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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Lorna Young v Manchester City Council, Employment Tribunal, May 2026

471 replies

Mmmnotsure · 12/05/2026 13:00

Lorna Young is taking her former employer, Manchester City Council, to Employment Tribunal. The case began today. It is being live tweeted by Tribunal Tweets https://x.com/tribunaltweets
and coverage is also available on their Substack
https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/lorna-young-vs-manchester-city-council

Lorna Young was Equality Team Manager at MCC. She was dismissed, among other grounds, for her social media activity.

Lorna Young is gender critical and Catholic, and opposes surrogacy. She is claiming unfair dismissal, and discrimination and harassment because of religion or belief, and disability.

Tribunal Tweets (@tribunaltweets) on X

Citizen journalists -"a valuable service" The Lawyer Magazine See also @tribunaltweets2

https://x.com/tribunaltweets

OP posts:
Thread gallery
19
Datun · 19/05/2026 17:06

There seems to have been a WhatsApp group that is known to have existed but everyone involved has changed or lost their phones.

It's so bad, so incriminating, I don't know how they've not expired with embarrassment.

HappilyHarriet · 19/05/2026 17:15

Also do we know what the content of the offending tweets was ? Will they make my computer/ firewall explode?

soddingspiderseason · 19/05/2026 17:34

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 19/05/2026 16:09

It's almost a pity, eh?

I thought it would undermine her case if she refused to accept a reasonable settlement offer? Which might include a public apology but then they might never get round to it or they might just do a quiet sorry/not sorry.

So if I was MCC I would settle now. This isn't Scotland (Scottish courts have made some unexpected judgments recently) so if MCC don't settle then they are likely to lose. And the longer this drags out the more likely that the press are going to notice they can make a fuss and even use the case to take a politician or two down. And expose MCC in the process.

Exactly. If MCC have any sense they will attempt to settle to avoid further disclosure of the failings in this case both in terms of process and in terms of hounding out a GC woman over 4 tweets. It will not play well in the press if they lose.

SexRealistic · 19/05/2026 18:10

HappilyHarriet · 19/05/2026 17:15

Also do we know what the content of the offending tweets was ? Will they make my computer/ firewall explode?

Yes they were described in court.
Pretty benign by FWR boards to be fair.

She said that God likely didn’t make a vicar trans gender / non binary. Since you know God made man and woman etc.

She also agreed that gender ideology is homophobic and misogynistic. Which I agree with.

I think those were the most shockingly offensive tweets that led to the witch being hunted and cancelled.

SexRealistic · 19/05/2026 18:17

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 19/05/2026 15:24

Well, the Sandie Peggie judge called Dr Upton "credible" after the expert had said the dates on his contemporaneous record of events could not have been genuine... so I guess they are all credible.

Nah Kemps a clear basket case from the judgment.

That appeal will be lovely.

ProfLargofesse · 19/05/2026 18:19

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 19/05/2026 15:24

Well, the Sandie Peggie judge called Dr Upton "credible" after the expert had said the dates on his contemporaneous record of events could not have been genuine... so I guess they are all credible.

That was so fishy. It was clear Kemp was taking the view that the poor lamb had suffered enough. As we know he was getting 'advice' from others and that in itself explained why his judgement was such a mess. He seemed to have believed his own myth and thought he'd come up with a solution that would solve all the problems but which only show how ignorant he was of sex based protections. He gets all the blame but some of the magical thinking must have come from the other ET panel members. But there is one thing saying the witnesses are credible when there is no court reporting but when there is TT we can see it with our own eyes. Unless this judge is bonkers or wholly captured she will not want to suffer the panning Kemp has subsequently got.

KnottyAuty · 19/05/2026 18:21

Justabaker · 19/05/2026 15:10

For a belief to be a PC (protected characteristic) under the Equality Act it needs to be 'worthy of respect in a democratic society' (WORIADS). That was the importance of the Employment Appeal Tribunal finding in Forstater; it established gender critical beliefs as WORIADS. It was another member of TT who first used WORIADs and we owe her a drink every time we tweet it.

The interesting thing is that gender identity beliefs have NOT been fully tested in the same way. The prevailing winds are such that no one is or has been dismissed for a belief in GI, so not tested.

Not that I know much but I think they’d struggle - with the full fat TWAW definition - to meet the part of the Grainger test where theres no interference in the rights of others. Because as we all know the full TWAW manifestation requires the participation of others whether they like it or not….

SexRealistic · 19/05/2026 18:22

soddingspiderseason · 19/05/2026 16:08

I suspect they may settle. They may be pragmatic and cut losses, as the fallout will not look good in terms of the way its been handled.

