Forstater judgment tomorrow

Haven't RTFT but saw Maya's email and came on here to celebrate. HOORAY!

Maya, you're an absolute star, thank you so much from all of us. 🌟

Summary, apparently written by Ben Cooper.

oldsquare.co.uk/maya-forstater-wins-her-claim-for-direct-belief-discrimination-represented-by-ben-cooper-qc-and-anya-palmer/

The result in this case is therefore a timely reminder for employers that in a democratic society, tolerance of heterodox views is important, and the religion and belief provisions of the Equality Act 2010 offer protection to employees and workers not only to hold any lawful beliefs but also to engage in public debate about them. Employers cannot simply pick and choose which beliefs they will allow their employees to hold or express. If they do seek to limit or censure employees for expressing particular beliefs, they will need to be able to demonstrate a clear justification for doing so which is properly separable from the belief or its legitimate expression in a democratic society.

Congratulations Maya, you are forcing the grown ups to behave like grown ups.

Reading this has been an antidote for all the Twitter abuse levelled at those recently speaking out. Reality check.

We owe you so much.

Thats a classic example in mansplaining if ever I saw one.

Over confidence
Using an 'appeal to authority' by stating their qualifications whilst spouting shite
Telling women that they are just wrong, despite the ruling.

Utterly hilarous!

Congratulations to Maya & her fabulous legal team. You have helped us all immensely. So very grateful to you all.

Time to celebrate - raise your glasses!

I think I speak for all of us here when I say that I absolutely need the recipe for a JKR cocktail.

Oh that's brilliant. An a level!! 🤣

I love the comeback!

Oooh can you tell me more? I don't actually drink alcohol but my DDs definitely do

Fantastic news!

Part of me is still raging at the way people can make an innocent woman’s life hell, for years, and face no penalty. It’s the woman who has to battle, and crowdfund, and stand up in court, and face the loss of her career and home and health. Those who made baseless accusations can just stroll away and start wrecking someone else’s life.

We’ve seen this with Maya, Kathleen Stock, Allison Bailey who is currently fighting her own case against Stonewall and her legal chambers Garden Court, and many others in the past few years.

But today it’s time to celebrate. Cheers, Maya!

Just caught up - phew! Hugely relieved and thankful to Maya and those who have worked with her. Making history on behalf of women. A real warrior and such an inspiration.

Yay - I am definitely mixing a jkr tonight (thank goodness the Harlequin Pub came up with a gender critical cocktail in time for this judgement)!

Do we think its indirect?

I certainly do.

And that in itself matters.

Policies and guidelines like those here on MN?

AN A LEVEL IN LAW, PEOPLE

Another question:

Where exactly does this leave the unions or political parties who are trying to silence gender critical members?

It means that those employed by the party can't be discriminated against, but unions and parties tend to have volunteer posts / representatives.

Its probably still a certain gap here, but I think there should be some self preservation mode going on here, to protect against possible other court cases which might raise difficult questions in that area too.

I also wonder how this sits with councils and government organisations like the NHS who have replaced the word sex with gender, as if your policy documents aren't in line with the law on discrimination in the work place, you leave yourself wide open to getting a legal problem....

No one likes a litigious own goal waiting to happen.

Oh deary me. What a mess.

Well that's annoying that it doesn't copy the photo! It was the #MayaTheForstaterBeWithYou pic.

IIRC there was no evidence in Maya’s case that her treatment stemmed directly from Stonewall training. We need the judgement in Allison’s case before we can be confident about proclaiming their day as the E&D expert du jour is well and truly over.

Of course there is some overlap because these organisations wouldn’t feel empowered to act as they do without having been led to believe the law is now on their side by the likes of Stonewall, but they weren’t directly in the dock, as it were, over this one.

Maya you are an absolute star and I cannot thank you enough - especially on behalf of my daughters.

Amazing news. So pleased for you.

In fact I'm so pleased for women everywhere and especially all of us here, I feel the need for a American football style huddle and cheer (is there a proper name for that?)

If I were Stonewall, I'd be looking at alternative fundraising methods to advising organisations as a business model and have the legal team down in the office to see if there might be some fall out that might land back on them.

I think this whole ongoing debacle is Stonewall's alternative fundraising method. It lost a number of major donors after marriage equality was achieved (mission accomplished, they said) so it needed a new cause. Perhaps if it succeeds in its mission to erase the concept of same-sex attraction, it can then repeat its campaign for gay rights until that's achieved again, and then over and over like a really shitty ouroboros.

Yes. And I would be asking what on earth the advice and programmes from stonewall are for exactly?

It looks like people are being lead to believe that compliance in this area of equality law is a massive minefield that no one can understand except stonewall.

Which, is not only not the case, but stonewalls understanding seems to be completely wrong.

The replies to Marsha's tweet are ridiculous. So many angry beards and anime avatars spitting feathers because they can't compel women's speech or beliefs.

I don't think you can have a policy just banning gender critical people from expressing themselves, they'd have to do the same for everyone (including the 'TWAW' lot)?

Yes and the judgement illustrates the fact that expression of belief is allowed. It goes through each tweet, and sometimes says that this tweet (eg the comparison with dolezal) cannot be distinguished from an expression of her gc belief. Eg to disallow this would disallow expression of the belief at all, which can't be right.