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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."

 

How the SEEN Network infiltrated one government department, and the harm they caused

 

As Amnesty confirmed in their recent report mentioning the SEEN Network, it can be hard to tell how many of the SEEN Networks are actually operational and how many consist purely of a social media account. But there is at least one setting where they're very real, and I had a front-row seat for their activities. 

 

The UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recognised the SEEN Network as an official staff network almost as soon as Cabinet Office authorised its creation. I was working for an arm's-length body of Defra at the time.

 

A quick explainer for those not familiar with UK government 

 

As of June 2026, the UK's government consists of 24 "ministerial departments," each headed by a minister in the government. Each of those departments sponsors a number of agencies and public bodies, often known as "arm's length bodies," that focus on specific tasks. These bodies are semi-independent, but ultimately answerable to the department that sponsors them. Defra sponsors 34 bodies, including the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Rural Payments Agency. They're known collectively as "Defra group."

 

Although all of them are considered separate employers, many of the organisations in Defra group share a common intranet and IT systems. Anyone who works for any organisation covered by this arrangement can see the personal details, calendar, intranet contributions and sometimes Sharepoint files of anyone working for any other organisation. You'll see why this matters later on.

 

The inescapable Yammer posts

 

Defra group hosts internal discussion forums on Viva Engage (better known by its former name, Yammer), which all employees from any organisation can post on. No one monitors or proactively moderates this content.

 

Even before Defra recognised the SEEN Network, "gender critical" staff in Defra group regularly posted about their views on Yammer. These posts were visible to all colleagues and often got delivered into their email inboxes whether they wanted them or not. (Email updates were set to "on" as default, and it wasn't always obvious how to turn them off.) Once the SEEN Network was established, these posts became more frequent.

 

This content had nothing to do with Defra group's mission or with the job roles of the individuals concerned. It also wasn't triggered by anything trans people had said or done. Before the "gender critical" posts started, I'd never even seen trans rights mentioned on Yammer.

 

Needless to say, the "gender critical" posts upset many employees, both transgender people and those who cared about them. When colleagues complained about the content, "gender critical" staff got angry and said they were being bullied because of their "protected beliefs."

 

Like many Defra group staff, I reported the "gender critical" posts to Defra group's shared HR team. I thought they would do what any other employer I've ever worked for would do: say, "This has nothing to do with your jobs and it's causing conflict, so stop talking about it at work." To my astonishment, they didn't. They allowed the posts to stay up and suggested that doing otherwise would be discrimination.

 

I should say that Defra group's problem wasn't limited to transphobia. HR seemed to be of the opinion that staff should be allowed to use work systems to express their views on any topic, no matter how irrelevant or inflammatory. Other Yammer posts that were allowed to stay up included Russian disinformation about the Ukraine war, incel-adjacent complaints about the "feminisation of Western society," and antisemitic comments (although Natural England did eventually take down an intranet post about Easter that stated the Jews killed Christ). But the "gender critical" staff were by far the loudest and most persistent.

 

The disappearing posters

 

The harm caused by SEEN wasn't just found on computer screens. Back when I was well enough to work, I sometimes went to the office shared by Defra and its arm's-length bodies in 2 Marsham Street, London. Posters for a:gender, the staff network for transgender civil and public servants and their allies, regularly disappeared from bulletin boards, 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.

 

The human cost

 

You don't have to take my word for it that the SEEN Network hurt people. At least two public bodies in Defra group 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. 

 

But I can tell you something that isn't in those reports. Late one night, a year or two after the SEEN Network had been recognised in Defra group, I got a text from a friend who worked for a different arm's-length body of Defra. The stress of having to confront open transphobia at work every single day had brought them to the point of wanting to end their life.

 

I stayed up most of the night trying to make sure they were safe. And the next day, I tried to make a health and safety report. The immediate danger had passed, but I wanted Defra group to know the harm their enabling of the SEEN Network was causing. I was told that because the suicidal person and I worked for different organisations, and because I wasn't willing to identify them without their consent, no action at all would be taken on my report. It wasn't even recorded for their statistics. 