I used to think such things - but not one of these cases have settled (there was maybe one social worker one in London).

Lorna seems well funded and happy to go the distance. Happy to come back again in person in September.

Something Naomi said rings in my ears - we would only settle unless there was total capitulation. MCC isn’t going to offer a full apology and compensation. Money maybe, a full apology - unlikely.

So my bet is on trial and judgment.

PrettyDamnCosmic · 19/05/2026 18:25

SexRealistic · 19/05/2026 18:10

Yes they were described in court.
Pretty benign by FWR boards to be fair.

She said that God likely didn’t make a vicar trans gender / non binary. Since you know God made man and woman etc.

She also agreed that gender ideology is homophobic and misogynistic. Which I agree with.

I think those were the most shockingly offensive tweets that led to the witch being hunted and cancelled.

Were these tweets or likes? Either way they were from the anonymous Galway Girl account.

SexRealistic · 19/05/2026 18:25

soddingspiderseason · 19/05/2026 17:34

Exactly. If MCC have any sense they will attempt to settle to avoid further disclosure of the failings in this case both in terms of process and in terms of hounding out a GC woman over 4 tweets. It will not play well in the press if they lose.

The quote reprehensible conduct of the litigation will play well.

Every day brought a new disclosure delay - stupid and incompetent. Their lawyers would have been seething. 😤 They’d clearly been duped by their client.

RapidOnsetGenderCritic · 19/05/2026 18:33

HappilyHarriet · 19/05/2026 17:15

Also do we know what the content of the offending tweets was ? Will they make my computer/ firewall explode?

Here's a bit of Tribunal Tweets to give you an idea of how utterly dreadful Lorna's tweets/likes were:

(NR is the barrister for Lorna, AH is a witness)

NR - tweet describes trans ideology as most evil, homophobic, misogynistic thing in my lifetime, what's wrong with this tweet
AH - extreme, use of the word evil
NR - so it's the word evil
AH - well yes
NR - would it be acceptable to say misogyny is evil
AH - [unclear responses]
NR - gay rights campaigners would say homophobia is evil
AH - more moderate ways to say it

JaneDoeKeepsReceipts · 19/05/2026 18:41

JaneDoeKeepsReceipts · 17/05/2026 16:08

clear to me how LM duties might be restored.

AM James Binks [JB] email is about contact with team until issue resolved.
LY There has been a misunderstanding by JB. What was your q again?

AM JB says you agreed not to contact team until resolved.
LY I wasn't given a choice.
LY I was told this, because complaint made.

AM You had asked to be removed from team.
LY But to go with KB for support I had asked for. I was just removed - very isolating and upsetting.

AM [to docs] Reads c Lauren feeling she was being punished and EDI manager in name only

AM [reads c LY asking to work with KB. Jo said no post available. LY said post could be found under reasonable adjustments. Could be suspended - Jane (union rep) and Jo agreed this would not be appropriate]
LY [reads her words from doc]

J Just wait for the question to answer

AM Suggestion of suspension came from you and not accepted
LY Yes

AM Jo says better for LY to keep separate until resolved to help. Supportive.

LY Yes, that was a change. She seemed supportive and it was the first time I got to express myself. But on 6 Feb meeting with Jo

LY Jo had said had to shut down conversation.

LY They were talking about me in the office, not nice for me.

AM Jo said you could use work time to prepare for meeting
LY Yes

AM You wanted to be removed from team?
LY I didn't know what complaints were. I was working from
home by interactions with team were good and helping me. I was sharing knowledge. But unspecified complaints and being talked about by the team - and my mental health had hit floor. We are two weeks away from my suicide attempt

AM In Feb another ix meeting. Do you want a break?

J [Offers break when/if wanted, and tissues.]

LY I'll push on.

J AM needs to ask qs. We'll take it carefully

AM 16 Feb invite to ix meeting. You say Sarah didn't tell me which GalwayGirl tweets are being investigated.

LY This was the first time I was told

AM Council didn't know

GG was your account at this time.

LY That's what they said. They also said I'd told team members it was my account.

AM You complain about this and say would treating GG as gross misconduct is act of discrimination.

LY I didn't know what tweets were until nearly a year later

LY Are you asking me what I knew then or now?

AM You says treating tweets as something which could be gross misconduct is discriminatory and they are not of a level for this.

LY Yes

AM Had you not been unwell, this would have been given to you at the meeting.

