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This story contains references to mental ill health and suicidal thoughts. If these topics are close to home for you, please see the bottom of the page for resources that can help.

 

The SEEN Network? What's that?

It's my attempt to answer that question that got us here.

 

From late 2022, organisations called SEEN Networks have proliferated across many employment sectors in the UK. SEEN stands for Sex Equality and Equity Network, and these networks are intended for "gender critical" people working in various industries. I believe "gender critical" could be fairly defined as "not accepting that transgender people should be fully entitled to live as the gender they know themselves to be."

 

The relationship between the various SEEN Networks is not entirely clear, nor are their aims. To quote the constitution of the Civil Service SEEN Network: "As our objectives are subject to change, they do not form part of our Constitution."

 

I became aware of the SEEN Networks when transgender friends told me how distressed they were by their activities. This was of concern to me, first, as a human being who believes that a society can only be judged by how it treats those who appear different, and secondly, as a trade union representative with a particular interest in combating workplace discrimination and bullying.

How the SEEN Network has affected transgender workers

(and those who care about them)

 

It's been reported elsewhere that transgender staff in some workplaces have felt that the SEEN Network has created a hostile environment through their posts on organisational intranet forums. I can vouch for this through personal observation (and have also uncovered some statistics to back it up).

 

But I have also had an opportunity to see the SEEN Network's impact on the ground. Back when I was well enough to work, I sometimes went to an office where the SEEN Network was active. Posters for a:gender, the staff network for transgender civil and public servants and their allies, regularly disappeared from bulletin boards in this office and were sometimes replaced with posters for the SEEN Network. The problem was so persistent that a group of cisgender staff who wanted to make the environment more welcoming for trans colleagues formed a posse to replace the a:gender posters whenever they were taken down. This meant having a hidden poster stash and doing daily reconnaissance.

 

Even for me, as a mere trans ally, this situation caused a knot in my stomach every time I walked into the office. I can only imagine what it was like for a transgender person. And you don't have to take my word for it: at least two public bodies recorded significant increases in health and safety incidents involving transphobia after the SEEN Network was recognised in their workplaces. Many of those reports referred specifically to the SEEN Network's activities.

 

How did I get this information? Well, that brings us to the next topic ....

 

My Freedom of Information requests:

or, why Mumsnet thinks I'm a psychopath

 

The rapid spread of SEEN Networks and their ability to immediately command attention seemed unusual to me. I wanted to understand SEEN's origins and funding sources and the extent to which it was influencing the policies of the organisations where it operates.

 

I decided that the most effective and ethical way to research this question was through Freedom of Information requests (FoI). As FoI requests can only be made to public bodies, I focused on SEEN's activities and impact in the Civil Service, higher education and the police. This sometimes required making a large number of similar requests to different bodies: for example, I had to approach all 45 police forces individually. I understand there are also SEEN Networks covering local government and the NHS, but the sheer number of organisations involved made it impractical to look into those.

 

I wish to stress that anyone in the world has the legal right to make Freedom of Information requests to any body subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. When one public body tried to declare my requests vexatious, the Information Commissioner's Office overturned their decision and stated "that there is a public interest in the requested information and that the request has value and purpose."

 

While my requests haven't always yielded the definitive answers I was hoping for, they have given some insight into the impact the SEEN Network is having, as described above. They've also revealed some other interesting information. For example, it appears that the SEEN Network directly influenced the wording of the Environment Agency's staff survey questions on gender, while networks representing transgender staff or staff from the wider LGBTQ+ community had no input. 

 

It also appears that the SEEN Network set up a private limited company in parallel with its becoming established as a recognised staff network in the Civil Service. This is extremely unusual, if not unprecedented, and seems to have triggered emergency discussions in the Cabinet Office. Unfortunately, the records I received of those discussions are so heavily redacted that it's impossible to say what went on.

 

My FoI requests are public, and I have received floods of abuse from "gender critical" people for making them, particularly on Mumsnet, where users have accused me of being a man (I'm a cisgender woman), a psychopath (I have a recurring mental health condition, but it's not that) and other dishonorable things. Several of the people taking part in these discussions have identified themselves as employees of government agencies, which does not give me confidence when dealing with the government.

 

Getting trash-talked on Mumsnet isn't pleasant, but if I don't look at Mumsnet (and I haven't for over a year), it has no impact on my daily life. Sadly, that isn't true of another foe that I made ....

