Sara Morrison vs Belfast Film Festival

[NorthernIrishFeminist]

Employers seem to be slow learners when it comes to women's rights! There’s another employment tribunal case being brought by a woman who attended and took the microphone at a Let Women Speak event in Belfast last year and has been treated very badly by her employer Belfast Film Festival as a result.

Looks like we’re going to have to keep gardening until they get the message.

disclaimer. I don’t know Sara and have no connection to BFF I’m just a woman who likes donating to causes that make a difference

Glad you’re there!

Best wishes for Sara & her team. I’m just proud of women all across TERF Island and on our wee Eireann standing up and saying - this far and no more.

Great Nick Wallis piece and now he’s here in person.

https://x.com/nickwallis/status/1987908432339566705?t=IzoYORrhpxZ7sJ4EVCwCOA&s=19

Welcome to Killymead House Belfast where accredited journalists have been given permission to tweet Morrison v Belfast Film Festival (BFF).

Day 1 has just got underway.

The claimant Sara Morrison (SM) has just been sworn in. She is the only witness for her claim.

NI WRN on X are going to give updates too, members are going every day.

https://nitter.net/nickwallis

I’m attending in person so can’t cut and paste tweets - but if anyone is so minded it would be a great public service.

SM is about to be xe'd by Sean Doherty (SD) for BFF.
SD before i come to your speech at the Let Women Speak (LWS) event in April 2023, let's have a look at your contract with BFF.

SD you are "inclusion/audience development co-ordinator"
SM Yes

[SD is telling her that she's only entitled to stat sick pay and that her employer can reclaim any overpayment SM agrees]
SD you cannot do any paid or unpaid work which might "directly conflict with the business of the employer"

SD and when you took some work with the Green Party you asked for permission and you got it
SM yes
SD so you were aware of it
SD takes her to "summary of role" - "to engage local communities... working with partner orgs" - so partner orgs
SM yes
SD job is to "maintain current relationships and build new ones among participants and stakeholders".
SM yes
SD BFF had a relationship with Belfast Pride in 2023
SM no
SD it started working with them SM about two weeks beforehand SD were you a steward at LWS
SM no - I was helping out SD so unpaid work SM no
SD you were wearing hi-viz

SM yes SD to look like a steward - you had a role at the event
SM no [then agrees]
SD "you say you didn't intend to speak, but you did prepare notes for a speech in advance"
SM yes
SD you knew about a counter demo
SM diff location yes

SD Ryder Sq
SM yes
SD yes where LWS was going to be
SM yes
SD you know LWS was controversial
SM your political view is that transwomen are not women
SD yes you can't change sex

[oops got the last two lines of that tweets the wrong way round sorry]

SD you know many people "vehemently disagree" with that perspective
SM yes, but I was speaking in a personal capacity and I didn't give my name and I was the only person being targeted.

SD "belfast being belfast people know who you are" [SM accepts.

SM accepts. We go to a new part of the bundle where SD lists the organisations SM mentioned in her speech - you can watch SM's speech here - she starts at 1hr 4mins in piped.video/watch?v=-LF5Nn-r…]

SD giving you having a role of building partnerships and maintained partnerships, criticism of them at LWS is not fulfilling your role

SM I've asked them lots of times to get involved and never even got a reply. My criticism of them was about their suppression of their free...
... speech.

SD your criticism of them was not a political opinion

SM yes

SD seriously

SM yes!
They're taxpayer funded organisations trying to shut down free speech, that's what they're trying to do.

SD you are criticising them not expressing a political opinion

SM it is political - and the irony is after I expressed my opinion look what happened to me.

SD we'll get to that later.
SD you criticised a politician in your speech who was it
SM Anthony Flynn

SD BFF needs funding from gov - do you think criticising politicians is a problem for your employer
SM do you think it's acceptable to harass and intimidate women
SD it could jeopardise BFF funding
SM no

Do you think they'd just forget about it

[SM accepts it might cause a problem]

SD when you told Michele Devlin [BFF CEO] about the harassment you were getting online - she was initially sympathetic

SM yes - she saw I was in a state

SD helped you print off some of the...... online abuse.
SM yes [Michele Devlin will be MD]

[SD takes her to one of the emails sent by Ruth from Outburst Arts which complaints about SM sharing a platform with Joelene Bunting...]
[... and explaining why that to Outburst is a problem]

SD "do you accept that by speaking at the same event as JB people might think you share her views"

SM yes - people can believe what they want

SD "I am very pro LGBT" SD "saying a trans woman is a man is hardly supporting T is it"

SM "a trans man is a woman - that has nothing to do with the rights of trans people"...which I support wholeheartedly

SD that's actively not supporting Trans rights

SD saying a trans woman is not a woman

SM you can't change sex. I support the right to single sex spaces for women.

