Tempest v Rural Payments Agency Tribunal Thread 5

[fanOfBen]

Previous thread:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5549488-tempest-v-rural-payments-agency-tribunal-thread-4

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.

Presumably if they find in favour of ST that having a SEEN network in the workplace is harassment, in order not to favour one PC over another, this would mean employers would have to ban LGBTQI networks, as they would be at risk of legal proceedings by GC employees. Or people just need to accept people have different views and opinions, and not be so personal/ dramatic about others views. As Naomi said, behave like adults !

It would be nice to think that in preparation for this case, Defra HR have actually swotted up on the law and that they will make changes at work and stop this nonsense.

Better still, turn it on it head for a bit so the pronoun people get shut down and prevented from mentioning their beliefs. Then a total reset and everybody gets bring only their professional self to work.

🎶 Dreamer, nothing but a dreamer🎶

It goes to her credibility as a witness if she has been lying and breaking the law breaching data and had support from those high up in DEFRA for her vendetta.

This means any evidence she gives should be treated with the respect it deserves. And this all proved that DEFRA followed all her policies, gave her all aid, went after the SEEN members, moderated against them etc etc.

So DEFRA was nothing but in Tinkerbell’s corner fighting his cause. And broke the law to do it.

If the evidence in their case came from illegal activity surely there is some civil burden of evidence where it should be considered as to the quality / veracity of their evidence.

Do we have an idea yet if when Elspeth will give evidence? I think there are a few DEFRA witnesses first? I hope they don't run out of time next week and the rest of the hearing gets delayed to a future date.

It was linked to a Facebook account. I saw the link but it didn’t show anything. Either removed or settings only to friend of friend or something.

Nebuloussupportcard might know more.

@Tallisker when a link here took me back to 2022 thread and I saw you post here - it’s crap you have to work in such an environment but I understand why.

I know some civil servants here - they’re careerists and can’t think of changing employers at all but hate the CS approach to this and their captured Unions approach to this.

It will take more than this to bring that change. But it’s definitely peaked some more people I’d say. And something to bring up more and more. But only litigation is moving the behaviour. No one is changing willingly.

Well done for keeping on going and for the CS insights.

Witness statements
i. ii. iii. For the Claimant: Samantha Tempest, Emma Dunn
For the Respondent: Caroline Airs, John Calvert, Steve Moore, David Hallam, Nicola Bettesworth, Lorraine Adair
For the Intervener: Elspeth Duemmer-Wrigley

I think this is the running order but David Hallam went out of order because he was traveling next week.

I think they’ll rattle through them now. But yes potentially delayed and goes over and Elspeth is unheard this time around.

Thank you! Yes, hopefully they won't need to spend too much time.on the Defra witnesses. It would be horrible for Elspeth if it runs over.

You may not be asking for sympathy, Justabaker, but here's a and 👏- support for the distress that you are feeling, and thank you for all the great work you do with TT.

One of the distressing things about gender ideology is its inexplicable [to me, anyway] success in turning important aspects of society upside down and inside out [unintentional Diana Ross ref there, sorry!].

If you are someone who likes facts, the past few years have been a post-factual nightmare. I too have found that distressing and deeply unsettling.
The existence of this board, and of TT, have been lifelines. Thank you.

@JustabakerI second everything Marie says. Thank you.

Im finding this case particularly distressing because it’s my employer and I see and feel the impact of this ideology every day. I hope you and your team of extraordinary women have the support you all need.

I saw a photo on Facebook but won't post it because I don't want to break any rules or start a pile on. It is easy enough to find if anyone wants to look for themselves.

It was not a photo related to the tribunal.

Do we know why ST refused to have a joint investigation of the grievance? Presumably the other was PQ and along the same lines?

He didn’t want the external company investigating as someone once said something neutral about women. All in his WS on TT substack.

https://archive.ph/EZGKy

Archive version of Lynsay Watsons substack about the Tempest case. Helpfully linked for me by Mitch Tempest.

Publically available photo of Tempest that was shared with me. Happy to delete is source isn’t validated (I have receipts)

He said in his WS - para 73 - he wanted his complaint 'properly investigated on it's own merit'. He does not explain why that could not happen in a joint process.
The rejection of the external investigator was because he researched them and found out they did not share his view that gc views should never be allowed to be expressed.
It sounds to me those were two rejections of two different proposals by Defra, not connected with each other.

