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’.

@terffert- difficult to say. It may be that the case went ahead and no-one reported it, or the rule 49 order prevented reporting, or it didn't happen at all for some reason.

@SmudgeBrown- cases are always heard unless the plaintiff withdraws or the defendant successfully applies to have the case dismissed. Getting a case dismissed before a full hearing is, rightfully, difficult.

Could it have been moved to another court? Wouldnt be the first time there had been threats to Naomi.

Nick Wallis's latest newsletter just landed says it starts on Wednesday, and that TribunalTweets are covering but he's not currently planning to duplicate. I haven't looked yet but he says he's trying out substack so it may be there too.

I've just realised I wrote press list, several times, where I meant cause list, above. The cause lists are the definite ones, only for a day or two in advance, whereas the press lists look further ahead. It's the cause list for today that had this case, and the cause list for tomorrow that doesn't.

Ah, so looking more closely, Nick says "the opening public skirmishes" start on Wednesday - so perhaps he has information that the first two days were always expected to be preliminary non-public stuff/reading time? If, say, today they were in court arguing about stuff, and tomorrow is allocated as reading time for the panel which wouldn't require a courtroom, might that account for what we see?

That makes sense.

Just coming on here to post Nock’s helpful update.Roll on Wednesday.

Hello all, I got an email this afternoon with log in details for tomorrow morning! Helpfully sent out not using the bcc function so I can see everyone’s email address.

Anyway, the case is “2502512/2023 - Samantha Tempest v Rural Payments Agency” and the email address is [email protected]

Usual rules attached - give your full name, don’t share the link, behave yourself when observing etc.

That would be an extremely serious data breach at some places I've worked.

Well, quite.

Particularly as there’s one name on there I recognise as not being on the GC side, as they gave evidence against Prof Phoenix. (I don’t think it’s outing as it felt like half the university gave evidence in that hearing). But as this case is also about a professional network around sex based rights, I understand why there’s interest.

if it was one of the Usual Suspects I’d be a lot more twitchy.

I wouldn't want to be the person who sent that email. If someone kicks off it could be a very expensive mistake for the court. If they had any sense they'd make bc the default.

I haven’t exactly kicked off but I have replied to ask about their GDPR policies and procedures. Lucky for me I did my annual data protection training at work a couple of weeks ago.

I hope everyone who got that email is as measured as you are. For the court's sake.

Oh, that’s just my usual opening tactic, “reasonable concern”. If I don’t get a reply with an apology and that shows they’re taking it seriously then I’ll escalate and if necessary start a complaint with ICO. I seem to recall from my training that email distribution lists not put into bcc are one of the most common breaches of personal data handling.

I did point out that the very topic of the hearing itself shows that this is a contentious issue and that there are activists who are known to dox others so it’s even more important that my personal data is protected.

Well, I'm WFTCHTJ, but I see on Tribunal Tweets that:

"We've just been told by the clerk that new details will be provided within 'the next 20 minutes or so' for remote access."

So I'm not sure what that means.

In the meantime, I will follow all our usual conventions about not commenting on anything that TT hasn't reported until there is a break. I can't promise to c&p from TT due to work etc. However, I suspect the claimant's testimony will be very interesting, so am prepared to clear decks and c&p that as I will be paying attention!

I sent an email to Leeds ET yesterday with the details very helpfully provided by @MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving and would have expected at least an auto-acknowledgement but nothing. Has anyone else heard back this morning? Or have they gone into some sort of paralysis following their GDPR breach?

I didn't get an auto reply either.

Cross posted. Thanks for the update!

From TT:

Abbreviations
PQ - anonymised claimant
ST - Samantha Tempest
DEFRA/R1 - Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 1st respondent
RPA/R2 - Rural Payments Agency, 2nd respondent
Rs - 1st & 2nd respondents
SEEN/IP - Sex Equality and Equity Network - Civil Service

EW - Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley, co-chair of SEEN
NC - Naomi Cunningham, barrister for SEEN as intervenor
J - Employment judge SD Robertson
P1 - Panel member 1
P2 - Panel member 2
AL - Alex Line, barrister for Rs
JRL - JR Levins, solicitors for SEEN

Also asked for details yesterday and have not yet heard anything. The TT tweet says "new" details so perhaps their reaction to their GDPR breach is to decide their existing link is tainted and they need to start setup again? That wouldn't make much sense, but seems possible. Really hoping to be able to watch this one - for once, I have time to focus on it most of the time.

I have new login details, have joined and still WFTCHTJ.

I can report that this new email has been sent with the distribution list hidden. No reply yet to my GDPR "enquiry", will give it until this afternoon before followup.

From TT:

HH - Helen Hogben, barrister for C
GC - gender critical or sex realist views
GI - gender identity
TW - transwoman, a man claiming the protected characteristic of gender reassignment
TM - transman, woman claiming the protected characteristic of gender reassignment

Bah, I have a message about no capacity beyond the first 40 applicants. Shall have to rely on TT and kind posters here.

I have just had an email stating that they only have capacity for 40 remote observers and it is full!

I had a reply from the et saying no access as 40 had already been sent so over capacity. FFS