The English Blackball Pool Federation have won!

[Igmum]

Case dismissed against them - Lynne Pinches has shared this on Twix https://x.com/pincheslynne/status/1951219668976369953?s=48&t=aUMrfsfvZ3ry7TIDiJkOVg

2 The Claimant was represented at trial by Ms White; the Defendants by Ms Crowther KC and Mr
Maini-Thompson. The Claimant’s submissions regarding FWS were the combined work of Ms Russell
KC, Ms White and the Claimant’s solicitor Mr Champ.

It looks like Ms Russell KC was involved in the submissions about the FWS Supreme Court judgement, after the trial. Presumably these were similar to the assertions that were made about FWS during the Sandie Peggie tribunal - I am off to read more 🤓

Legal feminist's commentary on the judgement if you don't want to read the whole thing.

The word ouch is used many times. 🤭🤭

x.com/legalfeminist/status/1951222983118221394?s=46&t=AjtjSItRj-kgZwRzL-pdyQ

The Claimant initially accepted that was so but then, with the Defendants’ consent and my permission, reversed her position and filed amended submissions arguing that the claim should still succeed.

😂😂😂😂😂😂

The judgment is well set out and thought through. The judge was obviously left scratching their head about the Claimant's submissions. There are some choice quotes emphasising the "have your cake and eat it" nature of the submissions.

"76 Thus far, it seems to be the Claimant’s stated position that (i) in view of FWS, the relevant
exclusion was a matter of sex discrimination and (ii) she had not pleaded sex discrimination. I would
have thought it followed that the claim must be dismissed. However, the Amended Further
Submissions then argued that it should succeed:
“To assert that the discrimination experienced by the Claimant is actually sex discrimination,
and not gender reassignment discrimination, is incorrect. To adopt such an approach would
render the protected characteristic of gender reassignment worthless and there is nothing in
the FWS decision supporting such a position.” (paragraph 13)

77 It seems to me that this passage contradicts what was said in paragraph 9 of the same
submissions, as quoted above. Nor can I see how it is reconcilable with FWS. If (in accordance with
FWS) I accept that the Defendants have excluded the Claimant from women’s competitions because
she is a biological male, then it cannot be said that they have instead, or additionally, excluded her
because of gender reassignment. Indeed, it is more accurate to say that they have excluded her
despite her gender reassignment."

"80 Attempting to engage with these submissions as best I can, I would say that the Defendants have
treated the Claimant as a man (and therefore ineligible for the women’s competition) because they
have not accepted that her gender reassignment certificate requires her to be treated as a woman
for the purposes of the EA 2010. The Claimant is aggrieved by that." 🙄🤔😄

Re-posting a comment I made in the other thread:

I'm very glad they won and grateful to Lynne Pinches for standing up.

Reading the judgement, it was disappointing to see, re. encouraging women's participation (my bolding):

"266 As to the second aim, I accept that women have been historically underrepresented among pool players. The FargoRate data indicates that in America they still are, and that is likely to be the case in the UK as well. Encouraging greater female participation is a clearly legitimate aim. I do not accept, however, that (were it not for the need to achieve fairness) excluding trans women from female competitions would be a proportionate means of achieving it. The Defendants’ evidence was that the only complaints they received other than those about fair competition were objections to sharing toilets, and that is an issue which could arise whenever trans women are present, whether or not they are competing in the same event."

The judge makes clear that if there hadn't been physical differences in performance he(?) would have thought it reasonable for trans women to play in women's tournaments.

Women have the right to compete against and socialise in a competitive environment exclusively with other women

The Legal Feminist has put together a most glorious X thread on the ruling.

Glad to see Jane Russell losing again. If she keeps up like this the Good Law Project will want to hire her.

Sublime!

🤣

Oh, I beg your pardon, I didn't see that! Brilliant. So she got that horribly wrong as well.

Well spotted!
I'm not surprised - I saw a little of the hearing and followed TT on one of the days and it seemed to me that the judge was worryingly inclined to bend over backwards to admit TWAW.
I agree entirely with you - the environment has to be female-only as part of the drive to encourage women and overcome the social disadvantages. MCW are men according to the SC and therefore it could not be a female-only environment if they were present.

Oh this is fantastic. My congratulations go out to the brave defendants and their team. Talk about putting everything on the line here. I'm in awe and both pleased and relieved with the outcome. What a result!👏 👌 🙌

Oh. That's disappointing.