Just to add that ST has the term "conversion therapy" in his WS (para 65 e) - that is how he describes Transgender Trend's position that gender dysphoria is a social phenomenon.
He says that means they "require" children to "live in their birth sex", which is of course not a requirement but simply an acknowledgement of the reality that sex is immutable.
But to him reality itself is coercion and he would drag it to court if he could. Until he finds a way to make that possible, he will settle for anyone who dares to point out that reality.

Take two parts "me me me me me me me" and one part "it's complicated" and mix well.

I felt his was getting somewhere at points if he just had the intelligence to complete the thought.

I agreed with this paragraph:

*The absolutist position seems to be this: if an employer visibly supports trans inclusion, gender-critical employees must be entitled to visibly organise against aspects of that inclusion; if trans staff use pronouns, gender-critical staff must be entitled to contest pronouns; if trans flags are visible, gender-critical lanyards must be visible; if guidance says gender identity must be respected, gender-critical staff must be entitled to challenge that guidance openly; if trans employees feel unsafe, gender-critical employees may say they feel unsafe too; if trans employees complain of harassment, gender-critical employees claim suppression.

Everything becomes symmetry.*

Men with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment are protected from discrimination.

But they are not women legally for all purposes where sex matters.

Pronouns cannot be compelled. No one is entitled to whatever honorific they choose.

Gender critical beliefs can be shared - the law says that.

Sex realist positions confirmed in law legally have to be addressed in the workplace. Such as a policy putting men who identify as women out of the women’s toilets.

Sex is a protected characteristic. Protecting sex in the workplace is protected and needs to be discussed.

So close yet oh too close step back from the logical conclusion of all this.

He seems to overlook that SEEN is essentally a response to (putting it charitably) boundary overstepping by the trans side of the debate. What's missing is that other people (women) have rights too. Long established rights, which are not recognized by Watson.

In respect of NC's questioning: she's not representing DEFRA, but SEEN; and SEEN has different interests in this case beyond simply a finding of no harassment. That SEEN has a point of view different to both ST and DEFRA is precisely why they were admitted as intervenors.

It’s extra distressing for you and your team because you have to focus on and repeat the lies in written form, and see women like Elspeth and Naomi get demented by the tribunal system for saying true things as simple as correct sex pronouns. That’s incredibly hard.

And it never stops. Case after case they keep coming.

Hoping one fine day your work is less vital 💪🏼👌🏼💥

She should never have had the list of SEEN members

Wait, what?

I had to skim read the last thread or so but I missed this. How the hell did ED have this sort of information and what was she doing with it?

The place where ST got so distressed that the judge shut down questioning was when ST was faced with the children's book, My body is me. He couldn't cope. (He also almost certainly wasn't telling the truth when he said he would have looked at it in a bookshop because, as NC suggested, he couldn't have done - TRAs have done their best to cancel the author and bookshops don't tend to stock it.) He gave a long, heartfelt speech about how the children in this book weren't like him when he was little, how it made him sad that he hadn't felt like this, he didn't feel content in his body. I suspect ED doesn't feel content in her body, either.

I am sure that is true for some children, especially when going through puberty.

But the sheer, selfish horror that because it didn't/doesn't fit for you, you will push the idea onto children that they might not be happy in their body either, and not just because it's not perfect or because it is changing naturally as they grow up, but because it is wrong for them. To tell them, at a stage in their development where they are unable to understand concepts or project the outcome of their decisions into the future (child development - cf Read Some Piaget Please on X) that they have to reject, damage, and irrevocably change their body in order to be happy, is very wrong.

Total AI slop. Disappointing.

AI will argue anyting you tell it to, often in emotive and propagandist language.

"It's not X. It's Y. Assertion. Assertion. Assertion. Why this matters. Assertion. Blah blah blah."

I have to trawl through so much of this stuff at work now that I barely even read is any more, just skim to try and see if there's an actual point in it.

These days I consider AI a dross filter. If someone has a strong position that they believe in they should be able to argue it in their own words. And if they can't make that rational case.... well that is all you need to know.

Heavy use of AI too.