[SD takes her to a tweet with pic of SM speaking asking "if BFF is anti-trans it should come out and say so" - having SM say the woman's groups is a racket is not helpful]

SD this is dragging the BFF into this

SM yes - this tweet was one of the ones the CEO of a domestic abuse charity wrote. The police got involved. SD no one was charged

SM no - I wouldn't want anyone charged over a tweet.

[more tweet examples - tweeters going after BFF funders saying they don't feel safe, that their own inclusion officer is a transphobe and that she spoke at an event with anti-trans campaigner and an actual Nazi... etc etc]

SD you accept your actions had the potential to damage BFF's rep

SM yes

SM but I didn't mention trans people in my speech

[SD mentions a inclusion officer]

SM inclusion means everyone including people with sex realist view

From Nick Wallis

I will ask the parties to supply me with the tweet screenshots that are being mentioned in court

We were scheduled to go to 4pm, we have gone to 4.15pm because of the late start

Hearing ends. Judge requires SM not to talk about her evidence. Judge requires her back for a 10am "sharp" start tomorrow

Interesting that the argument seems to be that if you talk about women’s rights and single sex spaces you are automatically anti-trans and that inclusion doesn’t seem to mean sex realists. Her acknowledgment that she was doing unpaid work which is not allowed in her contract might be difficult to get round if that was the only issue but she clearly wasn’t dismissed for that in and of itself as the process they put her through clearly illuminates. The idea that attending an event is damaging to BFF might be true and there is an argument that trans activists could refuse to work with BFF but what about the argument that some women’s groups will refuse to work with them because they insiste on TRA ideology? Ah women don’t count!

Again Nick Wallis is covering the trial.

He will be doing daily reports so consider donating to sign up to his newsletter.

https://genderblog.net/sara-morrison-v-belfast-film-festival/

Nick is doing a pretty good job covering it

Hello folks stopping by - anyone around to copy & paste Nick’s tweets tomorrow?

Are you signed up to his blog?

Lovely photo of Naomi Cunningham & Charlotte Elves with Sara’s lawyer.

Reading NW's comments on X I get the impression that the barrister from the other side thinks that saying nobody can change sex means you don't support trans rights.

Seems a bit simplistic to me.

Off the top of my head after reading Nick's tweets:

To me, the opposition barrister's argument that Northern Ireland is a small place, and therefore your identity will be tracked down easily, so it's best not to speak about 'contentious' political matters if you don't wish to potentially jeopardise your employment really irks me.

He seems to be saying that freedom of speech can only be truly workable in societies with more of a chance of anonymity and less chance of living near to the people you might upset. I live in NI and the 'smallness' of our society is an extremely strong choke on speech and behaviour, I don't see that as automatically a good thing.

Also, we have stronger legal protections for freedom of belief and political opinion here (for obvious reasons given our history) and I don't like the idea of this barrister trying to draw a tightly limiting boundary around those rights.

And, to me, unpaid helping out at an LWS event seems not to be unpaid work and if it is considered to be so then no-one who has a job that precludes unpaid work should help out at a Parkrun or on a school trip for primary school children because those are unpaid volunteering/work too.

To me, the opposition barrister's argument that Northern Ireland is a small place, and therefore your identity will be tracked down easily, so it's best not to speak about 'contentious' political matters if you don't wish to potentially jeopardise your employment really irks me

The old 'whatever you say, say nothing' mantra, eh UtopiaPlanitia ?🙄

That is a strong restraint in a small community, and it has caused many's the oddball to go and live elsewhere - e.g. me.

I agree that it's wrong for the BFF's barrister to try to formalise the power of the 'squinting windows' - you should not do something out of line because everybody knows everybody and it'll get back to your employers etc etc.

It sounds like he's arguing against the rights to personal opinions and freedom of speech on the basis of 'But what will the neighbours say?'

Best of luck, Sara. Naomi and Charlotte have your back, and that's a great position to be in!