court/tribunals, but surely that is a slam-dunk for the claimant? If it had been up for an hour, then managers remove and person who started it is disciplined, that's one thing, and the employer can argue that they took appropriate action against bullying. But 26 hours? Managers must have been aware, yet did nothing.

Bloody hell, and I thought my workplace was captured! Just gardened another carrot, a few more still required if anyone's got any spare

I agree with you entirely, @MissLucyEyelesbarrow.

It's a hell of a smoking gun.

Mine seems to be getting worse with pronoun bullshit and the bollocks they're promoting on our intranet.

I'd like to think Denise's ordeal wouldn't have been tolerated where i work, but i bet Denise would have said the same thing once upon a time.

All I am getting from this current witness is It wasn't harassment but it was and I was afraid of the LGBT group.

Can't afford gardening right now, but can (have) shared.

It seems like some people have read The Handmaid's Tale as a manual; probably the same people who read 1984 as a manual.

This witness obviously modelled themselves on the Catherine Tate Yeah but, No but character.

I think companies are going to have to start specifically referring to GC as being a protected (under belief) aren’t they to be able to defend themselves in court because atm they are unable to answer the question “what did you do to prevent this harassment from happening”? Also all the orgs delivering EDI courses are going yo have to start including GC in their courses. People still believe that being shitty to women who don’t believe men can be women is an acceptable form of discrimination.

https://twitter.com/tribunaltweets/status/1660648855111606273

How can a HR manager of a public sector organisation possibly think it is ok for staff to put up a petition requesting the sacking of staff with a specific protected characteristic?

This is so illuminating. The AC looked at 15 to 20 training providers and couldn’t find one that was “balanced”.

https://twitter.com/tribunaltweets/status/1660651048271241219

I was rolling my eyes when he was describing it, as transcribed by TT. They didn't want to take action to remove the petition immediately because it would cause trouble with the LGBT group. The guy seems to think that making offensive comments about LGBA was fine, and that they weren't directed at Denise.

He didn't mind that Denise was being bullied in that way. She's collateral damage as long as he didn't upset the poxy LGBT group. 🙄

We know where the power balance lies.

Their behaviour was outrageous, i'm still stunned that he's defending it.

But even if Denise didn’t exist, it is like having staff put up a petition requesting the firing of all black employees because they didn’t like their skin colour…

From Tribunal Tweets:

That's all I'm saying. sorry don't know how to say it differently it's not a refusal.
AP: if we go to [reads a woman's comments mentioned in DF statement] She says anyone who has GC views is liable to be a neo nazi homophobe isn't she?

IM: not quite she's saying that about LGBA supporters
AP: DF has made it clear she doesn't agree they're a hate group. Whether she pays subscription is immaterial.
IM: it's not clear she's referring to DF
AP: bc she doesn't name her?

IM: prevalent in wider social media/twitter. That's talking about ppl who support LGBA in general

AP: that includes DF. DF read this and found created a hostile environment for her as she is a supporter of LGBA
IM: sorry that's not my reading of it.

Then a bit later:

AP: She posts charity status and says LGBA is not anti trans that is misleading. She gets fair amount of kick back for that. Ppl saying they're undeniably anti trans. She is seen as supporting them

IM: no I don't think so, she's clearly not unsympathetic to them. Certain comments are offensive about LGBA. We all know here LGBA attracts that sort of view and is common online on social media.
AP: ready to move on but aware of time.