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.

I didn't think it was NB who pushed about ST being a delight, I thought it was Emma What's it, the one who did the sodding.

Yes. I think we have seen this time and again. Organisations/companies are afraid of a very loud reaction from TRAs if they go against TWAW. And for a time they may have believed TWAW was the law. And those things completely blinkered them to the risks/discomfort to women.

And to a certain extent that ‘risk’ judgement was correct, sadly. Yes there have been many Tribunal cases where the woman has won. But there have been countless other cases where women have rolled their eyes, been more alert in single sex spaces, kept their head down etc while their working environment was plagued with ‘inclusivity training’, encouraging pronouns on signatures, TW in toilets, TW taking female scholarships, union positions, etc.

Eventually, as I hope we will see here, common sense will prevail. Organisations will quietly drop TWAW. TW will be told from the start of their transition/employment that they should use the correct facilities for their sex. Etc. And there will have been a decade or more where women were disadvantaged, and everyone will forget.

July 7th:

"HH - Final couple of Qs. Go to page 758 of main bundle. Looking at email from you to JH on 3rd April. It's a discussion on appeal outcome on recommendations. You describe to JH that ST is a pleasure to work with and keen to work with ST."

Darn, should have properly pasted the followup too. Double post apology and:

"Now EDW statement. She says she has been informally warned and that ST had reputation of being a bully. That was not your experience was it?
NB - No"

I can c&p this morning, but not this afternoon.

This reminds me that it was at this point, as HH was ending her questions about bullying on a high point (NB's experience was that ST is a delight) that ST passed her a note. HH asked to take instructions and the judge let them have a conflab outside in the corridor. Whatever it was ST told her, HH decided it was not wise to bring it up and that was the end.

Edit for spag.

If no one else is able, I can cover the afternoon.

Oh of course! My mistake, Woods.

Wandering dangerously into "had a reputation as a bully" and a squeal of tires to reverse.

Reminds me of the cartoon of two hawks saying they've never found Owl to be a predator. They don't know what Mouse is on about.

This one! I love it:

Hardly a mistake, Grand Postmaster, considering Emma Dunn's love letter writ of admiration activist manifesto witness statement 😁

I was just looking for the part with HH asking NB about bullying - I didn't find it, but @Justabaker I noticed that on the TT substack page, the 7th July afternoon session goes direct to X, not as usual to a threadreaderunroll archive page. Is that an error, maybe?

I hope we will not forget and I hope that Sex Matters will keep up the good fight.

Never believed how little men think of women until I saw the serried ranks lining up to tell women they are not entitled to dignity and privacy or even language if a man wants to be treated as a woman.

Never believed how many pick-me women there are until I saw them folding up women’s organisations like the WI and the Fawcett Society and Rape Crisis to enable men to deprive women of safety and advocacy.

We should never forget that women’s experiences not being men’s means men do not consider them and we should be readying a generation of girls to hold the line because there are always incursions.

"Looming in menopause groups" that's so horrible to think about. My work has a menopause group, and women are often very anxious about "outing themselves" as menopausal even among other menopausal women.

The idea of a man lurking there is just horrific.

Does anybody have any knowledge of how
the issue @MarieDeGournay raised in the last thread, about defining “safe” and “harm” is usually dealt with in employment law? Is it continually updated through Employment Tribunals or is there any guidance?

It does not seem reasonable that the idea of women - or the existence of menopause or breastfeeding support groups - being distinct from men should make somebody unsafe.

I think someone said in a witness statement that at least one of his posts on Yammer was considered “borderline” offensive. Maybe he didn’t want too much interrogation of that.

From TT:

Good morning. This is the first morning session on 9th July, in the case of Samantha Tempest v DEFRA & Rural Payments Agency. We expect to start at 10am.

^t.co/jekhfrgYDw^

Our Substack page on the case contains all the previous sessions, background information, witness statements (after witnesses are sworn), a number of relevant documents, and a full list of abbreviations:
^t.co/KGgDXHIwk8^

Tempest (the claimant or C) is claiming discrimination, harassment and/or victimisation on grounds of gender reassignment. Central to the claim is the Sex Equality and Equity Network in the Civil Service (SEEN or IP). SEEN has been granted right to intervene.

We are a small group of volunteer citizen journalists. We receive no payment for our work. We accept paid subscriptions to our Substack to fund necessary expenses including travel, legal fees and digital costs. Please consider subscribing to our Substack, link in bio.

A reminder that our work is not a verbatim account or transcript of proceedings. We make our best efforts to report what is said and do so in good faith.

Abbreviations that may be used:
J - Employment Judge S.D. Robertson
P - one or other of the two lay panel members
ST/C - Samantha Tempest, claimant
HH - Helen Hogben, barrister for claimant
DEFRA/R1 - Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, first respondent

RPA/R2 - Rural Payments Agency, second respondent
Rs - First and second respondents
AL - Alexander Line, Respondents' Barrister
SEEN - Sex Equality and Equity Network - Civil Service
SEEN-DEFRA - the DEFRA branch of SEEN
NC - Naomi Cunningham, barrister for SEEN as intervenor

CS: Civil Service
IX: Investigation
Grv: Grievance
WS: Witness Statement
CA: Carolyn Airs
ALB: Arm’s Length Bodies
NDPB: Non-Departmental Public Bodies
POC: Principles of Communication
DDTS: Digital Data and Technology
IAO: Information Asset Owners
GO: Group Owners

Helen Hogben will continue her cross examination of Carolyn Airs, (CA), witness for the respondent. At the relevant time CA was Inclusive Practice and Senior Policy Advisor at DEFRA, in the EDI team. She has since retired.

Emma Dunn also said how trans ppl are resilient and every other positive adjective going. I can't see resilience would lead anyone to take a colleague to court because they said a few things they disagree with.

An error but not ours. We could not get it to roll up as it was too long. So, its a manual job, we do those as and when we have time.

Plenty of skin on show today. On only one person in the trib though. But I can’t see the judge so he may have a strappy dress on too.

It would explain much of the judges behaviour if he did turn up in a strappy dress!

From TT:

Apologies, it should be Caroline (not Carolyn) Airs. We will amend the spelling.

J Morning everyone. We resume where we left off yesterday pm
HH Yesterday we had gone through docs in statistical bundle. To one final doc, survey by TUC re B&H of LGBT+ in workplace 2024. Talks c t workers experiences. 8 in 10 t respondents report at least 1 incident in last

5 years, twice as many as all LGBT respondents
HH To one complaint- deadnaming category - 35% reported deliberate deadnaming and misgendering at work.
CA yes
HH p 236 Section c being open c t status. Asked t respondents to what extent were open c being t at work.

HH To table on next page. Summary - 26% respondents felt able to be open c t status at work.
CA Yes
HH Re all the surveys inc large CS survey. Broad pic emerging re particular vulnerability of t people in CS.
HH Is pic more widely. Drilling into CS. p 247

'Open about trans status at work'

Everybody knows.

Talks c t workers experiences. 8 in 10 t respondents report at least 1 incident in last 5 years, twice as many as all LGBT respondents

Define "incident"

Very transphobic of everyone else to be 'boymoding' while ST is just trying to be his true self!

HH To one complaint- deadnaming category - 35% reported deliberate deadnaming and misgendering at work.

Deliberate? Or just people struggling to remember that Dave is now Davina?