Q. "How much did the Pride paint job on that train cost?" - A. "We won't tell you because you don't believe that TWAW"

[Another2Cats]

Yes, this actually happened.

It's quite a long story but the TL;DR is just as in the title.

I follow someone on Twitter @ MouseInTheCourt and they tweeted about this earlier today.

The East Coast Main Line is the route that runs from London Kings Cross up to Edinburgh. It used to be run by Virgin Trains but they couldn't make it work so the route was returned to government control and a new, government owned, body called LNER was set up.

(totally irrelevant, they just copied the name of the company that used to own the route from 1923 to 1948 - ironically, that company, one of the "Big Four" was also set up by the government under the Railways Act 1921).

Anyway, last year LNER released a press release saying that they were going to have a train painted specially in "Pride" colours.

Together For a Summer Of Pride: LNER Launches Azuma Train Celebrating Pride

A few months later someone requested information about the process and costs of decorating a train in Pride colours. She also asked about the processes for selecting train designs more generally and about plans for future designs.

Since LNER is owned by the Department for Transport and so is a public body, this was done by way of an FOI (Freedom of Information) request.

LNER said that it did not hold the information requested. The woman then put the case that a significant sum of money had been spent and it was therefore odd that there appeared to be no paper trail explaining how the decision had been made.

LNER then trawled through her social media posts and suddenly declared that she was "vexatious".

Their reason for doing this was that, among other similar complaints, her tweets:

"... indicates a possible intent to challenge or disrupt initiatives related to transgender inclusion and to promote a binary view of sex and gender."

Her position was then given as follows:

16. The complainant accepted that she had a binary view of sex, but she argued that this was a protected belief – as determined by the Employment Appeal Tribunal in the Forstater case. The public authority had therefore, in her view, unlawfully discriminated against her because it had refused to provide information, that she would otherwise have been entitled to receive, due to her beliefs.

17 She was unhappy that the public authority had conducted a trawl of her social media postings before completing its review. She argued that it was unfair for the public authority to restrict her right to access information simply because she had used her social media accounts to promote her own beliefs – beliefs which she is entitled to hold. More generally she considered it unreasonably restrictive for a public authority to grant or withhold information based on its opinion of the requester’s social media postings. Nor was it reasonable for the public authority to expect her to shift her entire system of beliefs in order to access information.

[...]

19 The public authority’s original press release had highlighted its “commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives for colleagues, customers and communities throughout the year.” There was, she argued, a public interest in understanding why the public authority had chosen this particular cause ahead of other worthy causes, what the decision-making process was and what plans it had to celebrate other causes in future.
.

Not surprisingly, the ICO came down on the side of this woman.

Full judgment here (pdf):

https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKICO/2024/305669.pdf

Well done that woman.

I hope some heads roll at the train company. Appalling discriminatory behaviour.

Apart from anything else, how on earth do train companies have time for this shit? Then trawling social media? Could they maybe lose a few people and reduce the fares?

Idiots.

It's mind blowing that LNER would take such steps to first ignore and then attempt to discredit this woman. Her questions were perfectly legitimate. Good on the IOC for making the correct decision.

In the future, will FOIs involve taking a survey for acceptability? Will it resemble Heller's Great Loyalty Oath Crusade from Catch 22?

https://mathematicalcrap.com/2022/08/14/the-great-loyalty-oath-crusade/

Indeed or spend more time ensuring trains are on time. I can't remember the last train I took in this country that was on time.

Or train companies could do more for genuine equality and inclusion and make train travel much easier for people with disabilities.

Er yes sex is indeed binary. I'm pretty sure that she wouldn't have said gender was binary too though - perhaps that it was a made up social construct based on stereotypes, but not that it was binary.

I think I love you Roger Cawthorne! Great judgement, worth reading.

You'd think they had something to hide.

Agree. I particularly thank him for pointing this out (bit in bold is mine). Is that LNER offering to go 'off the record' with him? (If so he spurned the offer and appears not to have even responded to it). Good man.

'9. At the outset of his investigation the Commissioner wrote to the public
authority noting that it had set out, at some length, in its internal
review, why the request was vexatious. He explained to the public
authority that it was not necessary to repeat what it had already said,
but that, if there was anything it wished to add, it should do so
promptly. The public authority acknowledged this correspondence and
said that it was happy to facilitate a phone conversation if the
Commissioner wished to understand its position in more detail.

10. The Commissioner is satisfied that the public authority has had an opportunity to provide additional submissions, so he has taken the public authority’s final position to be that set out in its internal review.'