 

Enter Andreas Mueller

 

At some point, my activities caught the attention of a man called Andreas Mueller, who (by his own account) was previously the co-chair of the SEEN Network for civil and public servants. I know Mr Mueller only by reputation and have never conducted research into him personally. In fact, my entire reason for using FoI requests was that I knew the only information released would be information that should rightfully be in the public domain, and that any documents I received would be redacted to prevent identification of individuals. My aim was to prevent bullying and harassment, not commit or facilitate it.

 

I would never have publicly named or even discussed Andreas Mueller if not for two facts. First, he has chosen to widely publicise his association with the SEEN Network; and secondly, he has published my name and identifying details without my consent. Some people who have found this page may have been searching for me because of documentation that he released. If you're looking for the rest of the story, here it is.

 

According to a crowdfunding page that he maintained until recently, in the past few years Andreas Mueller has been named as a respondent in two employment tribunal cases alleging discrimination and harassment of transgender employees, although one claim was withdrawn at an early stage on technical grounds. Because of certain statements Mr Mueller has made, I wish to emphasise that I was not a party to either case and had no involvement in these legal proceedings. 

 

Andreas Mueller's defence in the tribunal, as outlined on the crowdfunding page, was that his statements of "gender critical" belief on work intranet forums and social media (which were sometimes very heated, as when he called a trans-supportive MP a "cancer" on the Labour Party) could not possibly have constituted harassment of his transgender colleagues.

 

At the same time he was making this defence, Andreas Mueller was taking a very different line in his dealings with me. He has demanded negative consequences for me on the grounds that my FoI requests and statements in support of trans people constitute harassment of the SEEN Network and/or "gender critical" people in general, as well as bullying of him personally.

 

Andreas Mueller has also accused me of being involved in various conspiracies against him and/or the SEEN Network, and has made lengthy, detailed and extremely distressing false claims about my character and motives, despite the fact that we have never met or communicated directly.

 

My found poem Nowhere Seems to Be Safe from Laura Brown is an attempt to, as Afroman might put it, turn my bad times into a good time by assembling a collage from Andreas Mueller's accusations. I have only been able to do this after a long period of healing. You can imagine how it might have felt to read such statements in their raw form, simply as a result of exercising my legal rights and duty of care.

 

On 13 April 2026, Andreas Mueller announced on his crowdfunding page that the remaining employment tribunal case against him had been withdrawn. The full reasons for this have not been made public (nor should they necessarily be), but it appears that he was the third respondent in the case, and that the claimant may have reached an out-of-court settlement with the first and/or second respondent. 

 

In his statement, Andreas Mueller misgendered the anonymous claimant (who is evidently a trans woman), proclaimed that he had refused to sign a non-disparagement clause relating to her, and engaged in some additional disparagement as if to prove it. As I was not a party to the tribunal, this does not affect me, but it may give you a further idea of the sort of behaviour I have been dealing with and its emotional and psychological impact.

 

A partial list of things Andreas Mueller has accused me of (so far)

1. Although we have never worked for the same employer, Andreas Mueller used access obtained via his work to gather evidence that I had signposted colleagues upset by the SEEN Network to our employer's complaint procedures. This is something I would do for any colleague who expressed a concern of any nature at work. Andreas Mueller has said it amounts to persecution of the SEEN Network and demanded I be stopped.
2. Andreas Mueller has repeatedly said that I was involved in the tribunals against him and carried out my FoI requests on behalf of either the claimants or their solicitors. This is entirely untrue, and it would be a very poor solicitor indeed who gathered information in this way.  
3. Members and supporters of the SEEN Network often insist that it is not transphobic. I have occasionally responded to this by asking: "If trans people didn't exist, what would the SEEN Network focus on?" If the SEEN Network has a mission beyond restricting the rights of trans people, then it seems to me that this question should be easy to answer. Andreas Mueller saw an online exchange where I had asked this question of another SEEN Network member, who did not answer it. As co-chair of the SEEN Network, he presumably would have been in a position to help the member come up with an answer. Instead, he interpreted the question (possibly in good faith, I can't read his mind) as implying that the SEEN Network seeks the eradication of transgender people. He said that my question therefore amounted to "slander" against the SEEN Network (despite its being in writing, which would make it libel if it was any kind of defamation at all). 
4. Perhaps most hurtful were Andreas Mueller's comments in relation to the murder of my husband's stepmother in 2018. I have previously said that because of this personal connection, I find it particularly upsetting when "gender critical" activists use the topic of violence against women as a Trojan horse for transphobic policies. He has insinuated that I don't actually care about my family member's murder and only brought it up to express a pathological hatred of "gender critical" people.

 

The impact on me

 

The stress of this situation, along with moral injury from witnessing transphobia and cruelty, caused a life-threatening breakdown in my mental health. I am writing this in April 2026 and have been very unwell with depression since August 2025. I have been open about my condition on social media, and those who have worked with me will also be aware that I have been too ill to work.