Granted, my only exposure to legal proceedings has come from FWR over the years, but I find it disturbing how judges personal opinions can have so much impact.

Thank you for mentioning that you saw this bias in person. Weirdly it makes me feel better that it was so apparent from the start rather than as a result of convincing argument and hence it's inclusion in the judgement.

And yes, I'm a firm advocate for female only environments.

No Jane Russell contributed to the written submissions on FWS according to the judgment

Hmm, I wonder if Jane Russell is going to advance the same failed interpretation of FWS in the Sandie Peggie case?

Yes, I got that wrong. I was watching and I only saw RMW so didn't realise that JR was providing written submissions.

If @WandaSiri 's perception of bias is true, then that's a good thing. It shows that even with a TWAW judge, TRA arguments did not win, because they are not consistent with the law.

It seems to me that this passage contradicts what was said in paragraph 9 of the same submissions, as quoted above. Nor can I see how it is reconcilable with FWS. If (in accordance with FWS) I accept that the Defendants have excluded the Claimant from women’s competitions because she is a biological male, then it cannot be said that they have instead, or additionally, excluded her
because of gender reassignment. Indeed, it is more accurate to say that they have excluded her despite her gender reassignment."

Contradictory, you say? What?! How shocking.

BREAKING: Male pool player Harriet Haynes (pictured) has had his case for discrimination against the English Blackball Pool Federation THROWN OUT. The EBPF stood firm by its policy of excluding males from the female category and were dragged through the courts for their trouble.

Statement from the EBPF below:

‘We are delighted to announce that Harriet Haynes’ discrimination claim against the EBPF has been dismissed and Harriet has been ordered to pay our costs. The court found that pool is a game in which men have an advantage over women and that allowing only those born as women to compete in our women’s competitions is necessary to secure fair competition.

‘The EBPF was the only one of three pool organisations to stand our ground when threatened with Harriet’s claim. The claim was brought against Paul and Anna [Goodwin] personally and was a very stressful experience for them. At one point, Harriet’s solicitor said that Paul’s and Anna’s ‘houses and lives’ were potentially on the line.

‘We would like to thank everyone who has supported us. We would also like to reiterate that the EBPF welcomes transgender women in our Open category.’

Paul Thomson, EBPF Chairman, statement:

‘I am very grateful to Anna Goodwin and Jim Goodwin for all the help in this case, without them I think the midnights talks and Jim calling me the second husband because Anna would be calling me all hours, those countless conversations kept us on the path to do what was right for our organization, and most importantly got us through the most difficult time in my role as chairman of this wonderful organization.

Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would end up in court representing this organization as chairman, it’s been a difficult few years but most who know me will tell you that I would do the right thing when representing this organization, and I am not easily intimidated. But most importantly we as an organization would conduct ourselves throughout the diversity with professionalism

I can honestly say I am glad it’s all over and we can get back to planning for this organization, I would also like thank all the Female section for supporting us and everyone who contributed to the go-fund to help with case it really means a lot, your support has carried so much weight for me and Anna, I speak for both of us when I say thank you from the bottom of our hearts.’

Paul Thomson
EBPF Chairman

It’s been refreshing to see a sporting organisation behave with integrity and fairness.

The Legal Feminist thread is well worth a read - unrolled here

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1951222983118221394.html?utm_campaign=topunroll

This is great news. Well done defendants, that took a lot of courage.

That thread is awesome.

That's kind of correct, but my reading of it is the judge's main point was that it is irrelevant if it would be fair or not, because the Supreme Court decision means that any biological male can be kept out of female sport, because, single sex sport means single sex biological sex.

His additional point, which he didn't have to deal with but chose to anyway, is that it's also inherently unfair in this case because of the physical aspects of the game, so the person can be disbarred for the reason of gender reassignment due to sporting fairness.

Maybe he felt it was fair to stop at that point and not deal with the proportionality point too so as to not anger the TRA side too much?

Presumably a women's chess tournament/book club/WI can also now be kept single sex by that basis alone, no need for justification about a legitimate aim etc? * edited to add: by that I mean, no need to justify why a trans identified male cannot also be part of the group, I think the inherent justification of a group for being single sex still needs to exist, but that's a pretty low bar - but thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, there is no need to treat trans identified males any differently in assessing membership than the general male population.