Tempest v Rural Payments Agency Tribunal Thread 3

[myladydisdainisyetliving]

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5548369-tempest-v-rural-payments-agency-tribunal-thread-2

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 existence of the Sex Equality and Equity Network in the Civil Service (SEEN). 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.

I will also 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. The claim originated because she said "only women menstruate" and a search with her name and those terms at the usual gardening website should point you to her plot.

From TT:

trans women are men, biological sex - CA is telling SEEN that they can't use basic language.
J - this is not a question for this witness
NC - I'm suggesting that even this was enough, this was a significant lockdown on SEEN's language can I put that question

this was not enough.
ST - I don't believe that SEEN is not about sex equality, it's about trans people, it's for CA to say.
J - I don 't think that's the question
ST - I don't think CA has said enough for me to decide if its what I'm asking for in my claim
NC - onto lanyards

you say when first saw, triggered profound sense of vulnerability, made real the conceptual idea that people are hostile to my existence. Do you think they want you dead?
ST - no
NC - what did you mean?
ST - that they want me to be recategorised as a man

J - this is not a question for this witness

Do you think they want you dead?
😁

NC: Do you think they want you dead?
ST - no
NC - what did you mean?
ST - that they want me to be recategorised as a man

😂

I'm only dipping in occasionally, but I have the distinct impression that the Judge is firmly on TRSOH, had made up his mind from the very beginning, and is doing his best (while trying to appear otherwise) to obstruct NC/support ST.

Mine too @Kucinghitam

So hungry

From TT:

NC - are you aware the GC is a pc
J - not a pc, GC beliefs give rise to a pc
NC - how do you think your employer would react to you saying that the visible presence of Jews or muslims in the workplace makes feel unsafe.
ST - it's not the people, it's the lanyards, the posters

and what they want to change in the workplace, if I use the bathroom, how they are going to react, how they are going to report encountering me, a person wearing a lanyard like that its a visible symbol of someone who doesn't have my best interests at heart and most likely will

not have the decency to respect me.
J - is it time to stop
NC - I've got a couple more questions on this topic
J - I understand that but it's time to stop now.
Court rises, back at 14:05.
2nd morning session ends.

<judge stops when ST starts getting emotional again. ED was also wiping her eyes and blowing her nose>

IIJM who wonders if any Rural Payments (whatever they might be) ever actually get made?

Worse, people (even blasted wimmin things) might have been allowed to not bow to the pretence, and might call a man what he is - a man.

ST - it's not the people, it's the lanyards, the posters

ST - it's not the people, it's the lanyards, the posters

This is one statement of ST's that I can wholeheartedly agree with - I too hate the lanyards, the posters - just not the same ones that traumatise ST!😄

To keep us all un-traumatised: neutral lanyards only, please.

FFS

Lanyards and posters freak most of us here out too.......welcome to the club.

JFC

NC - how do you think your employer would react to you saying that the visible presence of Jews or muslims in the workplace makes feel unsafe.
ST - it's not the people, it's the lanyards, the posters

Why isn't the judge telling ST to answer the bloody question?

ST - it's not the people, it's the lanyards, the posters
and what they want to change in the workplace, if I use the bathroom, how they are going to react, how they are going to report encountering me, a person wearing a lanyard like that its a visible symbol of someone who doesn't have my best interests at heart and most likely will

Fucksakes, and what about women having to see all the progress lanyards and posters, men in the ladies and god knows what else?
Where's his decency and respect for women?

Very good point!!! I think you might just have successfully lifted the veil on what NC is doing. If we look back has she not been very cleverly getting ST to agree with DEFRA’s actions which wholly undermines his claims of harassment?

Yes that was quite an admission. Hopefully gets brought up in submissions, that his distress was often self-inflicted.

Clarkson definitely needs to know that all this is going on in DEFRA, I thought the same myself this morning.

Yes, another mini-speech instead of an answer -surely that's 'rhetoric', Judge?

The judge intervening once to shut down NC when ST cried- or was it 'cried', I'm not observing so I don't know if there were actual tears- was bad enough, but twice ?!

Oooh yes that’s plausible.

Naomi needs to use the lunch break to focus on what is most pertinent to the claim...because the judge has had enough.

Which I think are the clear double standards, and the fact that the SEEN network never used intentionally inflammatory or insulting language to describe their beliefs; though ST did in pursuit of his desire to have them excluded.

He can simply keep repeating that he acted in line with company policy on the matter - and deny that he was part of any exclusionary network himself.

Just a reminder that I am only able to c&p up to about 3pm, so if anyone else can take over at that point it would be much appreciated.