Yes, it’s a pleasure to read. Paragraph 27 is totally factual, but also very funny.

I love that someone else has spotted the catch 22 loyalty oath parallels. I may have made veiled references in various tedious EDI gatherings …

Wow! Thanks for posting.
”Give everybody eat”

I got in a train to London on Sunday, we got chucked off mid way due to staff shortages, no driver.
Then waited 30 mins for another train that was already busy but even busier because everyone on our train was now on this train.

You’d think train companies had better things to do than spend good money on virtue signaling projects such as this. Honestly, who really wants this ?

That was a very satisfying read. Thanks for sharing! I hope the information provided by LNER following this ruling is widely shared. I keep reading about how disabled people are left without the assistance they booked (I think Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson is an East Coast line user who regularly has problems). Perhaps LNER could focus it's support in a more practical way than painting a train and set a target for 100% of people who book passenger assistance receiving it.

Has any FOI response been provided, I wonder? They had 30 days from August to comply (or be in contempt of court, I think). Or, have they appealed so as to try not reveal how empty their approach/commitment to real diversity is?

The way these train companies treat their customers with disabilities is disgraceful.

If you book assistance and the train breaks down so you have to decant unexpectedly you are abandoned. There is no record passed onto that station that there are vulnerable people needing assistance on the train and no interest from the conductors. Last time we broke down and had to get off and route via another city, a blind passenger was left to rely totally on the goodwill of other passengers. So much for a commitment to equality and inclusion. Twas LNER too.

Well done the ICO. I look forward to LNER having their arrogance and stupidity splashed across the press tomorrow. And of course we look forward to the new response that they'll have to publish clarifying just how much they've spent on a trans train while they can't manage to get disabled passengers on and off trains safely.

I also really want to know how much was spent on this paint job and cover up. And I also want to read Catch 22 again.

Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them

I feel this way about bureaucracy at my workplace. Soon, if not already, we will realise that the AI/technology designed to serve us, will dominate.

In the future, will FOIs involve taking a survey for acceptability?

If you remember, when Sex Matters ran a campaign to FOI about gender stuff, lots of the public bodies came out with identical Stonewall penned lines about how it was vexatious, among other spurious reasons why they couldn't comply for business reasons.

Sorry meant to quote @RethinkingLife

Hmm, now you've got me wondering how to word an FOI request to LNER about how many assistance requests they get in a year, how much dealing with each one costs, and the number of complaints they had due to failing to properly deal with said requests in a given year.

@dunBle that seems a very useful and entirely reasonable request. Maybe one to share with the media or a disability campaigning group if you get an answer.

I’m astonished by this element of the train company’s response.

The public authority drew attention to one tweet the complainant had published prior to making her request and three tweets published after. It stated that these tweets “consistently” focus on issues related to transgender individuals. It stated that the focus on these topic:
^^
“coupled with the use of transphobic language and alignment with anti-trans figures, suggests a potential motive beyond simply seeking information. It indicates a possible intent to challenge or disrupt initiatives related to transgender inclusion and to promote a binary view of sex and gender.
^^
“The language and views expressed in the tweets align with broader societal discourse that seeks to marginalise and invalidate transgender identities. This type of rhetoric can have a significant negative consequences for all transgender individuals contributing to a hostile and discriminatory environment.
^^
Studies have shown that exposure to transphobic language and attitudes can lead to increased anxiety, depression and even suicidal ideation among transgender people. Furthermore it can create a climate of fear and insecurity, potentially impacting their ability to full participate in the workplace and society...engaging with requests that perpetuate harmful stereotypes and contribute to a hostile environment would directly contradict that.”
^^
14. The public authority suggested that the complainant’s tone suggested that continued engagement with her could become “unnecessarily burdensome”, that her motivation was “disrupting or challenging transgender inclusion” and that, whilst her tweets might not currently harass or distress staff, they had the potential to “contribute to harmful discourse and distress”.

It’s a train company.

Its expertise is, or should be, logistics, engineering, avoiding accidents etc, so how come its response includes this lengthy screed which looks like it’s been copied and pasted from some lobby group or undergraduate gender studies essay?

Can you imagine a train company ever producing some lengthy screed on let’s say…..how studies have shown that allowing alcohol on trains on match days contributes to a hostile and discriminatory environment for women, increased likelihood of sexual harassment and assault on females passengers, spikes in intimate partner violence, with higher levels of suicide risk amongst women in violent, abusive and controlling relationships?