Tempest v Rural Payments Agency Tribunal Thread (follow on from Chair of SEEN is being sued)

[myladydisdainisyetliving]

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5031904-the-chair-of-seen-is-being-sued
TT substack: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/tempest-vs-defra-and-rural-payments

Tempest (a TW) is claiming discrimination, harassment and/or victimisation on grounds of gender reassignment. Central to the claim is the Sex Equality and Equity Network in the Civil Service (SEEN or IP). SEEN has been granted right to intervene. Parts of the original claim against the co-chair of SEEN (Elspeth Duemmer-Wrigley) and another party (Andreas Mueller) were struck out or narrowed. Another claimant, PQ, is no longer part of the case.

The hearing is in Leeds; the number of online observers has been limited by the court due to "capacity" and posters are reporting that requests for links are being declined on those grounds.

Also to note that Elspeth still has a garden in need of seeds and water to support the ability of SEEN to be an intervenor in this case.

Also, the fact that he says he expected managers to make some effort to identity Mumsnet posters does reveal, perhaps, how much time he has spent on the blue place and other echo chambers and the result is that a clearly otherwise reasonably intelligent and articulate man has lost all sense of where caution is applicable when it comes to avoiding self-incrimination. At some points he shows some awareness of that but here he clearly expresses a desire to harass colleagues by proxy.

Upon musing about what NC approach might be in cross, I checked back on WS and spotted the very same thing.

i suspect she might spend a moment or two on it.

before letting him express more batshit nonsense than ever publicly witnessed before in a court.

well i hope so anyway

And that's a pretty bloody high bar to reach, but I feel confident our lad can do it, @Hedgehogforshort

An entirely fitting Sir Humphrey-esque quote, given the Civil Service setting

Mr Tempest really is speaking the quiet parts out loud, isn't he? The performative specialness, the unreasonable demands, the unerring self-centring and the absolute insistence that anything and everything he doesn't like is removed in the name of 'being unsafe' while completely failing to realise that the rights he demands for himself are the ones he's demanding are taken from those with - horrors! - a different view.

Less "Let Them Speak" and more "Let Them Beclown Themselves At A Tribunal".

I’m hearing Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong.

He’s quite a big Miss tbh

Gosh ST's statement is a slog isn't it?

My take away points were:

Something very bad happened to ST psychologically as a result of their near death experience - as aortic aneurysms are a majority male disease, did ST get thinking this was due to testosterone on a 'female' body. Aside from having way too much time on the internet during recovery

Does no-one do any work at the RPA? So many staff groups, events, chats about the news on Yammer, even updates about what a youth section of the Labour party was doing.

Is paying £60x6 really a massive financial outlay for someone with ST's salary? Especially when ST goes on to note they have violin lessons.

ST has absolutely no friends, just their wife who is also autistic. It seems the only way ST makes friends is via DEI networks.

And finally I had no idea SEEN got so popular so fast that people felt comfortable wearing lanyards at work. Go Elspeth!

Well he wanted to be treated like a woman didnt he - mid career stall. Whats his problem? Surely this is the affirmation he wanted?!

This question reminded me of this recent report, where the courts did not require adjustments to be made to visual symbols and displays that caused offence to a client of a bank:

Bank customer with ‘phobia of Pride flags’ loses case against NatWest | The Independent

I realise there’s an entire day’s evidence since the post I’m quoting, but I’m just catching up and wanted to comment on ST’s witness statement.

The obvious paranoia that appears to have been CREATED by allowing this man to undergo medical “transition” rather than helping him come to terms with who he actually is is off the scale.

I’ve said so often before that any medical “treatment” that results in a patient who can’t cope with real life at the end is an utter failure.

This witness statement should be shown to anyone who argues that medical “transition” in any way alleviates distress. It’s very clear that this is a person whose mental health issues have not been addressed.

Now he is in a position where he is constantly dealing with the cognitive dissonance of having to continually pretend that he believes something he knows to be untrue, in the face of society’s increasing impatience with being unwillingly pushed to join in with the pretence.

AFAIK there is no evidence that ST has undertaken any surgical or medical procedures to "transition". Something like 85% of transwomen don't have any surgery - although I believe more do have hormonal treatment. But there are no figures on the numbers that actually try to emulate women, and I don't think there is any evidence that ST is one of those.

The FWS case made it clear that for any purpose connected with the Equality Act your sex doesn't change. In this case the tribunal judge seems to be relying on judicial guidance about using preferred pronouns. However that has also changed. So it's not clear to me why the judge was putting pressure on Naomi. He sounded quite tetchy. Let's hope it doesnt mean anything

No, AIUI the FWS ruling is much narrower than that. It says that if you are offering a single-sex service, that has to be based on biological sex. That doesn't cover this case.

