A Message For Your King Henry
Update 154
OK, tonight’s Gender Critical Month speech is not actually about our issues…but I like to keep you guys on your toes 😎 Anyway we need to reclaim Joan of Arc from the gender borg who, of course, have claimed her as transgender. Obviously this is because they can’t possibly imagine that a woman would lead an army. Sorry, you bunch of misogynists, but she did. I did previously reclaim her for our side in update 99 but no harm in repeating that 😎
Please keep suggestions as to speeches, songs or poems coming in.
We started our Gender Critical Month on 04 June. When we get to the end of the month, please do let us know what your favourite has been.
Additionally one reader has expressed a remarkably good analysis of old westerns ( see last night’s update!!) which gives me a further excuse for another favourite scene from Once Upon A Time In The West ( bear with me there is lots of news that I’ll come to!!).
Inside the dusters there were three men.
Inside the men there were three bullets.
OK, let’s get down to business!
Denise Fahmy
Let’s start with some great news - Denise has won her tribunal claim against the Arts Council.
Denise has issued a press release:
An Arts Council England (ACE) whistleblower has had her case for harassment at work upheld.
Ms Denise Fahmy, a long-serving ACE staff member, brought a claim against her employer in September 2022. Following a hearing at Leeds Employment Tribunal in May this year, judgment has been handed down in her favour, recognising that she was harassed for her gender critical beliefs, and that she suffered further because her employer did not abide by the ACAS code.
In April 2022, Ms Fahmy joined an online meeting of more than 400 staff chaired by Deputy Chief Executive Mr Simon Mellor. At the meeting, Mr Mellor discussed a grant of £9,400 made to the charity LGB Alliance by the London Community Foundation. The grant was drawn from the Arts Council’s National Lottery “Let’s Create” Jubilee Fund and was to be spent on a short film about the changes in the lives of gay men during the Queen’s long reign.
The awarding of the grant had unleashed a Twitter storm in which LGB Alliance, a charity that focuses exclusively on promoting the rights and interests of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, was smeared as “anti-trans” and a “hate group”.
Following this online campaign, the grant was suspended by London Community Foundation.
At the Arts Council’s all-staff meeting, Mr Mellor repeated the abusive remarks made on Twitter, describing LGB Alliance as “anti-trans” and “divisive”. He also said “a lot of stuff is going on behind the scenes” and that he did not think the award had the “ support and consent” of the Arts Council.
Of the 411 staff present, Ms Fahmy was the only person to speak up in defence of LGB Alliance. She objected to the smearing of a legitimate charity. The judgement notes that the “the Tribunal doubts the wisdom of Simon Mellor providing his personal opinions during this meeting which was available to all members of staff”.
Staff then dismissed her comments, in what became a very tense meeting. A few weeks later, one staff member went so far as to launch a petition against her and other ACE employees who are openly gender critical – that is, who believe that it is impossible for people to change their sex. The petition was hosted on the internal staff intranet and collected over 140 signatures. The petition also allowed room for comments – and some staff members added discriminatory and offensive remarks. Although Ms Fahmy complained that the petition was upsetting her, it remained online for 26 hours until ACE bosses finally took it down. The judgement notes that “the personal opinions expressed by Simon Mellor (at the meeting in April)… did provide the basis, or opened the door, for the subsequent petition and the comments within that petition” and that “It was unreasonable and inappropriate for the petition to be left up for that time.”
Ms Fahmy lodged a whistleblowing complaint – first internally and then with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), objecting against the defamation of LGB Alliance and requesting a full investigation to determine whether ACE had behaved with bias and put pressure on the London Community Foundation to withdraw the grant, as Mr Mellor’s comments implied. In December, DCMS issued its decision that it would not be investigating. This means it remains unclear whether pressure was in fact applied.
Ms Fahmy also lodged an internal complaint of harassment with Sir Nicholas Serota, chair of ACE [ Dusty - and former Director of the Tate Gallery - there’s a surprise!] .This too was not upheld, and no internal appeal mechanism was offered. Ms Fahmy then lodged a claim with the Employment Tribunal, raising some £46,000 from well-wishers to support her legal costs.
Ms Fahmy says:
I am delighted to have won my claim of harassment. It cannot be acceptable that people like me, who believe people can’t change their sex, are subjected to harassment at work. And worse still, that employers encourage and collude in this behaviour. People in the arts, and especially women, are facing a tide of bullying with spurious accusations of transphobia, and many are frightened to speak out as they risk public cancellation. Institutions like the Arts Council need to be held accountable, when they are biased and enable harassment of gender critical people. I hope my case has woken up leaders in the arts as to what’s going on. I will be asking the Secretary of State for Culture, the Right Honourable Lucy Frazer MP, to look again at my whistleblowing complaint, that the Arts Council were biased towards an applicant organisation.
