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.

Different Protected characteristic but interesting Employment Tribunal judgement

"It found that Ms Reeves had not been the victim of any kind of harassment and that it was not 'reasonable' for her to be 'upset' by the use of the word, despite conceding that it could be 'offensive'."

Describing someone as 'coloured' is not racist even if it does offend people of colour, judge rules https://mol.im/a/15961919

Having now read the WS I agree with the thrust of this. Regarding the attitude towards SEEN, I think because they were behaving more rationally the expectations regarding their behaviour/language were correspondingly more stringent.

it reminds me strongly when my younger brother and I used to squabble and our dad always told off me because “you’re older than him and should know better”. Even though DB was an annoying little git, and has admitted as an adult that he was an annoying little git and deliberately set me up. He has since apologised to me for all the times I got told off and we get on fine now. Can’t see a:Gender making the same admission and apology to SEEN in the future.

it reminds me strongly when my younger brother and I used to squabble and our dad always told off me because “you’re older than him and should know better”.

The whole thing has exactly these vibes, but I always thought that the goal of the parent was to extricate themselves from these squabbles and encourage children to grow up and learn how to sort things out themselves.

Apparently staff management at the CS involves having whole departments doing the equivalent of drawing a line down the centre of a shared bedroom.

Well, no, because as you say, your brother apologised to you as an adult.

Not for nothing do we often compare trans people's demands, and their way of making them, to toddlers. And many/?most of us have wrangled toddlers at some stage, so the likeness is clear as day.

It’s always hard to cover everything in a post. To me the judge has indicated GC = GI and is not interested in what is meant by GC and GI. Its about was ST harassed because they are covered by GR pc.

You second point is implying the SC judgement is law but pcs are not. The SC judgement related to the interpretation of the EA2010 which sets out the pc. The SC did not change a single word in the EA2010 so the pcs are law.

I just read CA's witness statement.

..Although it was not possible proactively to moderate posts...

Anyone who avoids split infinitives like that must be a good egg.

I’m behind so don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this, but I received an email from MN 2/3 months ago that there’d been some sort of breach that affected a few hundred of us and to clear our caches. My iPad was going slower than HH’s questioning until I did it.

Yes, I expect there is rank panic and accompanying surliness. Whatever witchcraft did she do to Judge Kemp to make him AI
his decision so she could appeal it?

Thanks for the c&p - desperately trying to keep up. Can’t believe the judge indulged HH yesterday which may mean it goes part heard.

Just quoting myself as I’d forgotten to say it only happened to devices that were logged in at the time. My iPad was incredibly slow but MN worked fine on my phone and laptop.

I imagine having CA as a specialist at DEFRA was instrumental in allowing SEEN to exist to any meaningful way.

Everyone else seemed dead set on pillories for anyone saying No to the Stunning And Brave contingent.

I think there may have been an element of thinking it easier to ride roughshod over women’s rights, than risk the wrath of what are mostly men who avail of what they are calling their rights. From the outset, going into women’s toilets (even though that was pointedly excepted in the Eq Act), looming in women’s menopause and breastfeeding groups. To which I can see no healthy reason, and would creep out many women.

They are doing the same even now, as men can still wander into women’s toilets etc.. They weren’t backwards, and handwringing about giving them full access as they wished, irrespective of the impact on women. Still breaking the law to enable, and coddle these men.

So, from younger/older sibling examples. It is more that they decided to trample over women as they would be less violent in their reaction. Even coerce and hoodwink them into thinking they have less rights to object, than the men have to colonise.

I wonder if this delay is an indicator for how long official process generally takes at DEFRA/RPA? Correcting guidance that breaks the law is surely a top priority?

Perhaps evidence that ST's complaint taking months to resolve is not atypical?

I know how long the CS takes, and certainly grievances taking ages is the norm.

However, FWS was unequivocal and clear and I would have expected an interim solution to be put in place pending central guidance.

Thank you for the push ❤. In deleting the cache it logged me out and this made me change browsers too. Bye bye Opera and all your spammy MN adverts. Hopefully the new browser behaves!

You see the same in policing. The police are far more ready to 'deal' with the people who are less violent and therefore much less risk to them.

Just read CA WS. I thought it was excellent and helpful.she to us addressed each and every allegation of the claimants and it was pretty obvious from what she states, that the GI folx, were the ones posting unacceptable rhetoric.

And that action was taken.

it seems to me that she tried to steer things in a wholly appropriate way, given the stranglehold of GI, beliefs.

No matter how annoying i find the pandering it was the right approach.

i think on that basis ST will lose.

I wonder if it was seeing all the bile posted by the genderists in response to Elspeth's gently worded message that peaked her?

Will CA be paid by the CS to participate in the tribunal? Her WS is thorough and detailed. It must take a loooong time to prepare. She is retired.

Yes the CS will pay CA for her time.

She talked about trying to get to a point where everyone could peacefully co-exist, and talking to trans people trying to tell them that just because someone holds GC views they do not wish any harm on a trans person. I would guess that the reaction to EDWs post was the point where she realised that peaceful coexistence was never going to happen.

Let’s hope so. 🤞🏻 I was about to launch my iPad through the window until I saw the email. 😆

My brain worked out why J told NC off for saying TWAM and that a man wearing a wig is still a man overnight.

I think that since his decision for NC not to use correct sex language he has been watching her like a hawk for any prospect of purposeful ‘misgendering’ of ST. I think the panel have pre decided that this would be catastrophic and consequences. In being determined to not allow that because he is also envisioning consequences to himself if he allows misgendering (is he scared of someone on the panel? Or is he scared of his day rate job as ET being curtailed because he’s behind the times and not sufficiently TRA).

Because of the attention he is giving to that possibility, that NC might purposefully misgender ST, he is entirely focussed on how she is using words in a way that he isn’t with the others. He is so hyper aware of the risk she poses to his ruling re pronouns that he can’t see the wood for the trees and pounces on anything that might be pronoun adjacent. That means he misses the logic of her developing line of questions because he can’t see the bigger picture.

It makes sense of his behaviour I think, and would explain why he is so tetchy with her — he has to be on high alert re his own ruling because of her and that would piss him off.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time a man makes a woman responsible for his inner world!

Double doh! It just occurred to me.
we've had the privilege of examining civil service networks because of this case but the judiciary will have networks too, I believe they have one for mental health for example. So behind the scenes the judiciary will be beset by TRAs behaving in similar ways. I would imagine that the most vociferous will be admin staff but the culture will be operating in similar ways to the civil service.

any slight divergence from then Stonewall scriptures will be back lashed.

That will be hugely impacting older judges like Kemp and Robertson who, I imagine,’have spent their careers priding themselves on treating admin staff with ‘equal’
respect ie )over compensating for their internalised snobbery).

They try to operate in the face of it like NB, who seems on the surface to be rational and even-handed but in reality she is beset by fear — fear of being labelled à transphobe — and the judges are likewise operating under the same paradigm of fear and are even less likely to admit that than NB.

If I’m right then that’s a claxon for another Kemp style judgment (minus the AI) in which JnRobertson will bend over backwards to make sure we all know how credible and fragrant ST was as a witness (a bit like NB exclaiming ST a delight to work with apropro of nothing) and that DEFRA have been a bit mean to ST, albeit finding for Rs)