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’.

Ah, OK. After a modicum of research I think I get it.

The claimant is in effect suing the Crown and suing EDW as an employee of the Crown. So this must presumably be a discrimination or victimisation action.

Sounds like absolute nonsense to me.

Anya Palmer (barrister) with Jon Heath (solicitor).

They haven't been tested - I think there is an assumption that because they are the opposite of GC beliefs they are protected. Because disbelief is protected?

Will we be able to know who is doing the suing at some point? I wonder if they will have Trade Union support but not Elspeth D W?

I think she's being sued for what she said herself.

At time of writing, the mean donation is £23.70. C'mon Mishy and Dadjoke, where's the claims of "right-wing fundies funders" for this one?

I think that will come out when the court hearing is confirmed.

They haven't been tested - I think there is an assumption that because they are the opposite of GC beliefs they are protected. Because disbelief is protected?

Naomi Cunningham recently challenged the idea (in the ERCC hearing) that gender ideology was WORIADS. I remain hopeful.

I couldn't get the link to work on the X thingy. I'll try again tomorrow. This is mad.

Does anybody know about the stance of Led by Donkeys?

Popped in a few seeds.

Yes, I very much hope that GI does get examined as to WORIADS-ness. If only so the public can see what a mass of contradictions it is.

Yes, I think it has been assumed in some cases that as "GC" views are protected, then the "opposite" view must also be protected, however as you say it's not so far been tested, and I do wonder whether gender-identity beliefs would actually be able to meet the same tests (Grainger criteria) that GC belief had to be shown to meet in the Forstater case in order to qualify as a protected belief.

The criteria are:

• The belief must be genuinely held
• The belief must not simply be an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available
• The belief must concern a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour
• The belief must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance
• The belief must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not be incompatible with human dignity and not be in conflict with the fundamental rights of others.

I do wonder whether the cogency and cohesion tests would be met, in particular, given the amount of contradiction, woolliness and variation in GI beliefs once you start digging into them! There isn't even a single, clear, non-circular definition of "gender" or "gender identity" that they all agree on, as far as I can see...

Now just gone over £14,000 and 598 Donations!

Is there a link of any sort for this? I have seen it informally questioned - on here and/or Twitter - whether gender ideology passes all aspects of Grainger and I would love to see this tested in court.

cross posted with @Comingupdaffs !

I hope Elspeth is feeling the love and support from women this evening 💜🤍💚

I'm a civil servant and have never heard of SEEN until this thread. Will be joining and donating.

That alone would be worth a case.

This is chilling, more power to Elspeth's elbow.

Off to garden.

Thanks Boiled, I've supported. 💪

I am so angry. This is outrageous bullying. Donate - good luck Elspeth

I’ve donated. There’s a lot of other SEEN networks too - for STEMM, police, Church of England and parliament.

I don't think the timing of this tribunal being started is a coincidence: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/03/transgender-rights-activist-civil-service-gender-critical Look at the date. I suspect that this suit and tribunal is to try to get her out and/or make her life hard in retaliation for that letter.

I'm going to preemptively suggest that, should you know, look up, or take a guess at who EDW's employer or the related department is, you don't publish it here or anywhere else. EDW hasn't written that in her case page and there will be a reason for that.

This is confusing. Didn't the EHRC confirm that trans FTM people lose the protected characteristic of 'Pregnancy and maternity' when they transaction, because it is a sex based characteristic?
How is menstruation (or menopause for that matter) any different?

''Pregnancy and maternity. Sections 13(6), 17 and 18 of the Equality Act 2010
outlaw discrimination against women on the basis of pregnancy or maternity.
Currently these provisions would fail to cover trans men who are pregnant and
whose legal sex is male. The affected cohort is not hypothetical, as the case of
CONFIDENTIAL NAME illustrates.3 CONFIDENTIAL is a trans man who sought
and obtained fertility treatment, became pregnant and delivered the baby.
If references to sex in these provisions were read to refer to biological women, a
trans man like CONFIDENTIAL would be protected whether or not he had
obtained a GRC.''

https://dev.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/2023/letter-to-mfwe-definition-of-sex-in-ea-210-3-april-20230.pdf

…biological sex is an idea that first emerged with white European colonisation

That sounds like a crock of bollocks to me. Biological sex just IS. Pegging it to white colonialism is just ridiculous.

Anyway, donation done. SEEN is such an important network, I just wish we had something similar in academia (although I can well imagine the wailing and rending of garments if there was).

Over £15,000

😁 On a completely different note your user name takes me back to having to go for walks after dinner along the headland to Seaton Carew when visiting relatives. I think they just wanted the kids out of the way! A long but very enjoyable walk (at least it was many decades ago when I was younger and had the energy! If I ever go back there I doubt I'd have the energy to walk more than the shortest distance!)