Maya Forstater

[DianeBrewster]

MN have deleted the thread started by Maya - who lost her job for speaking up for women- because it talks about her crowdfunding for legal costs

Here is today's times article on the case https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tax-expert-fired-for-saying-trans-women-aren-t-women-tpqgnm9vj?shareToken=3f12f5cae61c02fd41040eb816fd37b4&wgu=2705255426441557045162977940f0d76fa1&wgexpiry=1564821162&utmmsource=planit&utmmedium=affiliate&utmm_content=22278

What Labour are offering is emphatically not a socialist government.

What Labour are offering is emphatically not a socialist government

That’s my point.

Maya, I know you know about this thread, I hope you're reading as I'm wishing you good luck and really hope you win.

We're all with you and it's so important.

That’s my point

I was agreeing with it. Probably somewhat incoherently, but then incandescent rage tends to do that.

According to this Lily Madigan is the new Women's officer.

Isn't that the same as when Rachel Dolezal got the NAACP president job?

Her is what I want to ask Maryam Ali, Senior National Women's and Equalities Officer for the Labour Party, but I cannot send it from my e mail address. I just can't, I have been doxxed on twitter once and I am currently one of the silenced.

Dear Maryam,

In a Twitter comment addressed to Maya Forstarter who is alleging that she has been sacked from her job Lily Madigan, the Labour Students National Women's Officer tweets to Maya Forstater "Good. Go fuck yourself"..

Whatever the Labour party's view on the relationship between sex and gender (the subject of Forstarter's comments):

1. is it acceptable to the Labour Party that one of its representatives, acting on an account that clearly references the Labour party connection) insults people by swearing?
2. Is it acceptable to the Labour Party, built on the defence of worker's rights, to have representatives who respond in this way to someone being sacked for doing nothing illegal?
3. Is it acceptable that The Labour Party has representatives that address women with sexually violent insults?
4. Is it acceptable to the Labour party to have representatives who are prepared to insult people and celebrate their job loss before due process (the tribunal) has found one way or the other?
5. Does the Labour party support free speech? Hate speech is one thing, and covered by law. What Maya Forstarter has discussed is a scientific and biological approach to sex and gender. She has not said anything about hateful about Trans people per se, and Trans people (and others) are fully entitled to have their say in response. But via the Labour National Students officer, is the Labour Party in support of the suppression of free speech that seems to be embraced in a response of 'Good' to someone losing their job for expressing an opinion?

Maya Forstater was making her comments in response to a government consultation. This is a democracy, what is a consultation if citizens are only allowed to make comments of one kind? The swearing and insult is one thing, the total disregard for free speech by insulting and silencing those with different views is another, and crucial to how the Labour party is viewed.

I write as a former habitual Labour voter, a supporter of free speech, a feminist and someone who deplores discrimination and prejudice towards transgendered people.

I hope you can answer my questions,

TheRedBarrows

If Maya wins her case it will mean that every woman in the uk who is asked to share a workplace toilet with a male can object to it, without being sacked. It is hugely significant.
Maya, I’m so sorry for what you are going through. You are the canary right now. The result will show what the future for women holds: oppression, censorship, denial, loss of opportunity, loss of physical security, third class citizens without a voice or an identity, on the one hand- or recognition and freedom on the other.

As someone who has brought (and won multiple claims within) two tribunals against their employer, I can say that it is a long and painful process, especially as the abolition of fees and lack of judges has meant long long delays in hearings. The other side will try to tear Maya apart and it will be very difficult.

However, I felt that my cases were very important, not just to me, but to my colleagues because our boss was wrong and breaking the law (as two judges later agreed). It has been damaging to my health, but I have felt that I gained back some of my self-respect by challenging the unfairness.

Also worth knowing that it's very rare for costs to be awarded in employment tribunals unless the case was completely pointless or someone has behaved unreasonably or vexatiously.

Good luck to you, Maya

What would happen if Maya's employer caves and offers her her job back? Would she be forced to drop her claim? If not, could a judge find that she'd been unreasonable in refusing an offer from her employer and in insisting on persisting with her case?

