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’.

SEEN may be able to appeal if the judgement goes against them despite the fact they are an intervenor.

Thank you to @MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving for all the copying and pasting from TT. I suspect this is yet another tribunal I'm doomed to fall behind with, but I really appreciate the opportunity to see what is being said.

Maybe the judge was looking at the respondents case - which seems to be nothing to do with us, they are not our employees so not our agents - and thinking I'm going to find against them so I will give them no possible excuse to allege bias by insisting on pronoun use.

Just finished reading updates in time for the afternoon. Thanks for pasting TT @MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving

Not sure I'm with you. If the judge finds against the respondents, that's for the claimant, who is the one who wants the preferred pronouns - so the judge would have been exhibiting bias in the direction of the judgment he had decided to make, which seems to be the opposite of what you're saying.

I suppose the judge could find against the claimant but also say that the respondents' position was rubbish...

What do we know about the Claimant? It's usual for a pleading to provide a summary of the party's background and the circumstances of their claim. Are the pleadings in the public domain? Or any published judicial rulings in the case so far with relevant quotes or references?

I’ve not seen any pleadings; I don’t think they’ve been published. There are two claimants, one of whom has been granted an anonymity order (PQ) and one not (Samantha Tempest).

EDIT- my bad. There appears to be only one claimant now, ST. Anyone know what happened to PQ?

@terffert heat got to my brain. I meant looking at the respondents case and thinking he can find against the complaints on those grounds so not giving the claimant any reason to appeal.

There was a bit about the claimant being very much out when they were denied anonymity so I expect there will be social media if you look for it.

PQ settled our of court I believe.

PQ is no longer part of the case

We've started again and are back to the discussions that were ongoing before lunch.

Ah, thanks.

From TT:

In in medias res
HH Hope to provide brief summary in morning. Won't differ much re agency. Eg in relation to EW
J[is difficult to hear] concern is allegation is unpleaded even if amendment allowed. Don't know facts or matters. R doesn't know what case have to meet.

J If we grant leave it needs to be pleaded and responded to.
HH Could certainly be put in writing
J What in writing?
HH additions. Don't envisage would mean prejudice in terms of delay, only c half day for R to take instructions. Nothing new from witness statements.

AL/ J to and fro
J If amendment allowed, what follows
AL primary subs from MLF doesn't work. Can't proceed without anything else. Re MLF secondary point - is v optimistic this will have little impact and prejudice. We don't have the pleadings yet - we don't know.

Who or what is MLF, anyone know?

So traumatic that he is back in court trying to stop a group of woman forming a group that believes in fact and science.

This shit is so obscene.

Presuming "my learned friend"!

From TT:

AL Will need time to analyse. Prospect of delay /derail things. Some things may need to happen. Potentially need to undertake document search, further witness statements.. I just don't know but prejudice does exist.
J This isn't ;personal, but you did have c two weeks notice

AL Difficulty is that this is raised when focus of parties is preparing for 3 week trial. This isn't in the pleaded case or list of issues. My sub is would be counsel of perfection to assume R would have
J I wasn't meaning ...If it wasn't done, just say that.

AL But raises q of what should R have been doing in the time, and also the C could have ... criticism cuts both ways.
J We need to decide what to do. Will take a little time. Will need to leave as will need docs with us. Will be half an hour minimum

<court rises>

From the initial judgement on anonymity - it was opposed because " the claimant made no secret of her trans characteristic, admitted the same on internal posts which were available to thousands of people and that any reasonable person confronting the claimant would immediately know that she was biologically male." Apparently 20,000 people could see the bulletin board and 4000 were known to have viewed his post at that time.

What about the trauma it's going to cause EW to have to call a man not a man and compelled speech ( i.e. to lie in court). Anyone bothered about that trauma? I think I'd find it traumatic to be subject to coercive control via the courts and not be able to speak the truth. How does that fit with the declaration you have to tell the truth?

Yes agreed. Being forced to lie about anything makes a total mockery of the process.

People affirm to tell the truth - yet both Counsel and witnesses are being told explicitly not to tell the truth and circumvent the truth.

But that’s trauma to a woman, so doesn’t count. See also prisons.

Absolutely. The oath or affirmation is not simply to tell the truth, it's 'the whole truth and nothing but the truth'.
How can being forced to use someone else's terminology square with that?

Well if I was a witness I think I'd say to the judge that I cant tell the truth if you want me to refer to the claimant as they - so do you want the truth or not?

Yes, the mind bending stupidity of it all is hard to bear..... how can we tell he's not a woman? Well apart from the absolutely bloody obvious man body, there's the male entitlement and absolute pandering of the judiciary to his every feeling of mild discomfort at not being able to coercively control others' speech or pervert the normal usage of English grammar.

ACTUAL women on the other hand - just told to obey and lie on command.

Yes, I don't know why this hasn't happened yet.

Edited to add: It's interesting to think how it would go 'I cannot tell the truth if you tell me to use wrong-sex pronouns'
Judge - 'something about neutral'
Witness - 'but I don't see it as neutral, I think normal English language is neutral, there is nothing wrong with being either sex, it's just observable reality'
Judge -'some kind of be kind waffle'
Witness - 'but forcing me to lie is not being kind to me and is also forcing me to break my declaration that I'll tell the truth'
Judge 'do as I ask or you're in contempt of court'
Witness - 'so only one person's feelings matter so you've already made up your mind'

Basically. Obviously it would never go this way, but it's so obviously biased to ask for anything that isn't standard English. It puts one side at a disadvantage with a huge cognitive load / dissonance and walking on eggshells. Coercive control.

I would absolutely refuse to use wrong sex pronouns in court, even under threat of contempt, because I would be contemptuous of any court that would allow lying under oath.