Thread by @MForstater

I unintentionally misgendered this person on Twitter in June 19

They complained to Scouts who undertook an investigation of me leading to a process still ongoing

I submitted evidence which was not read by Scouts

Some of my evidence ended up in my employment tribunal judgment

The complaint was that I had
(1) deliberately misgendered Murray
(2) spread lies about them
(3) "Broken the Scout Law" in these two tweets

There was lots of other baseless accusation: calling me an anti trans bigot, unsafe for children, causing pile ons (please don't!) , making claims that Scouts was working w Transgender Trend, which GM called a "hate group".

GM gave no evidence for any of this

GM also claimed not to be a man and not to have been suspended as a local councillor and never to have applied any terms of abuse to Scout Leaders

I wrote back to Scouts and said the complaint was vexatious, and in any case Scouts has no business policing what Scout Leaders say on Twitter in their private life.

I explained that GM had been suspended, so no I wasn't lying

I explained to them what TERF meant and how it is used as a term of abuse

I showed them GM's pattern of behaviour targeting women's political speech

Scouts didnt take any of this into account.

They declared that the complaint wasn't vexatious and ordered my local District Commissioner to investigate

Despite not taking my evidence into account she did not find that I had deliberately misgendered Murray, nor spread lies and misinformation but that I had partially broken scout law by not being "kind and respectful"

I was told to apologise to GM for the pronouns

I said no.

Or at least not until they apologise to me for all the nasty thing they said about me.

I also said I wanted to put in a complaint about the way Scouts had treated me.

My complaint was delayed because GM appealed the outcome of their complaint, disagreeing on the facts & saying it wasn't enough that I apologise.

Meanwhile Judge James Tayler picked up what I had said in my evidence to Scouts and used it to judge me "unworthy of respect"

*Someone* 🧐 reported the outcome of my employment tribunal as a "safeguarding incident" and this was recorded in Scouts safeguarding Incident database and I was referred for further investigation

Murray also out a second round of complaints in against me

The complaints generally relate to me explaining factually why GM appears in my judgment

Everytime I refer to the original tweet ...

Also when I criticised them for gleefully celebrating Deborah Orr's untimely death

They also accused me of "sharing private legal and medical information" about them.

That sounds really bad. You want to know what that is, right....?

😱

In August last year Scouts finally gave me the details of their findings in GM's Appeal.

They had finally figured at that yes Murray had been suspended as a counsellor for abusing women online (... continues..)

But now, having finally read my evidence they had found something problematic in my views.

So in addition to apologising the GM I would be asked to review Scout policy.

I then had 14 days to put in my revised complaint against Scouts

At the end of March I finally got the response to my complaint, 20 months after the original two tweets.

Scouts say I cannot share the content of that response.

They find that GM's complaint was not vexatious.

They reference the same two paras as James Tayler as evidence of my problematic beliefs

Neither James Tayler nor Scouts quote the next paragraph of my response to scouts where I spell out the circumference in which I would have no hesitation in calling a man a man, whatever their preferred pronouns.

Scouts have now given me 14 days to appeal. So I will be spending another weekend writing to try to explain to them that what they are seeing is a man bullying a woman, using their complaints policy & policy on misgendering as the weapon.

Something which is part of a pattern

Of course I am happy to "review TSAs policies"

The key question is how can it be consistent with safeguarding for a youth organisation to have volunteers who view information about their sex to be "private legal and medical information"?

What do they advise that someone should do if they see someone male who claims not to be a man in the female showers at camp?

Is it really their policy that Leaders who understand the Equality Act & safeguarding hv problematic views & must be re-educated not to recognise men?

They may have to revise their view depending on what thee judgment is in my Employment Appeal

In any case as an organisation which should have safeguarding at its core they should figure out for themselves whether preventing leaders & children being honest about a person's sex is a good policy and consistent with safeguarding.

They can't rely on the Employment Tribunal

This has been a long and exhausting saga. I hope you can follow it.

I no longer feel I can be a part of the Scout Association.

I cannot feel proud to wear the uniform or safe that they will protect me from bullying or that their policies enable robust safeguarding.

[Ends]