English Blackball Pool Federation

[Signalbox]

The hearing is scheduled for 7th-11th April at Canterbury County Court.

Tribunal Tweets will be following the case…

Live tweeting sessions Abbreviations
J - His Honour Judge Parker
HH - Harriet Haynes, claimant
RW - Robin White, claimant’s barrister
CC - Colman Coyle, claimant's solicitor
EBPF - English Blackball Pool Federation
PT - Paul Thomson, defendant
AG - Anna Goodwin, defendant
SC - Sarah Crowther KC, defendants’ barristers, and
SS - Sapandeep Singh Maini-Thompson
JRL - JR Levins LLP, defendants’ solicitor
JG - James Goodwin, witness for defendant

The original thread has been deleted for “breaking Mumsnet guidelines”. Not sure why but possibly “misgendering” or possibly making it too easy to find the crowdfund @mumsnet it would be good if you could let us know so this thread can stay up. Do we have to pretend that the Claimant is female?

I've said it before and will say it again, #bekind was one of the worst things to happen to women.

There is an FWR thread about this and women’s inner Beryls and when kindness can be actively harmful.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if RW was genuinely aggrieved that men weren't consulted, and genuinely hadn't even considered that women should be consulted.

As I said, when you truly believe women to be support humans, you tend not to take anything to do with their well-being into account. Without thinking.

Seeing everything through the male gaze, with male entitlement, and male privilege will absolutely blind you to everything else.

Especially so for men who one hundred percent rely on women's subordination to them, 24/7, for their very existence.

i'm sure there's a word for the conundrum that means how vital women and their spaces are to certain men, whilst simultaneously, being as significant to them as an ant.

Yes, you are correct. I was too unspecific. It isn’t society as a whole that’s expected to manage the mental health problems of those men, it’s women the vast majority of the time. And our kindness and the societal demand of that that have been weaponised against us.

@Datun i'm sure there's a word for the conundrum that means how vital women and their spaces are to certain men, whilst simultaneously, being as significant to them as an ant.

Transgenderism?

🤣

Totally

Apparently Blair Hamilton is the expert witness for the Claimant.

Excellent. The more zealots they ask to support them, the quicker their (non) argument is exposed

That sounds like idiocy! Let them get on with it!

Bring it on.

Agree 100%.

Also, I'm willing to bet the spending power of the women of mumsnet is far, far greater than the entirety of the transgender movement.

It's not about the advertising, it's about advertisers being willing to bow down before a tiny number of male bullies demonstrating male abuse tactics.

Also - just a point that women who are trans identified (trans men) CAN play in women's sports as long as they're not doping (i.e. taking testosterone). It's about sex not gender.

Blair Hamilton. Brilliant!
Is Blair appearing in person? The optics, again, will be excellent.

But it is very disappointing that they appear to now be rowing back from their previous sensible position and are now running scared of somebody male, just because they are a lawyer.

To be fair, most people don't know the law (or the nuances of it) so when someone who is a lawyer comes along, people think they must be right. IANAL, but a bit of legal knowledge and legalese can go a very long way if you want to come down heavy!

Also, being fair to MN's moderators, I think the position has vastly improved in the last few years - phrases such as "TIM" or references to autogynephilia are often allowed to stand whereas previously they'd have been reported and deleted. Time was we'd have been knee-deep in deletions on a thread like this, but they've actually been accepted and reinstated so I think that's progress.

SC: Not sure where this is going.
J: I suppose it must be the animus thing, which we've already had lots about
SC: There is no procedural fairness issue here.

This is all sounding a bit like scenes from the Vicar of Dibley. Presumably these are fairly elderly volunteers(?)who are really struggling to remember all this stuff because it was ages ago and they are finding RMW X-exam all rather stressful/confusing.

@Madcats
It's a non-profit org and they are volunteers. These are older people - grey haired, normal, with (I assume) local accents - standing up for women and girls. The man on the stand has just tried to explain to RW how it is different for boys/young men - can go into a pub or hall and play - and how a teenage girl can't really do that on her own in the same way. AFAICS RW gives no indication of understanding or caring about that.

The clearest bit of questioning was when the Judge too over.

From what I've seen the judge seems to.be doing most of the questioning and RW seems to be making statements that the C disagrees with - this seems unusual?

I'm finding this very upsetting, volunteers just doing what they think is best having their words and actions twisted. I hope the Judge can see this.

Superb 👏

Women are good at spotting when the goalposts keep getting moved by trans activism though...

Especially when it's Blair Hamilton between the goalposts.

Yes, I find it more consistently ‘grubby’ than what we have seen recently. And, the judge seemed to have to intervene to clean it up.

I hope someone is going to question this "expert" witness then - and point out the poor attempt at science.

So, there are expert witnesses. Wonder what makes BH an expert in safety and fairness for women in sport. Not for the entitlement of males, but for women in their own sports.

I know this is a serious business, but I would like the lawyers and judge to now go down a "local pub" and start actually playing pool...I suspect that is not their usual haunt.

I really hope it isn't lost on some procedural fairness technicality. They had sound reasons for excluding trans women from the female competition.