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.

ED: I don't believe GC ppl are remotely affected by what we do and say

Almost speechless.
Much swearwords.
What the fuck?

NC: So someone having "pronouns sex based" is plastering their beliefs, but having allyship and flags etc is not?
ED: I don't believe GC ppl are remotely affected by what we do and say

Not answering the q again.
And- if only we were not remotely affected!

From TT:

NC: Mention here of ideology seeking to erase gays and lesbians. It's surely arguable that in some ways it does? It says TW can be lesbians.
ED: If a TW is in a relationship with W and they call themselves lesbians, then, GC saying it's heterosexual is what erases lesbians.

NC: You don't see that saying TW - men - erases 'lesbian' as women exclusively attracted to women?
ED: Disagree, some lesbians might, but, we are saying that's a conversation for ppl and their partners how they define. Not anyone else.

NC: In terms of erasing lesbians - your belief system has impact on them. A lesbian space, a dating app, likely to be invaded by -
J: It isn't necessary for these proceedings to go into details of beliefs.

NC: Would it be OK to have "pronouns sex based" in email sig?
ED: No bcs pronouns are not sex based they are gender

Excuse you Ems but I don’t have a bleeding gender so my pronouns are very much sex based, love.

It's such a non-problem that women have had to duke it out in the highest court of the land.

On a slightly different topic I was wondering how NC plans her strategy because it seems so dang clever how do you plan it.

Then I realised she will write the first draft of her submission in response to the WSs and then raise all the key factors she has included in her draft to provide effective detail and to test the content. I mean I don't know but that would make sense and help me understand the process.

ED has made clear in her WS, which we only saw today but of course NC saw much earlier, that she was in a full time paid role and so, of course, she had to find material and purpose to justify that expense. If she works 37 hours a week that is a lot to fill up if there's nothing particularly controversial so SEEN has been a perfect opportunity to create work from nothing.

No doubt the aim has been, all along, to find enough justification to get her full time role back but instead DEFRA/ HR have recommended she move to co-chair if she's not coping.

She, ST et al have been outraged that her full time role has been taken away because ST, I imagine, planned to get his hands on a similar role in future, or take over hers. He would have absolutely loved that.

So given the emphasis of ED on her paid role, which she thought gave her status and authority as a witness, has provided NC with a line of argument that I think is very effective and I would imagine is in her draft of her submission.

That the hoo-ha around SEEN has been encouraged, prodded, stirred to increase traffic (I can't remember why but I got the impression it wasn't all that busy when she was mainlining the role) in the hope that DEI roles will be re-instated.

I don't think they actually want to get rid of SEEN, they very much enjoy policing it. What they want is total control over what can be said and posted by SEEN and they want to have lots of time and resources to attack SEEN whenever possible.

From WS

(b) I saw an article on the SEEN website about pronouns from October 2023 [page number to follow]. This article reported on selected responses to a survey initiated by SEEN in relation to how employees felt in relation to the use of pronouns in signatures and elsewhere in the workplace.

(i) Personally, I want to make sure I am treating people respectfully and creating
a positive work environment for them, so I use their preferred pronouns. I also believe there is huge value in having the option to provide your pronouns in your signature in the workplace for the benefit of multiple protected groups. For example, if an individual signed off an email as ‘Andrea’, I would not know if they were a woman or a man with a common Italian name. Even with names like my own, some colleagues and stakeholders may not be familiar with it based on their language history and it’s useful for them to know how to describe me. I would also stress that this is about having the option, not obligation, to include pronouns. I was therefore shocked and offended by the hostility, judgement and lack of impartiality in the responses to SEEN’s survey as set out in the article.

(ii) One response referred to the option of giving your pronouns in your email signature as ‘plastering your beliefs on every email sent out’ and implied that this constituted a failure to comply with the civil service requirement of political impartiality.

(iii) Another person referred to giving your preferred pronouns as being like
‘declaring your star sign’.

(iv) One person stated that giving pronouns in your signature ‘promotes an ideology that if you are female who does not [reflect] social roles and stereotypes of femininity you are not a woman’. As an intersex woman, I simply do not understand how having the option of giving your pronouns in your aignature could possibly mean that you need to comply to ‘stereotypes of femininity’ to count as a woman. I proudly give my pronouns in my signature and I reject that anyone should have to conform to stereotypes.

