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.

Yes, there were some.

If Claimant wants to make points about the log he has clearly seen it in all it's glorious detail - so how did he manage it? Why is he not made to refer specifically to lines ......of the spreadsheet? Of course that would still mean the respondents and intervenor have to look for other comments.

But anyway...Can a chicken cry?

The water-cooled multi-node distributed serve cluster made me laugh out loud just now.
I've been at the dentist this morning and am just catching up on developments. Well what developments have occurred. This tribunal is like a boat that keeps running aground on un-SEEN sandbanks in the river of justice.

That letter from the Judge on pronouns is something else. Has an assumed close, implying that NC has agreed. Woof.

Matt Walsh is a knob but it is a very amusing film.

The very concept of misgendering is actually endorsing gender ideology.

If the Judge had written - “NC and her witnesses can use correct sex pronouns when questioning the witnesses, and we do not want deliberate incorrect sexing” - we would have total histrionics from Tinkerbell and his team.

It is not neutral to compel a witness’s speech. It will not get best evidence.

This tribunal is hostile to those who are sex realists and no one has a care for their ‘lady feelz’.

Well bloody hell what a morning. Painfully slow progress.
Thank you for the c and ps and discourse, as always excellent.

You go to work to work. There are plenty of other hours in the day left over to engage critically with the world around you.

This entire case is driven by the inability of people to engage with ideas that don’t mirror their own.

It has resulted in a huge loss of productive work time for all involved.

The pragmatic solution is to ban all these employee affinity groups. There should be strong union representation and a responsive, professional HR to deal with individual issues and any disagreements between colleagues which affect their work. You don’t need all these special interest groups.

Arguing and bickering about contentious issues in the workplace and on work time is unprofessional and a waste of time and money.

Too much of the public sector seems to exist to serve the desires of the employees. They need to walk into work, put their professional hats on and serve their users/clients/stakeholders. And in return they should be treated equally and fairly by their employer.

I am reminded of schools in areas where competing football team loyalties are fierce and so on “own clothes days”, no football shirts are allowed. They don’t wait until it all kicks off in the playground; the teachers want to focus on teaching. And civil servants should focus on doing their jobs.

Sorry for the slight derail - and this case is fascinating - but the circumstances in which it arose should never, in my opinion, have been allowed to happen.

Nor is it neutral to allow deliberate misgendering. The judge has allowed a neutral option in permitting neutral pronouns to be used. NC has already been chastised by a previous judge for her aggressive, hostile and unprofessional conduct towards a trans woman on the stand, I’m sure this judge is aware and mindful of that and quite correct not to allow her a repeat performance.

It's like the judge of a mugging trial requiring the defendant to refer to the victim as "my victim".

Because many, many people aren’t co-located with their colleagues in this day and age, so those resources are the only way people can talk. Forget WFH, just being stationed as a functional team across several offices requires more conversation and basic human chat than “where is that report?”

If they don’t have official (and officially managed) channels, there will be unofficial ones (like WhatsApp) that are much more difficult to monitor, and to which expected workplace standards are harder to set out as the workplace is pretending they aren’t needed/don’t exist.

He doesn’t have to "give reasons" because it is the accepted norm to refer to trans people by their preferred pronouns; he would only need to justify his decision if he was breaking that norm.

There has been at least one case of a TW complaining about a female colleague having visible period products in her bag as it was ‘triggering’

No it absolutely isn't like that even a tiny bit

What an absolute waste of taxpayers’ money!! 😠

Naomi is not "hostile and unprofessional" and no when a witness is sworn to tell the truth it is not normal to tell them they must lie.

Accepted by who? Who agreed this and when?

Or was it that the TRAs demanded it and called anyone who didn't comply bigots. No debate.

Those days are over.

FFS. So C made part of their case the moderation document. The solicitors did nothing to make it wieldy enough for court so didn't bother to ask about it in ST evidence but leave it as a wee bomb for AL in cross which makes it even more difficult for him because nothing was made of it under evidence in chief? Fuckers.

What the judge should have said is that the court asks you to avoid pronouns where you can. The Bench Book changed precisely because it was unreasonable.

"Neutral" pronouns only make sense in a world where it's possible to have pronouns that don't align to sex.

That is not a neutral position.

You either believe he/she is purely an outcome of biology, or you don't. That's the fundamental separation. Not whether a male "not-he" is a she or a they.

Any questions about exactly which non-sex-based pronouns should apply to who and when is only of concern to those who are already on the gender side of that critical sex/gender divide. To those of us on the sex side, it's an esoteric argument between two branches of a religion we don't follow.

From TT:

The tribunal of Tempest v DEFRA & Rural Payments Agency will resume this afternoon. The Judge mentioned that they may not be back as scheduled at 2 pm. They hope to examine the moderation log (large EXCEL spreadsheet) before resumption.

It absolutely is. The fact that your belief system blinds you to the damage you do to people outside it is part of the problem.

Whilst it is expected by some, it is by no means accepted by all or even most.

A court cannot request that people tell the truth whilst compelling the same people to also lie.

Accepted by a narrow range of people who believe it’s possible for people to change sex.

The judge does need to give reasons for a decision legally. Failure to do so is grounds for appeal. Especially when it is against natural justice and obtaining best evidence of witnesses.

Enabling this delusion is exactly what led to Tinkerbell bringing a legal case against individuals for thought crime - until he realised it wasn’t legally possible since they are employed by arms length bodies. So now he hounds his employer who went pretzel shaped accommodating his delusions.

And I am sure he’s poor at his job too. He has a faint grasp on facts and reality and is work shy - wanting more paid time off despite being cleared by therapist & occ health.