LY Sarah refused to give me info in advance of meeting. Said wouldn't send tweets cos offensive and was telling me I was going to be sacked. Dark days for me and pushed me over the edge. [difficult to hear LY at times now] Felt like a coordinated attack and took me over edge on 22 Feb

AM I can go through tweets in submissions not now.

J [talking c relevance of tweets]

AM These were not the tweets that were in play at the end. These were collected in earlier stages of ix and didn't get past Sarah's report. Sarah concentrated on a small number of tweets.

AM One of your complaints is that there had been an analysis of your LY and GG accounts, to ascertain if it was your account. Email from Nick MacMillan c ix around GG accounts. Couldn't access GG cos account taken down. Reversed Google search to see if personal picture.

AM You found this upsetting - c photo of Trevi fountain discussed by NM - as you'd been in Rome shortly after your father's death.

LY Very upset by them identifying me like this - this was in my mind - had letter from Sarah c how they were trying to identify me and it was by using my dad. He was my dad! I was in Rome because I went after he died, somewhere where my faith could support me. My complaint is how horribly twisted it was to use my grief.

J ?

LY I'm okay, thank you.

AM Not trying to minimise your distress. Would like to show you the
pictures of the Trevi fountain - nothing in photos to imply they were sensitive.

Lorna said -

Sarah refused to give me info in advance of meeting.

Said wouldn't send tweets cos offensive and was telling me I was going to be sacked.

Dark days for me and pushed me over the edge. [difficult to hear LY at times now]

Felt like a coordinated attack and took me over edge on 22 Feb.

——————————-

Too offensive to email, and she was proven a liar. They’d been emailed to all and sundry.

The direct and deliberate withholding of information and making her paranoid in the process led to her suicide attempt. Shame on you MCC.

SexRealistic · 19/05/2026 18:46

PrettyDamnCosmic · 19/05/2026 18:25

Were these tweets or likes? Either way they were from the anonymous Galway Girl account.

There were lots of likes on tweets.

It eventually boiled down to four posts.

Two had comments from Lorna’s anonymous account and two had likes from the account.

MarieDeGournay · 19/05/2026 18:52

SexRealistic · 19/05/2026 18:10

Yes they were described in court.
Pretty benign by FWR boards to be fair.

She said that God likely didn’t make a vicar trans gender / non binary. Since you know God made man and woman etc.

She also agreed that gender ideology is homophobic and misogynistic. Which I agree with.

I think those were the most shockingly offensive tweets that led to the witch being hunted and cancelled.

I think there was a suggestion that the NB vicar had been misled by the devil, genderwoo is evil, and there were some swear words.

The defence was
NR - do you accept that a Catholic might be disturbed by this, and that the devil is the source of evil according to Catholics, and that the C here is objecting to this person's religious views

which I thought was a bit far-fetched, it would have been more believable to say that she was very upset and the devil was a metaphor.

The only thing that surprised me was the unexpected presence of 'swear words' in a tweets were motivated by religious belief!Hmm
I nearly wrote 'swear words in a series of tweets' but then I remember it's all about four of them😠

Letterasaurus · 19/05/2026 18:52

I don't think they'll settle because they are publicly wedded to their ridiculous TWAW commitment.

MCC have form with this sort of nonsense. In the 1980s they declared Manchester a 'nuclear-free zone' and there were signs round the city proclaiming this.

I've no doubt that Leonid Brezhnev took due note.

SlackJawedDisbeliefXY · 19/05/2026 18:54

I found a WhatsApp reference - 15th Session 2. Evidence given by JJ, Jo Johnston - Head of Reform and Innovation at MCC

NR: C does not know at this point that all the team are using whatsapp to share her tweets?
JJ: This is January? I don't know what C knew.
JJ: [drowned out by background noise]
NR: [ref] disclosure of whatsapp messages, can you see what it says at the bottom - EDI whatsapp chat.
JJ: There is a glitch here - hang on
NR: Yes C also noticed that, but pls read the chat there.
NR: Everyone appears to have lost their phone and can't find the chat, any comments on that?
JJ: I wasn't involved, wouldn't know.
...
NR: There is a whatsapp group discussing, BY has the views we've seen, do you think he developed a view of the C before even working with her?
JJ: [too fast]

The first answer seems to suggest that JJ knows about the existence of the WhatsApp chat group but did not know if the claimant knew

The second seems to be JJ claiming to know nothing at all about the group

These seem mutually exclusive

SlackJawedDisbeliefXY · 19/05/2026 19:01

I think that there was also some evidence that lists of complaints from various members of her team (who were communicating with each other using a private WhatsApp group that has evaporated) were strangely similar.

