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.

X posted with Flirts! Obvious tells

That outfit itself is fine to me. Totally fine for a middle aged woman, and in a different world where clothes were not coded by gender and pretty flowery dresses were also made to fit a male body, totally fine for a middle aged man as well.

When people mentioned a parasol I was thinking along the lines of the Victorian and Loli-Goth Anime look!

I read about a third of it and gave up. It is so obviously written by AI, not Lynsay Watson. The style is unmistakable and deeply irritating when you see it so often.

Here you are

Perhaps there is an argument to ban all networks that promote a PC and leave the rest as is? Same for lanyards, posters, badges et al.

Would you count disability in this? I've experience of rheumatoid arthritis (me) and autism (DC's) and I know the difference small adjustments to things most people don't even think about can make. Similarly, knowing a bit about how someone's religion affects what they're comfortable doing makes a big difference, at least to me.

That’s just it, isn’t it? The actions of Mr Tempest risk taking away the benefits of these networks e.g. disability support for disabled people or menopause support for women. This ideology seems to poison everything it touches.

Agreed, and apologies. Is the issue that the 2010 Equality Act introduces PCs that are fundamentally at odds or that some elements within the PCs cannot accept the existence of opposing view points?

There are other potential conflicts in the EA2010 e.g. religion and sexual orientation. The whole point is it is not a hierarchy the pc are equal/equitable.

The SC decided that sex, woman and man in the EA2010 meant biological sex rather than legal/certified sex. This affects and clarified the interpretation of the pcs of sex, equal pay comparator, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity.

It did not change the pc of gender reassignment and confirmed no one should be discriminated on the basis of GR. The GR pc has never entitled people to use SSS on the basis of self ID. Discrimination is not recruiting someone to a job, not providing a service they can access e.g 3rd spaces, Trans rape crisis centres etc.

It is the GRA that might (just might) have permitted people with a GRC which changed their legal/certified sex to use SSS based on their legal/certified sex rather than biological sex. The SC said no SSS are based on biological sex.

What ST, ED and TRAs have not understood is what the law actually says instead they believed Stonewall for decades and a lot of employers and service providers were to scared to say no.

Most people with a protected characteristic do not go around trying to take rights from others. While some protected characteristics have a potential for conflict in practise most people just try to get along and not talk about things that divide them. That is especially true if you are a minority. If you dont try to get along with your colleagues then they may ignore you or be unpleasant to you in the hope you leave, try and get you managed out or shunted off to some backwater with the other troublemakers - yes, even in the civil service.

What is odd about trans is the total capture of organisations who have pandered to the ideology. It is misogynistic and homophobic.

I imagine also that a lot of senior civil servants and directors general may well have trans-identifying children, so will be basing their knowledge on that. Like Jolly-On. As Helen Joyce said, it’ll be the parents who cling on to the very last, so as not to have to face what they have done to their children.

I remember my boss saying he was an old fart and hadn’t a clue about all this identity stuff, and needed to be educated. There was no shortage of people rushing in to ‘educate’ him.

The LGBT network presented to SLT about trans stuff (presentation kindly provided by a:gender), and the middle aged female DD lapped it up and became the most fangirly ridiculousness about the whole shebang. I think she thought it made her look ‘with-it’ 🙄

Forgive the slight derail but I wanted to add my twopence worth. I spent my adult life in the CS. If I added up the time, the majority would have involved recruitment moratoriums, constant restructuring (ie finding savings in staffing costs) and other spending restrictions that meant that I was barely ever in a team that was fully up to strengthIt gives me the utter rage when I see time and other hugely valuable resources being wasted on this bullshit.

Thanks everyone for the support and messages. One more week of evidence (please please please they get through the witnesses this).

We can look at our X stats (storming by the way) and the QTs and the like, including a couple from JKR this last week. But because we play TT with a straight bat, we don't get the chat, the interaction, the banter, the OMG did he actually say that, etc. It's good to know you're here and engaged. Thank you.

It does seem to be a repeating theme in court cases of activist employees in public service roles who see their job merely as something to stand on while they further their activism. Actual interest in the job or in public service seems to come a very poor second to what useful leverage their post provides The Cause, and to a great deal of internal drama. That again take time, money and focus away from the job itself.

Possibly connected to that: I was asked to write a reference recently and was interested to see that it asked whether I knew if the referee held any extreme or strongly political views of any kind. Haven't seen that before, but I can well see it's becoming necessary.

But what counts as an extreme political view - that it’s not possible to change sex? That the morning after pill is sinful? Surely too subjective to provide a reliable answer.
Either way, it’s another reason for anyone with GC views to keep them under their hats, if being open about them at work makes it harder to find another job.

DS2 changed jobs about 3 years ago. A corporate job. He was asked to disclose all social media accounts. Told that if they became aware any anon accounts he controlled, it was a sackable offence.

Screening, driven by AI, is getting more and more thorough.

What would anyone do about mn in such a context? If they wanted me to disclose all the nns I've ever used, they'll need more lines in the form. Has it ever been tested whether this is an enforceable requirement?

It can't be legal grounds for not employing someone, though surely? So long as the beliefs are WORIADS. Think they may be laying themselves open to challenge there.

I think a question about 'extreme or strongly political views' is not an appropriate question for an employment reference. What constitutes 'extreme' or 'strong' is completely subjective and dependent on the political views of the person answering the question. Or they may have no political views whatsoever and therefore regard any political view as noteworthy.

References should stick to skills, experience and workplace conduct like efficiency and honesty. If a potential employer wants to know about the rest they can look at a candidate's social media and make their own minds up.

@fanOfBen

What would anyone do about mn in such a context? If they wanted me to disclose all the nns I've ever used, they'll need more lines in the form. Has it ever been tested whether this is an enforceable requirement?

I would put MN in a different category. No pictures, no bios, ever changeable user names. It's much more like an old school internet chatroom or message board.

It's in his contract - I suspect it's a trap door in case he turns into a raging activist of some kind.

Keep in mind as well there will be many many more following these threads than are posting. I can't post much during the week as I'm working and can only catch up in breaks, but this tribunal is all I'm interested in right now! So thank you for being in the room for us. With the fruitcakes.

It's been impossible not to be engaged! I can't take my eyes off the case as my batshittery indicator flies off the scale once again.

Thank you TT for providing the basics of who said what. We need that too.

One wonders if it would be enforceable in court: but hopefully he’ll never need to find out.

Well it’s far far worse for those of us who worked in the private sector all our lives, taking out mortgages, raising children, paying into personal pensions and yet still funding this utter bollocks. No offence intended but I’m incandescent at what I have recently learned about the CS.