Gender-critical feminist wins harassment claim against Arts Council England over trans row

[IwantToRetire]

A senior Arts Council England (ACE) official who said transgender people cannot change sex has won her claim of harassment because of her gender-critical beliefs.
Denise Fahmy took Britain’s biggest arts funding quango to an employment tribunal after she resigned as a grants officer having challenged a decision to withdraw funding for LGB Alliance, a group that represent gays and lesbians.

The group had been given £9,000 to make a film for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee to celebrate how the lives of gay men had improved under the monarch’s 70-year reign.
But the funding was withdrawn by ACE in spring 2022 amid “hostile” claims the group was neo-Nazi and transphobic – a claim LGB Alliance denies.

Simon Mellor, the deputy chief executive, held a Teams meeting in April 2022 in which he expressed his “personal view” that LGB Alliance “has a history of anti-trans-exclusionary activity” and so funding them was “not within the spirit of the Jubilee fund”.

His comments prompted Ms Fahmy, 54, to then question why the funding had been removed, what message that sent about “freedom of speech” within the organisation and ask what protection there was at the council for gender-critical beliefs - the conviction that people cannot change their biological sex.

Leeds Employment Tribunal has found Ms Fahmy, from Huddersfield, was the victim of harassment after a colleague then circulated an email and petition on the ACE intranet targeting those deemed “anti-trans”. The petition, which contained some extreme comments, remained up for 26 hours. The judges felt it should have been taken down sooner.

One email claimed “gender-critical views were seen as a cancer... [which] needs to be removed from our organisation”.

Telegraph article that can be read in full at https://uk.style.yahoo.com/gender-critical-feminist-wins-harassment-150000657.html

Thanks for posting this

More and more of these coming through the tribunals now.

Good for her.

Excellent news. Great to see another win.

Great news…and thanks again to Maya for her case setting the precedent.

Great news!

Good news. Plenty more to come! Let the games begin🍿

I have to admit I had forgotten about this, and remembered it more in terms of LGB Alliance being unfairly targetted.

But reading about what Denise Fahmy was put through I am shocked (all over again) that any work place would not only watch this happen but effectively agree with it.

How is it possible that so many institutions have not only been taken over by the trans narrative, but somehow have also taken on the malicious bullying and personally damaging behaviour.

You hear of the armed forces etc., having quite aggressive cultures, but this now seems to be accepted in the civil service etc., and an arts organisation.

The leval of madness this indicates is hard to fathom.

All due respect of Denise Fahmy and all the women who has individuals have taken on the nasty, reactionary employers who have sanctioned this misogynistic culture.

It's not just employers though

It's become the new cultural zeitgeist.
Look at whatshisname from Steps being banned from pride, cancel culture etc

I've personally experience 2 formerly close people in my life one a close relative one a supposedly close friend cutting me off without a backwards glance cos I'm a terf.

This would have been unimaginable ten or so years ago

Awful non-apology from ACE:

https://twitter.com/ace_national/status/1673776843676082177?t=bpqwukBQUl6CRmCwGiCzpg&s=19

Excellent. You can’t just harangue and abuse people based on a protected believe. There’s laws against that! Imagine the furore if this petition had been circulated against people with protected characteristics such as disability or race. These employees need to understand you can’t go on a witch hunt in the workplace and not have any consequences.

So will LGBA get the money to make that film now? Sounds like it might have been interesting.

There’s a nice bit in the judgment which talks about how it’s a hostile and harassing environment when employees and employers say nasty things about gender critical women (calling them terfs , bigots, Nazis etc). I work in a place like that , and it really gets me down to continually hear stuff like “get terfs off our turf”. Just imagine if they were speaking that way about Muslims or Jewish people ?

DerekFaker · Today 11:05

Awful non-apology from ACE:

Yes, "It's alright, the nasty cow was in a minor role and has left now."

Even the Grauniad has a reasonable article on the story:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jun/27/gender-critical-woman-wins-harassment-claim-against-arts-council-england

Compensation will be determined at a later date but the judge said there would be uplift in the region of 10% for ACE’s refusal to provide Fahmy with the right to appeal against her complaint to the organisation.

Denise's manager has stuck up for her though. Great to see.

https://twitter.com/ClaudiaCeramics/status/1673953503633461248?t=8z3yn3BcEdkr9iwMe2ef_w&s=19

Awful non-apology from ACE

How very strange. I went to their web site to get a press release as photos of text are not accessible, and also make it hard to share with others. Another part of the stupidity of using twitter, but now realise those who do do it to avoid clear and more public methods.

And then found out there is no press release. They have snuck this out on the least used social media platform, and in a way that makes it hard to share.

Having just moaned about ACE only releasing info via twitter, afraid to say LGB Alliance have done the same.

In this tweet it has the usual non-user friendly screen captured of text, but does at least then spell out the text in the linked thread.

https://twitter.com/AllianceLGB/status/1516708561967095809

Excellent news. Well done, Denise. It can’t be easy to fight these battles. But every win brings us closer to restoring women’s and gay rights.

Apparently her line manager stood up for her but cant find any info or name, but they too should be credited.

https://twitter.com/denisefahmy?lang=en

I think an overlooked point, or perhaps I mean an unintended consequence, of Maya’s case is that because there was quite a lot of focus (understandably) on her entitlement to express her belief but not to harass others, many TRAs have only understood it to mean “those nasty GC people can’t harass transfolk”. They don’t seem to understand that it is implicit that no holder of any belief may harass others, and that includes holders of belief in gender ideology harassing GC colleagues.

Well done Denise for having the courage to do this. Good for you and shame on ACE.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12244073/I-labelled-neo-Nazi-parasite-crime-believing-women-dont-penises.html. Daily Mail version is very relatable - please share

Thread from James Esses on how captured UAL is.

Elon Musk seems to follow James now?? At least one rich and powerful person hasn't been captured.

https://twitter.com/JamesEsses/status/1674749205036912642?t=MScRGvgo1SB2V6gdTeXsHw&s=19

More screenshots.

Jo Bartosh in The Critic:

“Infected by their own sanctimony, the petty bores of ACE believe that by dividing the population into worthy tick boxes, they can absolve themselves of privilege.”

“They are wedded to the idea that their job is to educate the plebs through funding propaganda projects until they accept that sex is a spectrum and men can have babies.”

https://thecritic.co.uk/arts-cancel-england/

This fascism is steadily now being denied, thank God. How utterly vile and shameful that you can't even say same-sex attracted, or only men have penises, without the aggressive nasty fascist mob screaming for you to have your whole life destroyed. It's insanity. Glad this lady won.