(v) One referred to the support of using people’s preferred pronouns as ‘supporting an ideology that seeks to erase gays and lesbians’.

(vi) One response in particular horrified me on reading this article. It recounts seeing someone’s signature which included their pronouns, and stated that this caused ‘a lurch of dread’ and referred to their family member being ‘caught up in the gender identity movement’ and that the family member is ‘pretend[ing] to be a boy’ – apparently referring to a trans man or boy. The response referred to the family member potentially having their ‘breasts chopped off’ and says that the employee wished to talk to her manager, but ‘what can [they] say when our workplace policies allow and encourage ‘pronouns’. It is not clear how not ‘allow[ing]’ pronouns in signatures would improve the workplace for anyone, let alone the responder or their family member. Lastly, they refer to ‘gender identity’ as a ‘violent political movement’ which is extreme and disrespectful language, and is absolutely not politically impartial.

No capacity to see women as human.

No theory of mind. No empathy skills.

ED: No bcs pronouns are not sex based they are gender

Oh yeah? Sez who?

From TT:

NC: You also complain of characterisation of your belief system as a violent political movement, in your WS. It's true though that it is notoriously violent - public record of threats to JKR, mobs at women's meetings, FILIA venue vandalised
J: Can you get to Q?

J: Am concerned that we are departing from this claim into other territory
NC: Job of cross-ex is contentious Qs?
J: But must be relevant, and I don't find this area is.

NC: aG looks after trans & intersex staff
ED: Support yes
NC: And feed into policy development
ED: Yes
NC: Networks in general useful for hearing staff concerns
ED: Yes

ED: I don't believe GC ppl are remotely affected by what we do and say

🙄 ODFOD

J really does not want to hear or think about the impact of these people's actions on everyone not part of their clique.

Yes, hmm, oddly male...

I've not googled her, so I have no idea what she looks like, but if I weren't aware of her cv, from the way she speaks on the transcript, and the gurning and gestures yesterday etc, I'd have assumed she's about 23.

She needs to grow the fuck up.

The Judge can do one. Naomi is asking directly relevant questions by quoting from the witness statements.

She's not talking about what flowers grow on Mars. The Judge can take his bias and put it somewhere internal.

Shes 50

NC: You don't see that saying TW - men - erases 'lesbian' as women exclusively attracted to women?
ED: Disagree, some lesbians might, but, we are saying that's a conversation for ppl and their partners how they define. Not anyone else.

NC's a lesbian right, does ED know that. 😱

I don't think she is. She's married to a man.

From TT:

NC: Esp if minority or marginalised?
ED: Yes
NC: And trans ppl are?
ED: Yes
NC: Some people detransition?
ED: Tiny - 0.1% - GR surgery ppl v happy - knees 10%

NC: My point exactly - detransitioners are minority of minority?
ED: They are
NC: And partic vulnerable bcs major changes to their boides they regret?
[assume ED has nodded]

NC: p175 (int I think)
NC: email chain - read from the bottom. Your aG email to Ritchie Herron, a detransitioner - you tell him he must leave aGender.
ED: No, we asked him why he wanted to be member when not eligible, so we had to remove him bcs did consider self trans.

NC: You don't see that saying TW - men - erases 'lesbian' as women exclusively attracted to women?
ED: Disagree, some lesbians might, but, we are saying that's a conversation for ppl and their partners how they define. Not anyone else.
NC: In terms of erasing lesbians - your belief system has impact on them. A lesbian space, a dating app, likely to be invaded by -
J: It isn't necessary for these proceedings to go into details of beliefs.

I was going to suggest that this was an interesting argument to place in front of a Judge who surely understands the law and how definitions are important in order to protect people….and then I saw the Judges’s comment.

Has the judge got the ick over the current topic?

ED: If a TW is in a relationship with W and they call themselves lesbians, then, GC saying it's heterosexual is what erases lesbians.

Isn't that one great big old projection?
Of course, erasing the actual female lesbian is much less important than the very special male lesbian.

https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,naomi-cunningham-im-fuelled-by-rage-and-ive-been-lucky

Husband is a KC

She is not. She’s a straight woman with short spiky hair and flat shoes.

NC is married to barrister, Tim Pitt-Payne.