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’.

Is someone in the know able to give a précis of where we are before todays proceedings start?
I found yesterday's commentary a little hard to follow

• Which claimants remain
• Which claims remain
• What other business was decided yesterday
• What is happening with regards pronouns and their (forced) use?

Yes, that’s exactly it, DARVO to distract me from their mistake. i will be following up later today, if only to point out some inaccuracies in their version of events.

In my case it’s an email address that’s not linked to my work etc, but it is my real name. Most of the other addresses are names but of course I have no way of knowing if they are real or pseudonyms. I had very naively thought that as I am dealing with a court of law I should be honest about my identity. Lesson learned.

As I said previously, there was one identifiable journalist in the list, and one prominent witness from a previous case who is on the GI side of the debate. Who knows if any of the others are actually pseudonyms of activists such as the ex-police officer and their friends, who are not above doxing people they consider TERFs?

Email addresses might seem relatively trivial in the grand scheme of data protection, but it doesn’t take much imagination to conjure up other situations where it could be critical, particularly in other courts.

Yeah, that’s because there wasn’t one. I agree that should have been the basic first step they did.

There was a message recall attempt but of course, the distribution list is also visible so that compounded the error!

Not in the know but I can answer some
• the sole remaining Claimant is Samantha Tempest, due on as first witness this morning. (There may be legal shenanigans first, just because there nearly always are after an opportunity overnight to consider the day's developments)
• the judge has directed NC and her witness EW to use gender neutral language (they/them/C). NC had already said that this is what she does anyway. She is taking instructions from EW. So we don't know whether they will take a stand on this now or save it for a ground of appeal.

The rest? Sorry, I'm already too hot to try and unpick it.

Will they have sorted out the bundle by this morning?

Right, enough about me, back to the court. I am WFTCHTJ and so are TT.

Is anyone in the waiting room - Ive not got the normal WFTCHTJ

I’m still WFTCHTJ. But I’m not really sure how the thing works. How do you know TT are in the waiting room?

And what’s the waiting room? 🙃 How do you know if you’re in it? (New to this)

Those of us who have been given access to observe log on and get placed into a virtual waiting room. We are then “let in” by the Court Clerk to observe.

I’m using Safari and it can be a struggle to log in.

It would be interesting to know how many online observers there are today if those lucky few who got access have a moment. Please and thank you. 🙂

I use Safari too. Sometimes you have to leave and rejoin a couple of times.

So if can hear WFTCHTJ I'm in the waiting room?

Yes.

Make sure your microphone and camera are off. I stick something over my camera just to be sure.

Yay!

We're in, one observer has left their camera on.

For now. I warn you the earwormy WFTCHTJ chant may reappear in your dreams.

NC had already said that this is what she does anyway.
Not quite I don't think. She said she doesn't use pronouns when examining a witness - why would she, she would be addressing them in the 2nd person. But when addressing the court she normally uses sex based pronouns, at least in these cases where sex is highly relevant.

For anyone new to this, note that those of us who are online observers usually follow the convention of not posting about anything we hear or see that TT has not reported while the court is sitting. When they are on a break it is fine. If in doubt, think about whether you would do/say it if you were actually sitting in the court room rather than observing online.

From TT:

J Apologies for starting slightly late - solving technical problems.
HH One matter Judge. List of issues agreed
AL Subject to inclusion of twitter posts
J So that issue not agreed
HH Yes. I'm still not clear re a possible strike out
J Could we hear evidence rather than more

applications.
HH We are looking to disclose further evidence C relies on - failure to moderate and prevent discriminatory behaviour of Andreas Mueller. Two docs - email of complaint from Emma Dunn to several individuals in E Agency and to Nichola Betworth. Letter of complaint

attaching screenshots of twitter posts made by AM. You may have read them in the bundle and are in list of issues. Eg "the clowns have arrived" Second doc is reply from Nicola Betsworth's office ack reciept of complaint. 5/12/23 is first complaint from E Dunn.

I had not realised that there was an accepted hierarchy of protected characteristics ...

15 observers including TT, 3 in the lobby.

From TT:

HH Reply is 6/7 Dec emails back and forth.
J Have these been shown to other parties.
AL I haven't had opportunity to read email
HH He hasn't had chance to read - we are trying to send it to him.
J Not disclosed yet would be accurate?
HH Yes
J Have you tried to share itwithNC

HH Haven't been able to yet.
J From what you've heard to you object to this?
AL Yes. I have to. Haven't seen doc.
J First thing is to let other parties see them and then we can discuss relevance, prejudice etc.
HH Couldn't do it earlier cos tech difficulties.

AL I don't have doc yet. Don't know how long will take.
HH Doc has just been sent.
NC Not obvious why hold proceedings up before this doc disclosed. Any good reason?
J What is relevance of docs
HH Relevant to one of central issues in case cos c AM behaviour. And re how to deal

There isn't - did anything I reported suggest there was? Just trying to reflect what NC was saying yesterday, and we know she knows there isn't a hierarchy.

From TT:

with Int's bundle. As we said yesterday.
HH Not necessarily relying on point re my own application, but within Int's suplememtary bundle is complaint made by AM about E Dunn's complaint. AM saying SEEN are the victimised. If allowed to stand alone without clear evidence

to rebut that, C would be at disadvantage cos we would say tribunal may be misled. The problems of 900 page bundle at 11th hour.
J Way to deal is for R and Int to look at additional docs and we'll hear from them and you re how to deal with it.
J We'll stand down for c half hour

<back at 11.05am>

I’m now WFTCHTJ after a lot of attempts.

So based on TT - disclosure is an issue! What a surprise.

It sounds like NC as intervener’s rep has been treated as not really important by the C & R reps I.e. excluded from bundle prep.