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?

@SidewaysOtter
There you would be wrong. Was deletion for misgendering - ie using sex-based pronouns as in normal English rather than remembering to take the time and effort to double-think.

Pronouns are indeed rohypnol.

I suppose a forum would have to count as the provision of a service. Maybe that might apply to those who are paying.

@Signalbox no payment required to be covered by EQA regarding goods or services.

anyway more importantly Dave the expert said bosoms were an issue, as were fat bellies. Thing is one cannot as a sex characteristic control ones bosom size.

bellies are not a sex characteristic.

as pointed out by defence there really only needs to be an average of disadvantage or just one.

dave named quite a few….

Well that’s a nonsense because MN have themselves accepted that correct pronouns are OK - their own posts above have confirmed.

Complain!

I should imagine that HQ are in the process of what might be called a fudge.

They get that pronouns are important and that various judges have said knock yourself out. But then certain people complain and say it makes this place difficult for them to post because it feels hostile.

it's probably less about pronouns in and of themselves, and more about how they make a certain people feel.

Honestly, I think that MNHQ are always treading a line here, and although it can be irritating, I'm inclined to cut them a fair bit of slack.

As a silver lining, I’d see it as an opportunity to write

“the MALE person with MALE advantages”

in bigly letters every time I would have written “he” about any male people.

<Would a generic “he” like here get deleted?>

I think so too.

What the judge who dealt with Forstater and WORIADS made clear was that he wasn’t passing judgment on use of correct sex pronouns and that doing so might still be considered harassment in some circumstances.

If there is a barrister who claims he is a woman who patrols this forum and complains every time a woman chooses to speak the truth about him, which I suspect there is, then Mumsnet probably bows down to this bullying, removing the posts, as they do not want to be the test case to find out whether it is illegal or not.

They have been fairly clear, that we can correctly sex someone where there is reason to do so, such as where we are arguing that sportsmen who claim they are women have an unfair advantage because they are male, but in the case of a barrister, who is simply defending such a case, his sex is not explicitly relevant, and therefore we should avoid using the correct sex pronouns for him.

It’s annoying, but I don’t blame Mumsnet for choosing not to be brought to court to be that test case. They have done more than enough in defending our right to speak. Every women’s forum that has been set up for this topic seems to survive for a while, then close, but we on Mumsnet are still here talking about it, and each time the law becomes clearer, they have eased the restrictions.

It’s truly sad that we have lost some important voices along the way, but this is still the best and most long-standing forum for open discussion.

OK so IF a forum counts as a service (I wonder if anyone ever has sued for discrimination for being booted off a forum) it would also need to be established that “misgendering” was an acceptable manifestation of “gender critical” belief. Who wants to raise the £250K+ that case would cost.

Hopefully the Jennifer Melle case will clarify the point on misgendering and Mumsnet can move away from this ridiculous policy.

If sex and gender are different things, then using sex-based pronouns cannot be misgendering - because they say nothing about gender.

If sex and gender are the same thing, sex-based pronouns are correct - because you cannot change your sex

Forget about truth and accuracy. It is all about control. Put the pronouns I insist on you using or I will get your post deleted.

And making it difficult for lurkers to work out what's going on by turning a thread into Swiss cheese.

Emma Hilton has taken the stand ✊

RMW begins by outlining SM and EH's position that sex should be accurately recorded on official documents.

When it gets to that point the whole thread tends to deleted as

• it’s effectively meaningless
• it’s consuming an unmanageable proportion of moderation resources.

It’s interesting that RMW appears yo be arguing that it’s obvious that men shouldn’t be competing in sports that obviously rely on physical strength.

EH is running circles around RMW.

It’s “look how reasonable we are” argument.

Morning. A little behind today and catching up on TT.
Does anyone know what the 'incident in the court building' was? The defence team said they had received reassurances it wouldn't happen again and were confident no further action was needed.

Lol the claimant's case is so complex even the judge can't follow it.

No menstrual cycle data specifically in relation to pool. EH says this data would be fairly easy to collect but it hasn't yet been done. EH giving evidence about how the menstrual cycle affects performance in other sports and reasonable to hypothesise it would have a similar effect in pool. EH states symptoms of menstrual cycle for judges benefit. Think this is strong evidence.

How long before RMW submits that TW have periods.

No. But intriguing. I wonder if there were demonstrators in the building.

Pound to a penny it would never have occurred to White to even take women's cycle into account to any great depth.

Plus, watching a member of the male sex who thinks they are the female sex, talking about periods has to be one of that judge's most bizarre experiences

EH now giving RMW a lesson in statistical significance. This is so much fun.