Kate Barker, CEO of LGB Alliance says:
It seems that any artist who believes that biological sex is real is considered ineligible for funding for any project, whatever its artistic merit. It cannot be right that a group of zealous ideologues, encouraged by senior leaders, has developed a stranglehold on Arts Council England. It’s bad for artists, bad for the public and it’s a bad use of public money.
Excellent news!!
Birmingham Let Women Speak
It has been brought to my attention that, following this rally where there were serious problems with the police response, the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands, Simon Foster, has stated:
I am writing to the Chief Constable with the following three recommendations:
1. West Midlands Police consider what action could have been taken on the 14 May, to prevent the circumstances arising, in which attendees at the Let Women Speak event were subjected to the harassment, alarm, distress and lack of safety, that is described as having been experienced by people, whilst attending the event.
2. West Midlands Police ensure that the experiences and views of attendees at the Let Women Speak Event on 14 May, are carefully considered, listened to and form the basis for an assessment and learning of the need for the deployment of policing resources, at any future Let Women Speak events in the West Midlands.
3. If it has not done so already, West Midlands Police provide an explanation of the steps that were taken to police the event on 14 May, to all of the people who have written to West Midlands Police, expressing their concern about the policing of the event and provide reassurance to those people, in connection with its commitment to the safety of women and girls and the policing of any future Let Women Speak events in the West Midlands.
I hope the Chief Constable takes all this on board!!
Challenge to the Scotland Act
Katrine Bussey on PA Scotland (Scotland’s highest court to hear gender recognition reform legal challenge 27 June) reports:
The Scottish Government will go to court in September as it seeks to challenge the UK Government’s decision to block controversial gender recognition reforms.
Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf confirmed in April that his government would mount a legal challenge to the use of Section 35 powers – which prevented the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill from gaining royal assent.
The Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service confirmed a three-day hearing to consider the case would take place at the Court of Session in Edinburgh from September 19 to 21.
The case will be hear by judge Lady Haldane, who ruled in 2022 that the definition of sex was “not limited to biological or birth sex”.
In what became know as “the Haldane decision”, she judged that in the context of the 2010 Equality Act, sex referred to a person’s sex recognised by law, and not simply their biological sex.
I do wonder whether it might be said that there is the potential of bias here since Lady Haldane found for the Scottish Government in the For Women Scotland case but I will be interested to hear what Dennis Kavanagh and others think of this.
Adult Human Female
The directors of this excellent film are taking action against University and College Union for their involvement in ensuring that two attempts at screening the film at Edinburgh University were prevented. You can find their crowd funder here:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/in-defence-of-academic-freedom/
Don’t tell the parents!
Jon King in the Daily Express( School hides autistic child's use of gender-swapping hormones from parents 26 June) reports:
A school allegedly hid an autistic teenager's use of gender-swapping hormones from her parents who said they were put in an impossible position. They had met the headteacher of the secondary in southeast England, making it clear they did not approve of their child using a boy's name and male pronouns.
But they reportedly found out staff at the school, which has not been named, had been calling their 16-year-old daughter by a boy's name.
They hired lawyers who demanded to see the school's records which showed some staff knew the youngster was taking hormones to make her body appear more masculine and using a chest binder to flatten her breasts.
She was reportedly also given advice on gender identity by a youth project which organises sessions in schools.
Her father told The Sunday Times that the situation is a safeguarding issue.
Meanwhile, Miriam Cates MP has launched a private members’ bill to make sure that parents are informed of the contents of sex education lesson plans
I hope that the Government back this Bill, albeit that there is no guarantee that they will.
Paid Leave
Blathnaid Corless in The Telegraph (Currys offers gender reassignment leave to employees 26 June) reports:
Talk b*****s more like!
Currys became the latest company to offer paid leave for employees undergoing gender reassignment, as part of its new diversity and inclusion policies.
The electrical retailer announced the measures after developing them in collaboration with its national forum, a collective of the company’s staff from various areas of its business.
The plans include support for those undergoing gender reassignment, with six weeks’ additional paid leave, which can be used flexibly for appointments, surgery and recovery.
Aside from the fact that you cannot actually change your sex, it seems to me that this is often, if not always, the equivalent of cosmetic surgery and I would presume that employers would not give time off for that purpose? What do people think?
The New Pride
Excellent discussion between Andrew Doyle and Peter Boghossian about the gender wars - recommended. Andrew describes the ‘trans movement’ as being anti-gay. Hear, hear. He is also very keen on more and better education about art and literature.
The Theory of the Brontosaurus
Ms Cul-de-Sac of Borehamwood has asked me if there is any evidence that John Cleese is a cross dresser. I am happy, as always, to provide that evidence, Ms Cul-de-Sac:
Thanks as ever for what you do Dusty. Can’t believe that companies think it’s acceptable to pay for ‘gender affirming care’. What about all the staff getting a bit of cosmetic surgery or private health care for something important!
Love Andrew Doyle, good interview.
Python 😆as always.