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’.

I suppose the previous hearing referred to must have been the anonymity hearing on 14/11/24 (goodness this case has dragged on)? The judgment in that case does refer to the male claimant as "she". It's telling, though, that although the judge had intended to do that, apparently it didn't work in the courtroom!

FFS, if the tribunal will refer to ST as she, how are they being neutral? His sex is absolutely pivotal to this case.

From TT:

as inappropriate.

NC - can I be completely clear. My witness can use correct pronouns but I cannot?
J - we are asking you and the witness to use gender neutral language,
NC - so is that they/them
J - so they/them and C
NC - I may need to take instruction, can I have your

reasons.
J - will give full reasons at the end of the hearing.
J - pausing for a minute.....
J - so, the second issue is I think, the application to amend the list of issues to include section 9.2.

HH - I have hard copies if that would assist.

Right, that's the grounds for appeal sorted...

What an absolute farce.

From TT:

J - am I right to say that C has withdrawn the complaint of direct gender reassignment discrimination, when and how was that done
HH - I believe that was April, I wasn't involved earlier
J - the list of issues in the hearing bundle does not reflect that, there is no amended list

of claim, we have spent some time thinking about dir discrim, how did this happen.
HH - I can take instruction on this,
J - I just want to know how this happened
HH - I'll take instructions......
<HH & solicitor discussing>

Oof. Well that's grounds for appeal lodged as insurance.

I guess the plus side is in this particular case there's minimal personal interaction between the claimant and the intervenor to be even discussed. NC can concentrate on explaining the intervenor's position. SEEN have just as much right to a network as any groups with opposing politically views. Case closed.

It sounds as if it is not even clear what the case is about with a core claim withdrawn

HH - I understand the dir discrim claim was withdrawn on 26 April, there was an amended version of partic of claim that was circulated
AL - I have seen an email as of that date, but I haven't seen a formal withdrawal.
J - if someone is withdrawing a claim, it needs to be done

clearly and categorically. We have been proceeding on the grounds of claims that are not being made but have disappeared in some mysterious way. that's no way to run a railroad.
HH - my apologies judge.
J - are you happy for us to dismiss that claim.

So the judge's reasoning appears to be that C has a GRC. I look forward to hearing the arguments on that one.

From TT:

HH - yes
J - are there any other amendment that have been made
AL - the obligation to amend is Cs
HH - I wonder if I might ask the Tribunal for a 5 or 10 minute adjournment to get clarity rather than give piecemeal answer
J - yes, we will take a 10 minute break and then resume.

But also said that it’s because C has the PC of gender reassignment. Which doesn’t depend on have a GRC.

Personal observation: the room is quite small, and it looks like there are about half a dozen seats for observers. One person sitting on them who I think is Elspeth based on her photograph on her gardening page. One person sitting behind the claimant's legal team looks very much like they could be the claimant themselves.

In my personal comments on proceedings, I will follow the judge's instructions to NC to use gender neutral pronouns or "the claimant" or "Samantha Tempest". Only because I want to avoid any issues for MN when following a live hearing.

That's the same reasoning, more or less...actually it's almost word for word, that Sandy Kemp used. Iirc he used it in his judgment, that the he/hims were used excessively.

Quite. The usual absolute mess.

It will be interesting to see how NC and the intervenor witness deal with compelled speech. No pronouns I guess? I'm not autistic that I know of but lying when I've just sworn to tell the truth would tie me in knots, and I understand autistic people may well feel that even more strongly.

What an absolute shitshow.

Autism is likely affect executive functions such as cognitive flexibility (to use wrong words intentionally) working memory (to pick up the cues and hold in mind the wrong information to say at the right moments alongside organising speech for speaking), emotional regulation when already highly anxious and exec functions under pressure, word retrieval challenges... .an advocate could make the case in seconds as to why this is an unfair burden on an Autistic person.

Not to mention, when you're all sensitive to one PC but not another, it starts to look questionable.

Yes, appeal ready to go at this point.

Hopefully, as someone upthread said, there won't be much need to quiz Elspeth about ST specifically so the pronouns there may not be much of a problem. I would expect that she'll be quizzed about what SEEN is for, what sex realist views are, etc., and that may involve talking about a hypothetical generic TIM. I wonder if the judge will have a problem with that TIM being referred to as "he"? If so perhaps Pete will make an appearance.

Thanks for the TT updates. Not a good start with a pronoun debacle. Yes you need to explain yourself J. And no, concern about "traumatising" (aka causing offence to) a man by referring to him as a man is not an argument that stands up legally.

What pdf viewer can the judge possibly be using such that he has to scroll through to page 500??

From TT:

We resume. There was a hearing, at page 111 para 7 there's reference somewhat cryptically to a number of paras in the original claim..the following amendments are permitted on the grounds either clerical or withdrawal, including para 117, which was the reference to pleaded

HH speaking - direct discrimination. And there is an amended part of claim in the amended hearing bundle.
J - may I make a point about the bundle, it's not indexed or the index is separate so we have to scroll at length, would it be possible for someone to index the bundle

<bundle!>

HH - it was prepared by Rs
J - well, we are having to scroll to page numbers, so if it's page 500 we have to scroll all the way there, which is frustrating and we don't want any frustration....
HH - the direct discrim claim is removed in the update part of claim, it would appear

that .
J - it seems that there was no direction to file an updated part of claim, are you happy for us to do that now,
HH - yes, some other minor amendments but nothing substantive
J - so going back to where we started, you've made an app to amend the list of issues

Bundle issues

Well the judge has started by going against the Bench Book - so yes grounds for appeal. However SEEN is an intervenor not a respondent and the respondent probably would not appeal. I guess then Elspeth/SEEN bring a case to shut down any trans network alleging discrimination.

From TT:

HH - the C's application is for a correction of the list of issues
J - a correction of what
HH - the deletion I've referred to in 2024
J - deletion of what, you've made an application to amend the list of issues, am I correct
HH - yes you're right

J - it's an application to amend the particulars of claim that is before
HH - I can't invite the tribunal to amend the list of issues when there was an erroneous deletion, I'll expand that
J - AL any comment
AL - well I dont' see how they can get around an application to amend

I don't see that she can do it. It's a defective approach, because it does not address the pleadings.
J - it's very confusing, when I first saw this, I wondered if it had been done properly. Are you saying that you now want to attend the part of claim and the list of issues.