Tempest v Rural Payments Agency Tribunal Thread 7

[myladydisdainisyetliving]

Previous thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5551375-tempest-v-rural-payments-agency-tribunal-thread-6

TT substack: 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.

Please 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.

Oh lord, poor Elspeth.

Why does all this bullshit have to take weeks and weeks? Three weeks should have been more than adequate.

Edited to add: increasingly it looks like one of these cases inevitably needs a minimum of a month to be heard to the end. A bloody month.

Poor Elspeth

I am about to become a walking advertisement.

Maybe they shouldn't have spent a day and a half fannying around at the start.

Elspeth will have to wait. We all saw this coming. 😡

😍

Youth hostelling with Chas & Dave.

No. She's screwed up her page references and can't tell him/the witness which document to refer to. He's going to let her get them in order and come back to it tomorrow.

Ironic that in a case re harassment and emotional distress, the harassment and stress of putting E through a three week wait of sitting prepared to go through it all, followed by probably months of waiting to come back and do it all again...

you'd think there'd be redress for this, and it would be given far more weight and importance.

Tony and Alan:

No surprises it's going part heard after the judge forgot about the existence of NC yesterday. Poor Elspeth. But at least she won't be crammed in as the last witness on a Friday afternoon.

Link to CA WS
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ti31udYEpJUFjdW4ua77SOyDnVFt7Dct/view?usp=drive_link

And I suppose her bit getting heard separate from all the mind numbing bollocks so far can't be a completely bad thing

24 pages!

I will have to resist the urge to read it now and ignore that until later.

Thank you x

It could well have been she did more talking after that email and come to her conclusions that she is stating now in her evidence. As she herself said, when people are told "GC's think X, Y and Z", T people believe it and she's obviously done her own research and thought "hang on a minute".

Wonder if NC is going to ask about this in her cross-X and ask when and how she peaked realised GC people didn't wish harm on T people?

In fairness, that was one of ST's complaints about how long it took DEFRA to deal with his grievance.

I don't think she was an ideologue back then, she is also quoted as saying about EW's post that it is 'reasonable but we anticipate a hostile response'.
It must have been a very hard balancing act at the time between gc rights and gi demands, and I suppose a manager's first interest would be in keeping the org from exploding, and putting pressure on the reasonable side to restrict themselves follows from that.

Which is the only reasonable point he has. But it is a reasonable one.

I suspect they could have done more to keep him updated and informed about the reasons for delays.

I think they should have also explained, in words of one syllable, that with the grievance appeal done by the bloke (DH?) that they were not doing a full investigation, just reviewing to see if the process was followed properly

Although for all I know they may well have done!

Helloooo. These are long threads so you might want to use a bookmark your place.
And watch the thread is useful.
Ive highlighted in the snap below.

How does one comply with the Equality Act and H&S regs if one cannot acknowledge sex? How would one discuss these rights and regulations with an employer wthout referring to sex?

Just reading CA's WS and have got to this bit: (para 29)

Moderation and responding to complaints took up the greater part of my time throughout November and December 2022, meaning that other work had to be paused. As well as seeing hostility towards SEEN, we also found hostility directed at Defra as an organisation, and at the moderation panel and the EDI team. Examples include: posts in response to the HR Director’s post setting out Defra’s position, including questioning Defra’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, and referring to the HR Director’s post as a “slap in the face” (p324); and various emails and posts by Dominic Berry (at pages 905, 924-925; 942-943), referring to the moderation approach as “infantile” and the moderation panel showing “wilful ignorance”. This was an incredibly draining and stressful time for those of us seeking to balance and navigate the competing interests of those with protected gender critical belief and those who saw gender critical beliefs as an attack on trans colleagues.

professionals working in the CS you say?

It’s occurred to me that CA and DEFRA etc. were very happy to let EDW lead on explaining GC views to the workforce. It meant they could take a backseat and empathise with GI/TRA employees but say sorry it’s the law.

CA is right GC is incorrectly viewed as anti-trans rather than pro women’s rights.

That will have moved her from 'just respecting the law, EW, please tone down your language and no transphobic dog whistles' to where she is now.

Well, if he'd put as much of a curb on HH's questioning as he's done on NC's, there would probably have been time for EDW's appearance, even if not for submissions. 🙄

I really hope NC goes back to CA about those statistics and makes it abundantly clear that they show nothing other than the T are disproportionately likely to claim they have been bullied, that there is actually no evidence required for them to make that claim, and that they have probably been encouraged/ organised to claim this to shore up their claims of being the most oppressed minority ever, and that as CA said many T feel bullied and harassed by reality.