Has there been any disclosure of e-mails or other communications that show the lists of complaints being shared?

SexRealistic · 19/05/2026 19:12

SlackJawedDisbeliefXY · 19/05/2026 19:01

I think that there was also some evidence that lists of complaints from various members of her team (who were communicating with each other using a private WhatsApp group that has evaporated) were strangely similar.

Has there been any disclosure of e-mails or other communications that show the lists of complaints being shared?

I think a witness was asked about it and they said two witness statements were literally word for word and offered on the same day.

Collusion one would suspect.

SexRealistic · 19/05/2026 19:18

MarieDeGournay · 19/05/2026 18:52

I think there was a suggestion that the NB vicar had been misled by the devil, genderwoo is evil, and there were some swear words.

The defence was
NR - do you accept that a Catholic might be disturbed by this, and that the devil is the source of evil according to Catholics, and that the C here is objecting to this person's religious views

which I thought was a bit far-fetched, it would have been more believable to say that she was very upset and the devil was a metaphor.

The only thing that surprised me was the unexpected presence of 'swear words' in a tweets were motivated by religious belief!Hmm
I nearly wrote 'swear words in a series of tweets' but then I remember it's all about four of them😠

I mean it’s pretty standard in Christianity to suggest something is a sin. Also he’d said he was inspired by God to be gender queer and I think Lorna said it wasn’t God it was the Devil as if it wasn’t one it’s likely the other.

There are Christian blogs saying he is a sinner for being gender queer and shouldn’t have been ordained from Anglian theologian. Not far off Satan inspired.

https://mbarrattdavie.wordpress.com/2023/01/04/can-a-priest-be-non-non-binary/

Because denying the exclusively male or female sex God has given to us is a form of sin it follows that it cannot be right for the Church of England to ordain those who identify as non-binary. As the 1662 Ordinal declares, those who are ordained are called to provide ‘wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ.’ That is to say, they are not only to tell people how God wants his human creatures to live in their sermons and other teaching, but also to model it in the way that they behave. Those who are living openly and unrepentantly as non-binary cannot do this since the sinful manner of life they have chosen to adopt is contrary to how God wants human beings to live. Consequently, it is not right for them to be ordained so long as this state of affairs persists.

Can a priest be non-binary?

This week there have been articles in both the Daily Mail [1]and the Liverpool Echo[2] about the Revd Bingo Allison who is described as the Church of England’s first ‘openly non-binary priest.’ In …

https://mbarrattdavie.wordpress.com/2023/01/04/can-a-priest-be-non-non-binary/

SternJoyousBeev2 · 19/05/2026 19:28

Justabaker · 19/05/2026 14:53

I get this. But I'm often using those gaps to catch up with the jaw dropping thing that was said in the last q&a.

And we try not to give colour commentary so 'witness spent 30 seconds inspecting own shoelaces before mumbling a non-answer' not really our thing.

Oh it wasn’t a criticism, just an observation about the difference between reading the posts and actually witnessing the proceedings.

I have no idea how you manage to keep up with what is being said. I am regularly shouting out my own responses.

borntobequiet · 19/05/2026 20:00

SexRealistic · 19/05/2026 18:33

A man wanting to be trans age is told off by a trans identifying man. Oh the irony!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-46186651

Very happy to watch that again, thanks!

Sladuf1 · 20/05/2026 02:03

rebax · 19/05/2026 13:31

The fascinating thing is the Council being prepared to take this to a hearing when it is clear that they have completely failed to provide a fair process.

I completely agree. It’s been… enlightening to read about the way Manchester City Council’s HR conducts things and the sort of people it employs. To borrow from a comment I gather one of Lorna’s former reports came out with, I’m ashamed to be in the same profession as some of these people. They’re a disgrace.

Very telling about the repeated disclosure issues by MCC. In my opinion there should be something similar in employment tribunals to the adverse inferences a judge hearing a divorce case can draw from late disclosure. I can’t believe a Council would have been unable to have compiled all documents for the bundles in time. I think we can gather what is really behind the late disclosure.

rebax · 20/05/2026 07:05

I think we can gather what is really behind the late disclosure.

Most damning of all is non-disclosure of anything from HR. An obviously difficult case like this should have generated a huge e-mail trail. HR disclosure will either be "we've done what???" or "burn the witch"; or possibly both.

Similarly the difficulty all the witnesses had in saying what the reason was for Lorna being sacked.

ItsCoolForCats · 20/05/2026 07:18

Sorry, I've missed some of the thread but have been trying to catch up. Has the rest of the hearing been postponed to a future date?

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