I am unable to follow the hearing as closely as I would like. I haven't been able to read the reports of the last couple of days. However, my thoughts (and apologies that the first one is a repeat of something I said on the last thread, but I think it is important to be clear on this)...

Although SEEN is only an intervenor in this case, if the outcome places them at a disadvantage they should be able to appeal. Indeed, even if they were not a party to the proceedings at all, they would be able to appeal if they could show that they are directly negatively affected by the judgement, or that their legal rights have been affected.

If it has been correctly reported, the decision of the tribunal to prevent NC and a witness from using biologically correct pronouns for the claimant is astonishing. The Equal Treatment Bench Book says, "Witnesses should never be compelled to use the trans person’s preferred pronouns". Whilst the judge does not appear to have gone quite that far, allowing NC and her witness to use neutral pronouns and the claimant's name, this is definitely pushing the limits. It may give rise to two possible grounds for appeal if the decision goes against SEEN in that it could be argued that this ruling gives an appearance of bias, and it potentially makes it difficult, if not impossible, for NC to present SEEN's arguments properly.

As with previous cases, this case will see GI witnesses making statements that are clearly nonsense. If you want to understand why apparently intelligent people say such things, I would recommend reading Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things - by Gurwinder which explains the concept of Fashionably Irrational Beliefs (FIBs) and why intelligent people cling to them.

What it makes clear is that for the purposes of the EA, the sex you are is your sex at birth. I don’t think it’s particularly held that your sex doesn’t change, because it doesn’t talk about what “sex” is, but the one that you are at birth is the one that counts. It is left unsaid that the your sex at birth in law is what was said in Corbett v Corbett.

It's fascinating and disturbing as someone who worked for well over a decade in the public sector (a type of civil service) and now works in the private sector. The idea of reasonable adjustments is a joke in my private sector job. We're all too busy drowning under far more work than we can do in the time available. Someone who couldn't do that job, whatever the reason, would be out.

The difference between the two is like night and day and the fact this obviously extremely fragile and not fit for work person is calling the shots is at least in part why so little gets done by the public sector.

In the private sector they would find a way - which wouldn't be very difficult - to show he was not meeting his objectives and wave him goodbye. I'm always stunned by the fact the public sector seems to think this is impossible (which it obviously isn't) and then also seems to think it's a good thing that people can be utterly useless and shit at their job and still keep it. It's not good for the taxpayers or anything getting done, is it? As this case amply demonstrates.

I agree, I think the problem for the country, and it is for the country because the public sector are there to provide all the services the country needs to stay functioning, is that the public sector has become all about the employees that work in it.
The Employee Sector is a money pit, a loss making venture that wastes money hand over fist and this country can no longer afford it.

@EmpressDomesticatednottamed That picture is odd - I assume it was either one of those cardboard things where you put your head in a hole and take a picture or it's badly photoshopped.

Wonder what Tempest is wearing in court to give evidence.

Yes and it's like a cultish club in some places. Many of the people in it are mostly concerned with job protection rather than doing their jobs. They know they won't be fired as long as they go along with the groupthink - so they're free to just do stuff that is nothing to do with their job on taxpayers money whilst the primary function of wherever they work remains only at best very badly done.

For example all the managers who pissed away about 1 million quid trying to force women to get undressed in front of men in the Darlington nurses case. Even though the law was clearly not on their side and they were going to lose. Because for some managers their taxpayer funded NHS jobs have become about the cult-club activism and not about delivering healthcare. How many patients left untreated, how many women traumatised in that hospital by not having single sex wards (because they won't be doing that either) or who've self-excluded? They deliberately don't bother to find out, they don't want to know. Like sexual assaults in hospitals - if you FOI it they say they don't hold the data.

The first thing that needs to happen is accountability and loss of jobs for getting it wrong and blatantly using their job for their own personal issues rather than doing the job they were employed to do. Starting with any staff member that tries to coercively control their colleagues by demanding they deny the evidence of their eyes and ears on something as basic (and in this case as relevant to their jobs) as two sexes in all mammals.

@prh47bridge thanks for the link to that fascinating if slightly scary article.

Brown dresses. Rather more delicate in design than his physique might call for, which ties in with the "little girl dresses" comment by colleagues.

Wonder what Tempest is wearing in court to give evidence.

Dresses. Wednesday looked very similar to this one. I noticed because all the other women in the room were wearing standard office wear (shirt/top, jacket) and no one else was showing cleavage.

Yesterday was a stroppy floral sundress. Lots of bare skin and bra straps.

Strappy, not stroppy.

I thought stroppy was pretty appropriate.