 

I have previously seen evidence that Andreas Mueller monitors my activities closely. In my honest opinion, it seems likely that he knew I was vulnerable at the time of the incident described below.
 

Publication of my and others' personal data

 

On 21 January 2026, Andreas Mueller published a document on his crowdfunding page that contained my personal data, along with that of dozens of other people. This included names, photographs, and comments people had made on an organisational intranet forum, which the organisation's policies would normally forbid releasing to the public. The vast majority of people whose data was published were not party to the tribunal case; at most, they were bystanders to the events that triggered it. Some, like me, had written comments in support of transgender colleagues. Others had identified themselves as transgender or stated they had transgender family members. Their employment details could have been deduced from the context. In my honest opinion, the potential for this information to be misused for harassment should have been obvious.

 

The CrowdJustice platform, where Andreas Mueller had his fundraising site, removed the document containing my personal data on 20 February 2026. I believe this was done in response to a complaint and because sharing such information violates their policies. But the fact remains that the document was available online for a full month, on a page aimed at "gender critical" people, and any number of people with any sort of intentions may have downloaded a copy.

 

I have reported Andreas Mueller's publication of my personal data to the police and am awaiting further developments.

The role of JR Levins solicitors

The document containing my personal information was shared via Google Drive. The Gmail address associated with the drive, which was visible when downloading the document, appeared to indicate that it was owned by JR Levins solicitors. Andreas Mueller's crowdfunding page confirmed that this was the firm he instructed. He stated the solicitor handling his case was Jon Heath.

 

It appears that Mr Heath is the main person in charge of JR Levins' Twitter account. If I have correctly understood the tweet below to imply that he writes most of the account's content (and the writing style does seem consistent, in my honest opinion), then he regularly tweets personal opinions and snide commentary under a photo of the firm's dog:

On 21 January, the same day Andreas Mueller published his post on CrowdJustice, the JR Levins Twitter account posted the following tweets. I have redacted the first one to remove the name of another uninvolved party.

It appears, therefore, that at least one person at the firm was aware and approved of Andreas Mueller's publication of the document containing my and other uninvolved parties' personal data.

 

Upon reflection, I decided that JR Levins' actions raised enough concerns in my mind to pursue a formal complaint. I initially intended to do this via the Solicitors' Regulation Authority, but learned that they consider complaints about personal data a matter for the Information Commissioner's Office. The ICO, in turn, will not accept a complaint unless you have complained directly to the organisation concerned and are dissatisfied with their response. 

 

I therefore had to contact JR Levins and provide them with yet more of my personal details, despite my concern being precisely about the way they had handled such details. I had to correspond with them at a very vulnerable and painful point in my life, even though the behaviour of the staff running their Twitter account has, in my honest opinion, often appeared unprofessional and insensitive.

 

My complaint to JR Levins' general email address had no response, so I forwarded it on to Tracy Morgan, who is identified on the firm's website as their managing partner. She sent a brief response addressing me by first name, although I had addressed her in a formal manner; informing me that as I was not a client, I could not use their complaints resolution procedure, without offering an alternative; and stating that I would eventually receive a response from ... Jon Heath, who, as I explained above, appears to have had a close connection to the events I was complaining about. 

 

This clearly was unsatisfactory, and I decided to proceed with a complaint to the ICO (I know from my experience that this can take several months). The Solicitors' Regulation Authority have declined to investigate while the ICO is doing so, but have said I can submit a complaint if the ICO finds against JR Levins.

 

Incidentally, the SRA have informed me that solicitors are not required to have any procedures or policies for dealing with harm they may cause people who aren't their clients. This would seem to give them leeway for a lot of damage, but I'm in no position to do anything about it.

 

Perhaps coincidentally, since I made my complaint JR Levins' Twitter account has had this to say:

Why I'm writing about this now

 

After being discussed and maligned by others for so long, I feel the need to take back my story. I hope that telling my own experience and asserting that it matters will help my healing after an ordeal that has nearly cost me my life.

 

I'm also aware that the SEEN Network has received considerable media attention, much of it uncritical. The public face of this movement states that they encourage diversity of views and respectful debate. In that spirit, I hope my perspective will add nuance to the mainstream narrative.

 

If you are struggling with mental health and/or suicidal thoughts, please seek immediate support. In the UK, the NHS has advice for people experiencing a crisis. The charity Suicide Prevention UK has made a specific commitment to support trans people.

 

 

 

My life as a sinister obsessive trans rights activist

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