The chair of SEEN is being sued.

[PriOn1]

We can’t post Crowdfunder links here, but there is now a Crowdfunder entitled “Chair of SEEN sued for saying 'only women menstruate'by Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley”

Text from website:

Who are you?
I'm Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley. I work for an arms-length body to a government department (part of the Civil Service) and love my job. I'm also gender critical, and chair of a governmental department SEEN (Sex Equality and Equity Network). SEEN represents those who are gender critical in our workplace.
What can you tell us?
The way I describe the case is restrained by my situation. I am writing this in a personal capacity, but am still employed and must comply with my employer's code of conduct and the Nolan Principles of Public Life. This places certain restrictions on me.
I’ve given as much information as I can, but I hope that what I set out below is sufficient to understand what’s going on.
So what happened?
I work for an arms-length body to the main government department. The case has been brought by a claimant who is an employee of another arms-length body. The claimant is taking their own employer, the government department and me to court.
Among other matters, the claimant is suing the government department for allowing our departmental SEEN network to exist (on the basis that the existence of the network has the effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and/or offensive environment for the claimant).
What is the SEEN network?
SEEN (the Sex Equality and Equity Network) is an official cross-governmental staff network. We also have networks in three government departments (including the one being taken to court). SEEN is known as the gender critical network and is the only civil service network that clearly treats sex and sexual orientation as concepts defined in the Equality Act, which should never be conflated with or replaced by ‘gender identity’.

To be honest, i want this all in public. Let's get it out there and expose it to sunlight.

@JollyJanuary (and anyone else really) - As Carl Sagan said 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.'

I think being accused of being far right, fascist, nazi etc qualify as extraordinary claims, assuming you aren't bedecked in swastikas or other similar giveaway emblems.

The accusers never will have any evidence, never mind extraordinary evidence.

I got sidetracked and it's now over £35,000 ( I slept through £34,000)

The process IS the punishment.

Well, I hope they all join SEEN if they haven't already. It said 700 members on the news reports which feels verrrrry low for a CS employing nearly half a million people.

It would be interesting to see if the network has had a flurry of applications in the last 24 hours.

I hope this case results in punitive damages being awarded against the claimant. We cannot allow our courts to be used to silence women through fear of vexatious litigation.

Yes, internal grievance, then ACAS.

I usually just make one pledge. This time I have pledged £5 every time I hear someone say "fuck". 13 fucks have been given.

😁

@JumpInAndSwim it’s relatively new and only has a handful of department networks. That means there’s not really a mechanism to advertise to people that aren’t already plugged into the issue. Even in departments with networks I understand it’s been an uphill battle to get the word out. I suspect there’s a lot of people who agree but just haven’t heard of it. Ironically I only heard of the cross government network via the angry posts in my department’s LGBT+ Network.

Is this going to be the Barbara Streisand Effect? In trying to shut the network down they’ve just widely publicised it…

And thanks to my colleague who has just received an email that needs an immediate response, that has gone up to 16.

Claimants at an employment tribunal are viewed less favourably if they have not exhausted the internal process followed by ACAS mediation

£36,008 and 1478 pledges

I didn't know about SEEN until I saw it in here. There is no communications about it in my department.

In my corner of the CS, people have the PRISM logo and "progress pride" flag on their signatures, so I channeled my inner Forstater/JKR/Bailey and put the SEEN logo and link in my signature. No one has said anything. It's my tiny attempt to spread the word.

SEEN is a comparatively new network, and the majority of government departments don’t have chapters yet, so it won’t appear on the “available staff networks” pages of most departmental intranets. You have to be aware that there are cross-government networks over and above the ones which may exist in your home department to go looking, or you have to have heard about it from some other means - I joined after seeing the dedicated thread on here. So far I’m aware of precisely one other person in my (large) CS department who is a member. If you don’t work somewhere with the pink-white-and-blue Stasi, surrounded by colleagues who don’t just have their pronouns in their email signatures but as part of their official system name on Teams/Outlook, it’s difficult to understand just how impossible it feels to raise SEEN as a topic, or even to put out feelers to a colleague to see if they might be a member. There’s a real culture of fear if you’re GC (and the irony of this wassock claiming SEEN’s existence makes them feel unsafe is not lost on me 🙄).

I don’t have much to spare but I’ve planted a few carrots. IME SEEN have been forensically measured in everything they’ve put out to members or more widely. I find it impossible to believe there’s a genuine case against the network, but I’m torn between wanting sunlight to fall on the batshittery of gender ideology in the CS; wanting Elspeth to be spared the stress of this process; wanting her to win to firmly legitimise SEEN’s standing as an authorised network, and feeling even more afraid of my membership becoming known at work. Which is both pathetic and chilling.

Yes, me too. Have signed up for the Party of Women too. There are children with autism in my family and I am raging about this ideology.

You'll be glad when this fundraiser finishes won't you? (Wonders if the stretch target will be increased when it hits £40k)

Good for you! I admire all women who stick their head above the parapet in this fight

Planted some seeds. Many thanks to Elspeth 💐from another SEEN member.

£37,042 and 1526 pledges

I think usually when the stretch target is raised, they automatically go up to an even-more-stretch target don't they? So there might be a lot more "fucks" to give yet 😂

This is so batshit and at the same strangely inevitable. More power to her elbow.

Comments on SEEN intranet blogs are usually deleted but ones I have seen included "solidarity with all our Trans colleagues" and of course "Trans Women are Women too". With loads of likes.

Someone should link this below their response!!