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’.

Judge seemed to be most concerned with what he termed as "gratuitous mis-gendering" which could be interpreted as intending to be offensive. He was focussed on NC and how she will phrase her questions to all the witnesses. I can't recall there were any specific instructions for Elspeth as they were dancing round the guidelines and whether examples in a criminal case (calling alleged rapists she for example) were applicable when the witness isn't a claimant or respondent.

Oof, I know our legal system is adversarial by design, but I couldn't make my living participating in it, the stress would do me in.

From TT:

[judge difficult to hear here] harassment related to gender reassignment and indirect discrimination.
I am sure that parties will be aware of what we have to decide. That is not the sides of the gender debate, that is not our role.

J It's four o'clock. Going to hear from the C first. It may be a lovely day outside - I don't know, but if we can have an amended list of issues and the abridged short list of issues before us when we start that will assist us.
J We will see you all tomorrow.

Right, I'm off to catch up on some work - the thread OP hasn't appeared on here for over a year, I'm happy to start a new one when the time comes if no-one else wants to do it?

I am sure we would all be grateful!

@MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving I'm sure we'd all be grateful. Maybe add a reminder that there s a garden that could still do with plants signposted Chair of SEEN sued for saying 'only women menstruate.

I think we can all see from how this is being played how important it was/is that SEEN are represented.

Thank you @MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving. I hope for your sake they get on track now and the case doesn't assume Sandie Peggie proportions!

I sent a follow up email regarding the data breach this afternoon, upped the formality of the language too. Got a reply within the hour, sorry to hear I had received other people’s data and they’re investigating etc. Boilerplate stuff.

... sorry to hear I had received other people’s data ...

So not concerned that other people had received yours?

It's not just one person's "feelings".

It's two people each of whom's fundamental sense of self completely invalidates the other's equally fundamental sense of self.

It's like the immovable object ùand the unstoppable force - both things cannot be true simultaneously in the same reality.

Anyone validating preferred pronouns fundamentally denies many female people's sense of self. It imposes onto them a definition of "woman" they neither asked for nor see themselves within.

Likewise, not validating preferred pronouns fundamentally denies the transwoman's sense of self. It imposes onto him the category of "man" he neither asked for nor sees himself within.

Whatever happens in this courtroom, the fundamental cultural rift between people who see themselves as people with any personality who happen to be a certain sex and people who see sex as an outcome of their personality cannot be resolved by "being kind" or avoiding the issue.

The only way forward other than simply deploying power to forceably squash one group's self knowledge in favour of the other is to recognise these are two different things that need two separate names.

Keep "woman, girl, she, her" to mean what it always did, physically female, and coin new words to name and respect the mental identity that transwomen are erroneously labelling "woman".

There’s no evidence that her data was sent to anyone else. All she knows is that she received others’.

Cough cough.

Sending your data to someone else is something for which there might be consequences. Better to apologize and acknowledge that you received some else’s data, which you can just delete and, no harm no foul.

If she knows how email works, and can see her address and that of others on the To or CC line, she does know her data was sent to others.

I had the impression that the e-mail had been either sent to a list of people or CC'd to many.

I'll read again and try to better understand the situation - apologies if I have misunderstood

No no, you understood just fine. Of course her data was sent to others. I'm being cynical to say that since she doesn't have conclusive proof of that there's no reason for the court clerk to openly admit to it.

Well I do have proof as I have the original emails (there were two) with about 30 people in the “to” field, and at least one of the other people received it because they did a “reply to all”.

interesting too that the reply from the ET is that I should be careful what I do with that email because I could be in trouble for misusing the other people’s data. The data I didn’t ask for…

I’m deciding overnight on whether to reply again.

@MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving Have PMd you.

Thank you for posting the X coverage here for us.

When you emailed them did you complain that your data had been distributed to others, or others’ data sent to you, or both?

Im not sure it should matter, just wondering how you presented it.

First email I said I had not consented for sharing of my personal data with other observers in the hearing, and asked them to confirm that the breach had been identified, recorded and resolved as per their procedures.

No reply so 24 hours later I tried again and asked them to “please address my original email in which I raised a concern about my personal data i.e. email address has been shared along with those of original observers.” My intent was to point out I was not the only person who had had their data shared inappropriately, so it was bigger than just me.

Im leaning towards following up because the email I got today did not address all the issues I raised. It did imply that the new meeting details were sent out this morning as a consequence of my email last night about the breach, as if that made it all better. In fact they want assurances from me that I am handling the data in my possession appropriately, which I think is a bit of a cheek.

I've heard of this approach before. I'm not in any way a GDPR expert I hasten to add but my broad understanding is that as soon as you have received someone else's data (via a breach of the regs) you become a guardian of it and technically subject to those same regs yourself.

The breacher of the regs uses this to divert attention from their failure to protect your data and turns the focus on you and your obligation to protect other people. You become the potential offender and not the victim. It's a kind of DARVO and a cowardly, shitty way of ducking responsibility.

I'm sure someone with a better understanding of the ins and outs can advise on the best response in these circumstances.

The ICO complaints process for individuals looks pretty well designed, following it in this case should be very easy (and worth doing even if one thinks this case is trivial, e.g. in case this is the twentieth time people communicating with Leeds ET have complained).
https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/data-protection-complaints/

I think it's fair enough to ask you to be careful what you do with the data, to confirm you've deleted it, etc., because after all we'd hope that's what they are doing with other recipients. It is tactless of them to do that instead of reassuring you that they are terribly sorry about leaking your data and will do everything in their power to make sure it doesn't go further, though!

I have some time today so I have requested remote access. How quick are they to send the link?

And how do I make sure that I don't inadvertently have my camera or mic on?

Unfortunately many of us were told yesterday that we couldn't have access because they'd already given out 40 links. Given that a link lasts for the whole thing, I'd be surprised if they hand out more now, despite the numbers having apparently been low yesterday.

Btw @MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving you haven't mentioned having received a stock mail sent to all recipients of that unmasked mail, reminding everyone of their obligation to delete and not pass on the personal data they shouldn't have been sent - you've only mentioned mails they've sent just to you. If that's so, sounds as though they've failed to take even the most obvious basic step towards protecting your data.

That's a shame. Thanks @terffert

Convenient that their response about their data breach is to essentially suggest you should delete the evidence of said data breach.

Obviously MyLady won't do anything with it - the very fact she's pointed out the data breach shows she's unlikely to do this (anyone with ill intent would take the data and run and not draw attention to this abject failure of the court).

All a bit David and Goliath. Unfortunately for the court, women attending these sorts of court cases are generally well versed in DARVO.