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.

See also

https://lauradelcolbrown.com/Mumsnet-and-Mr-Mueller/

I've just caught up with 2022 thread. It's a really good illustration of how far we have come. I don't think people would be so emboldened to slag off the SEEN network and its members in the same way today.

https://x.com/i/status/2070212964427219403

Tribunal Tweets have just tweeted a link to ST’s witness statement:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19X8j5Xls6HtlzzjLIqjjX2jMy6CJhc12/view

Tempest in a tempest

Because a GRC legally changes a persons sex, so as far as the law is concerned he's a female, and the Tribunal's a legal setting.

Ha ha ha ha

Well I hope Naomi’s first question is - are you lying under oath or did you lie in your witness statement when you said ….

1. I wish to make clear from the outset that I respect the right of other employees

to hold gender critical beliefs

It’s not as simple as that - see the EBTT book.

Also having a certification does not demand people are forced to use wrong sex pronouns for individuals who have a preference to be called by different pronouns.

From what's been posted the Judge isn't forcing people to use pronouns, he's asked people to be respectful. He's doing so because in law the male person is a female person and as a Judge he's following the law.

Wrong again - he has forced witnesses to lie under oath by stopping them use ordinary language about a man who seeks to mimic the female experience.

It’s a legal protected belief or recognize Sam as a man and to say so. The judge has stripped the witness of that right.

We have an appealable case before it’s even started. 5 years of tribunals have taught us that.

You may not know the law or how these cases are approached.

This witness statement is a hoot -

“I’ve been challenged in bathrooms.”

Reality translate:

”I am in fact a biological man and have been using women’s bathrooms in breach of that law. I’m upset they know I’m a man and they chose to protect their legal rights to single sex spaces.”

And this

“I genuinely believe I would rather die than be placed on a men’s ward where my safety and dignity are expected to be sacrificed in
the name of “sex-based rights.”

If I had a choice between death and being placed on a man’s ward - I’d go to the man’s ward. This is so histrionic. Does he think it’s womanly to be hysterical? Such a sexist.

I thought he previously said in court that he would not post about his transgender status, but then in the witness statement he said that he did?

Edited to adding a rather critical "not"

He said he ‘wouldn’t’.

He’s quite the liar liar pants on fire. 🔥

'Bathrooms'!? He's a Brit, why is he using American terminology?

I've only read a few pages of his WS. I do feel a little sorry for him for the heart troubles he's been through. It must have been frightening. Even his other problems, although many were arguably self-inflicted and/or down to his own negative perceptions or 'sexed up' for the court case.

He looks as I expected him to. I tried to fight my own preconceptions and imagine him as much younger. Turns out I was wasting my time.

His comment about the LGBT association being like a book club! They're just people. Even they can't be expected to wang on about gender all the time.

More from Sam:

SEEN is a staff network which is ‘committed to the protected belief….that biological sex is binary and immutable..’, ‘that biological sex matters for men and women in our everyday
lives including for our rights and needs in the workplace, and that biological sex must not be conflated with the concepts of gender or gender identity’ [353-356].

I found it alarming that SEEN are clearly saying that rights in the workplace should be based on sex not gender.
Toilets aside, that could mean erasure of inclusive language in policies, pronouns and non recognition of non binary colleagues.

I guess it sucks for Sam that law exists and our country is founded on the rule of law.

It's pretty clear from the references to his financial circumstances that some other person or body is funding this action.

The judge has said that this isn't about wider principles or politics. But it clearly is for whoever is backing the Claimant. Because noone in their right mind would do it otherwise.

Employers would do well to read this WS as an indication of the nonsense they will be letting themselves in for if they ever employ a transexual.

Different issues, but this reminds me of when I was a year 6 parent rep at my daughter’s school. The drama.

I’ve been in a few Govt depts in my time and the number of badges some have on their multicoloured lanyards is unreal. By all means colour code them to indicate “visitor”, “department” etc, but ditch all the ornamentation.

That said, I am not sure I understand how anything other than fulsome praise of all things trans makes a building/organisation “unsafe” or “distressing”.

I muttered “well, yes, of course” multiple times reading through the witness statement.

In some ways it would be good for this to go to Appeal.

Looking forward to NC getting started and actual discussion on what was said and deleted. I see I commented on previous thread that I had seen some Yammer and Slido discussion in 2022. Unfortunately can't remember details now! Slido used to allow nicknames and was a particular bunfight.

I am sure ST has had much more recent blog posts (written by ST) and comments on Pride type posts despite what he said yesterday.

I don't think generalisations like that are helpful.

Transsexuals, as I understand it, don't necessarily subscribe to gender ideology - they want to be the opposite sex. GI states that sex is irrelevant to being a man or woman and it's down to feelings.

Lots of trans people - even those on Reddit - have said they don't think Gender Ideology is helpful to them or reflects what they believe.

This is very shades of the Peggie court sessions where the gentleman confirmed under oath that there would be no way in which Peggie could defend her sex based rights or express GC beliefs in a way that would be acceptable.

The quote above re hospital provision.... I do love when a man talks about the absolutely importance and priority of his own safety and dignity when he had absolutely no care for those of women and dismissed such things as irrelevant/offensive. The double standards can be seen from space.

It is clear from ST's witness statement that ST is distressed, and I do have sympathy for that.

However, the thing that struck me about it is how little consideration there is to other people's "lived experience". What about the distress a women might feel about encountering a man in a single sex space?

ST doesn't want to be a man, and the thought of being male causes ST distress. But ST is male. And if the whole of society is forced to collude in the belief that a man can become a woman it has consequences for women when it comes to safeguarding, sport etc etc. Our own "lived experience. Our material reality. SEEN exists to advocate for this, not to torment and harass trans people. I don't think people like ST will ever be capable of seeing this because they are so self-absorbed and focussed on their own needs.

Thanks for posting this. He comes across like a religious zealot, completely unable to tolerate that not everyone shares his deeply held beliefs.

And one other comment about ST's witness statement. ST's belief that he is a woman has to be sustained by never coming into contact with anything that will shatter this very fragile belief, e.g. seeing someone mention biological sex on a work forum. I mean, this just isn't practical. How can this ever be enforced, other than by immediately shutting down people's lawful free speech, which is the crux of this tribunal I guess.