English Blackball Pool Federation

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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?

EH: 'I attempted to submit that data'
I think she's not the first defence expert to say she's attempted to submit some data but it's been blocked. Can anyone tell me why does this happen legally? Does it mean the court has to assume the data was in the defence's favour if the claimant blocked it?

Yes, that's the second time in expert evidence we've seen this particular gun and RMW's own foot situation.

I don't think the court will make any assumptions about the nature of the evidence. It may be the parties will have a discussion and RMW will agree that it can be reinstated. Seems unlikely though.

do you read this as a tacit admission that the trans lobby's case is ultimately unwinnable in athletics and so on?

The line of Q now is just getting absurd. I can't see the Claimant winning this. RMW appears to be arguing that due to a reduction in relative strength compared with women, men who take Oestrogen and block Testosterone will struggle to stand in a stable position when making a break shot. Honestly it's like clown world.

No I think RMW would use this argument in this case and an entirely different argument in a case where #£ is claiming a male rugby player should be entitled to compete in the female category. A bit like the Scottish Government did in the SC. The ideology is fundamentally dishonest.

Edited to remove sex-based pronouns.

But why is it up to the claimant what evidence the defence's expert witnesses can submit?

Is RW suggesting some sort of handicaps like racehorses? Would men have to be handicapped ‘down’ to a woman on her period level to make it ‘fair’? How many weights in the saddle for menopausal flooding? Where would the saddle go?

I suppose the line of argument could just be that the case for allowing men into women's weightlifting etc is very strong, but that in cue sports it's exceptionally strong/unanswerable.

though I do get the feeling with some of these types, we saw it with Emily Bridges who only ever seemed to want to talk about Emily's own performance, that they'd possibly prefer to be part of a trickle of TW in female sports, rather than a flood.

Yes he was discussing the handicaps that they use in amateur golf and suggested that it would have been less discriminatory for EBPF to apply a handicap to men who want to compete in the female category rather than banning them completely.

They didn't say what the handicap would be but I suppose it could possibly be a weighted cue or an extra shot for women who are playing against men.

So we’re now accepting that men definitely aren’t the same as women even if they’re really sure they have a lady brain, and therefore women’s sporting organisations must admit men with a lady brain but go to the trouble and expense of making provision for their greater physical strength?

seems simpler for men with a lady brain to just compete against other men, no?

Well exactly. Suggesting a handicap is admission of an accepted advantage. I am very confused by this argument and how it would even work in practical terms.

It's not up to the claimant. It sounds like they objected to some elements of the defendant's expert evidence and succeeded in making an application to the court to have those parts struck out. On what grounds we don't know.

It's laughable that twice now RMW has asked an expert where's your evidence for that and received the response well, I've got it but you wouldn't let me put it in.

'Handicapping' is a bone-headed idea which obviously could never work in practice. Sports are played by a fixed set of rules, or they are not worth playing. This is not a school play-ground.

RMW appears to be arguing that due to a reduction in relative strength compared with women, men who take Oestrogen and block Testosterone will struggle to stand in a stable position when making a break shot.

Eh? I've only played a bit of pool but it's not exactly weightlifting. Is RMW really trying to say that those taking oestrogen/blocking testosterone would be too weak to stand? If that's the case, how come most transwomen who take hormones (and actual women for that matter, since we have oestrogen/a relative absence of testosterone naturally) aren't permanently to be found face down on the floor?

Is the argument here that fatter people are disadvantaged in sport so fitter people should be handicapped??!

God how tedious that would be, why would anyone invest their time or money watching that live or on TV? There's already an Open category.

I think if HH could suggest a really workable handicapping system then it'd be reasonable for EBPF to consider it seriously, but off the top of my head it sounds unworkable and not something an organisation of such limited means to have to try and dream up.

There are various weight rules in horse racing, including allowances for age and sex. There was a famous scam in 1844 when a 4 year old ran in the Derby under a false name (the Derby and the other classics are for 3 year olds). But I don't think anyone's ever tried to claim a gelding/colt was really a mare (horse bollocks not being very subtle). Perhaps horsey people should start running other sports? A spell on a stud farm could be very enlightening for a lot of people.

The judges questions are good. Suggests he gets it.

Surely it would be much simpler just to stick with what we've got, which is sport segregated by biological sex, instead of faffing about with weighted cues and what not. Of course, there may be hurted feelings or similar but that would be the lesser of two evils.

Perhaps horsey people should start running other sports? A spell on a stud farm could be very enlightening for a lot of people.

I did see a thing a while back where some half-wit suggested a cow shouldn't be referred to as female because we didn't know how it identified. I sorely wanted them to spend some time on a farm - I'd be surprised if a farmer could stop laughing long enough to tell them to fuck off with that nonsense
(As an aside, equestrian sports are almost the only ones where men and women compete equally because the physical strength comes from the horse.)

I think the whole idea of handicapping men so they can play in women's competition is insulting.

I think the argument here is that

MALE people

with special feelz who want to play sport in the female category should be enabled to do so, and today the goalposts are that

MALE people

are at a physical advantage, which means accepting that said

MALE people

should be handicapped if this makes it happen.

Yesterday's goalposts were that

MALE people

are already terribly sadly disadvantaged due to their enormous over-muscled heavy-boned long droopy arms and giant super-grippy hands, which probably means that female people in the female category should be the ones handicapped to enable the

MALE people

to play fairly against them.

Where the neutrinos come into it, I'm not sure #notaphysicist

End of evidence. Well done Emma Hilton that was fab. And you ended making everyone laugh. What a star.

Just to add that the weight rules in horse racing have been established for ~300 years, and are based on clearly observable differences of sex and age in the Thoroughbred. The sense of quantifiable fairness permeates the rules; apprentice jockeys lose their weight allowance as they win races; when body protectors became mandatory they were exempt from being included in the weight. There have been calls for trainers to declare if mares are in season, so punters can make an informed decision.

Well quite. It feeds into the idea YET A FUCKING GAIN that women are just an inadequate version of a man.