 

I don't know how many other cases like that there were. But I know there's at least one more person who was eventually made suicidal by the SEEN Network's activities in Defra group. I know because it was me.

 

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 Defra 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 Andreas Mueller, an Environment Agency employee 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 demanded that my employer punish me on the grounds that my FoI requests and statements in support of trans people constituted 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. Andreas Mueller took advantage of Defra group's shared intranet 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. A year or two ago, there was a court case called Tickle v Giggle that I believe was won by a trans woman who had been excluded from a service. I commented that the case had a delightful name and posted a gif of Mr Tickle. Although he can't read my mind, Andreas Mueller stated as fact that I had done this with the intention of causing "maximum offence" to "gender critical" people. He said he was "horrified" by my actions.

4. 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 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). 

5. 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 June 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.
 

How trans civil & public servants' personal data was leaked to transphobes (and why it could happen again)

 

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 Defra group's Yammer forums, which Defra'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 complained to Andreas Mueller's employer, the Environment Agency, about his publishing of my data. They did not even speak to me as part of their investigation, despite my asking them to do so. I was eventually told the complaint had been "resolved," with no explanation of how. I understand that following the "resolution," in April 2026, Andreas Mueller was still employed by the Environment Agency. Defra group's shared Digital, Data, Technology and Security team have informed me that there is no way to restrict users' access to each other's information on shared IT systems. It seems reasonable to surmise that as long as Andreas Mueller is employed by the Environment Agency, he will be able to access the personal data of transgender civil and public servants and their allies across Defra and its arm's-length bodies.

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. 

 

My dealings with the SEEN Network, indirect as they often were, have wrecked my health and left me unable to do a job I truly enjoyed that brought tangible benefits to the world. I am only alive today thanks to my husband, who has handled an extremely stressful and painful period with astonishing strength. All the while, I was expected to keep silent about my ordeal, while the SEEN Network were lauded in the mainstream media as champions of reasonable debate and common sense.  

 

I have nothing left to lose and refuse to be intimidated any longer. It is in the public interest as well as my own for my story to be told.

 

Why I'm not worried about being sued

 

Transphobes are notoriously litigious, and I won't be surprised if I am at least threatened with legal action for writing this. This doesn't worry me, for three reasons.

 

The first reason is very simple: Everything I have said here is true. Where I have made statements of fact, these are backed up with evidence, much of it publicly available. Occasionally I have given my honest opinion or drawn a conclusion based on the available facts. These views are clearly labelled and I have explained my basis for holding them.

 

But I'm not sure that a libel case would even get as far as my having to prove the truth of my statements. That's because since 2013, anyone bringing a claim for defamation in England has had to demonstrate that the statements they're suing over have caused serious harm to their reputation. If the SEEN Network or Andreas Mueller try to claim this has happened, I will point out the following:

 

• Amnesty International have publicly identified the SEEN Network as a transphobic pressure group that shares aims and tactics with far-right movements. I can hardly be said to have more influence than Amnesty (and SEEN isn't suing Amnesty, as far as I know).
• Both the SEEN Network and Andreas Mueller personally have had at least two legal actions commenced against them on the grounds that they have allegedly harassed and created a hostile environment for trans people. These actions have been widely publicised, largely by "gender critical" people themselves, and will already have shaped public perception of those involved.
• I've been informed that since at least 2025, there has been graffiti in a pub near the Environment Agency's office in Bristol, where Andreas Mueller has publicly stated he is based, reading "ANDREAS MUELLER IS A CUNT." My statements weren't published till 2026, and I've never been to Bristol.

 

There is a third, fundamental reason why I'm not afraid. Transphobes lost their power to intimidate me when they pushed me to the brink of suicide ... and I decided to live.

 

Just one more thing ...

If you're a fellow cisgender person and my story has moved you, please be aware that there are trans people with far worse ones to tell, who have not been heard because they are viewed not as people with valid feelings and experiences, but as one side in a "debate." Next time the "trans issue" comes up, try talking to trans people, not about them.

 

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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