Tempest v Rural Payments Agency Tribunal Thread 4

[myladydisdainisyetliving]

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5549122-tempest-v-rural-payments-agency-tribunal-thread-3

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.

They certainly don't want their 'expression' to be limited, that's for sure!

<as an online observer I am sitting on my hands until the next break but there has been muchly swearing going on>

NC: You are only prepared to accept ppl talking about their lived experience if it fits your narrative.

Exactly! They seem to think they can control the entire narrative and who gets to say what.

ED: Oh just remembered that we removed a bluesky post - I retweeted a -
J: let me ask. You were asked to take it down?
ED: Yes, because not official CS data.
J: Did you?
ED: No, bcs were not claiming it was official CS data
NC: p1784 main
NC: AL asked re objection to 'boxer ceiling' speaker saying worst homophobia had been from LGBTQ+ community - transmen=straight women wanting gay men for sex
NC: You were asked why other ppl cd not speak re their own lived experience and you said, not once stereotyping ppl. But it's true some gay men have encountered this, and view that as straight sex?
ED: I don't know, don't frequent gay clubs,
this letter was a collaberation
NC: But some gay men have experienced this?
ED: That's not what he says, he's talking about his beliefs
NC: You are only prepared to accept ppl talking about their lived experience if it fits your narrative.
ED: [missed]

Sorry my phone decided right now is the perfect time to do a mandatory update. Sorry for the delay.

.

NC: para7 of your WS
NC: You say, you were paid to be aG chair, full time. how long for?
ED: [gives election dates] NC: So 2019-2026, first 5 full time, paid?
ED Yes
NC paid by?
ED: Land Registry
NC: SEEN has never had a paid post?
ED: No
NC: Example of very different treatment? ED: No, we started bcs trans ppl so siloed, we started in Home Office and then Cabinet Office asked us to go nationwide

She was even getting a full time salary for this; and isn't this exactly the case right throughout the public sector......grievance manufacturers.

I think it possible that the thrust of NC enquiries is to suggest that this was a coordinated attempt from the outset to re litigate Forstarter, and limit GC expression to nothingness.

A new framing of “no debate”

Given the mystery backer and silence on the Reddit front she is probably correct.

It is important, I think, for the case to prove the inconsistency with her stated case and how she understands the law and due process. As someone posted earlier, the aim here is to get SEEN banned from the workplace and if it succeeds that will mean SEENs everywhere will be shout down by overly eager Stonewalled institutions, organisations and businesses etc.

The inconsistency of her understanding of law, and of what GC position is completely undermines the claim of harassment. Clearly what is emerging is not 'tit for tat' but a clear sense that nothing DEFRA did in response to her and ST and PQ et al would ever be seen as reasonable by people who do not understand at all, and choose not to understand at all, the actual facts.

So it might be frustrating to listen to but, personally, I think it is doing essential work.

This is a really important point, isn't it.

Surely there's an obligation to balance conflicting rights and allow a plurality of views?

So her full time job, pay for by us, was to hound SEEN out of existence.

ED: So we pointed out that so few of us, compared to eg race network, and we have so many challenged re transition -
NC: Going to interrupt - you have overshot my question, would like to ask you to focus on exact Q
NC: p564 (int)
NC: This is archive copy of aG website ED: yes
NC: Going to point out some things and then ask a Q.

I got a sense of what I have read of the WS statements so far that when DEFRA excised DEI positions and she returned to 'normal' work with 10% allowance for A;gender stuff etc she was mad as hell.

As in: I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore (Network the movie)

And mad has hell means, here, revenge. And here we are.

This entire shebang has been given its legitimacy by the friggin' state and its organs.

@myladydisdainisyetliving are you ok to take over?

yes - thank you so much!

I don't think 'long face' is a diagnostic marker of Swyer's

This Judge really doesn't like NC does he.

NC: C's claim is of being isolated without any support, and the evidence is that there was a v powerful network -

Jiudge pretending not to understand the question and its implications. I think he prefers direct yes/no type of questions.

The baton has been passed. 🥳

Lovely. Just off to pick DS up. Will hopefully get a few odd moments to catch up later.

I'd be mad, after years of being paid to talk shit, to actually have to do some proper work!

From TT:

NC: So you say you help gov depts be welcoming to trans & intersex staff, you do training, advice to staff and policy holders -
J: Can we get to Q
NC: So those items, and the section "what have we done so far" - you mention 50 events, 16 bodies/depts, policy packages.

NC: You have had an extraorrinary level of access and influece across CS for years?
ED: No
NC: So the achievement list is false?
ED: No we achieved that even though nobody listens to us.

AL: You acknowledged to AL that the DEFRA policy was based on a model policy you provided?
ED: Looked like yes

J: NC I can't see that this is to do with C's claim?

NC: C's claim is of being isolated without any support, and the evidence is that there was a v powerful network -
J: OK. So, we have seen these documents now?
NC: One final Q -

NC: You have been given access to information you should not have been able to see?
ED: No
NC: Your WS para 8.

NC: You refer to various research material. You would have told tribunal if you had been involved in compiling?
ED: Yes

"No we achieved that even though no one listens to us"*

*Citation needed.