I suppose what I worry about is that it's likely that, precisely because it is such an important case, the judiciary is going to go to great pains not to rule on the issues, and one way they can do that is by refusing to hear the case on the basis that Maya's been offered her job back, and maybe an apology/compensation.

Great letter TheRedBarrows but appalling that so many of us have been silenced on this topic.

“You stated that a man’s internal feeling that he is a woman has no basis in material reality. A lot of people would find that offensive and exclusionary.”

Let's just all think about how racist that statement would be if we substitute the words "white person" for man and "black" for woman.

Either both statements are ok, or neither are. Why is an employer allowed to be so openly misogynistic? We are 50% roughly of the population ffs (why? Sexual fucking dimorphism aka biology aka material reality)

Interesting CGD have removed their pinned tweet. The responses weren't good for them.

Oldstyle - Thank you.

I would love someone to send it for me, from their non-named gmail account or something. I just daren't send it, I imagine them tracking down my IP address or something.

I feel like a shrivelling coward, I AM a shrivelling coward, but I have a modest public profile in an organisation that can't be expected to field more exposure, and other people's work could be harmed. In a year or less, I will be out of there and out there.

Sorry, who is CGD?

Maya's former employer. The tweet was inviting people to join in online debate so you can imagine the replies. They've unpinned it now.

CGD is Centre for Global Development - aka the unthinking tank who fired a woman for voicing an opinion.

Oh, of course, dear me, it's a slow day today!

Maxi gab

(Hahaha I'm totally leaving that in as the autocorrect for my first attempt...)

Madigan should do some research into how to improve their profile, now they've been supplanted by others.

Might I suggest a doctoral thesis as a starter:

"Reasonable Assertions: On Norms of Assertion and Why You Don't Need to Know What You're Talking About"
-R McKinnon

Red, I feel the same way. I run the risk of having my family deported if a belief in biology can legally be viewed as hate speech, so getting sacked would only be the first domino. I refuse to give my mobile phone number to twitter to remove my ban for this reason. And I have several letters that can’t be sent until either the legal position is clarified or we gain citizenship.
I posted on a feminist sports fb page last week in my real name (an entirely polite and anodyne question asking if sporting bodies had a responsibility to future female athletes to consider the ramifications of how/ whether to include XY athletes in XX competition) and it was removed and I was blocked. The swiftness and harshness of the response was a shock, but a salient reminder that unless I can handle being in Maya’s position, I absolutely cannot speak publicly in my own name. So, really, they did me a favour by deleting, but I doubt that was their motivation.
I’m so grateful that Maya has the strength for this.

If her former employer offer her her job back, she can still continue her claim for belief discrimination and ask for an injury to feelings payment; she would just drop the loss of earnings bit (as long as they paid her back what she had lost in earnings until reinstated). She can also ask to be reinstated, possibly, but it's harder when it was a non-renewed contract. Her claim will presumably be for discrimination leading to a detriment (non-renewed contract) on the grounds of her beliefs. It's not a standard unfair dismissal case.

Oh lovely work, detectives!

Now we're sucking diesel. I had to go to bed but hoped the names might trigger some connections for those more familiar with the key players. I remember reading a while back about a billionaire MtF who might be funding activism and at the time I wondered how else that sort of power might embed itself. I was thinking more of pressure on educational establishments (& associated impact on research) but policy would surely be in there too.

Also, Madigan is an embarrassment and a complete liability. Behaviour is astonishing, and not in the good way.

Red I'd enclose a screenshot of that tweet, as it will likely be removed. And denied.

Red I don't mind sending it from mine and my real name. Retired so not affected at work, but I am so fed up with this shit not sure I can leave the last sentence as I am no longer feeling so tolerant.

apologies if already linked.
4thWaveNow 2016 article:

Follow the money: Trans billionaire makes new $1 million grant to Chicago pediatric transition clinic
Posted on July 11, 2016

UPDATE 7/13/16: The Tawani Foundation is actually an alternate name for the registered charity “Colonel IL James N Pritzker Charitable Distribution Fund.” See below for details.

How did it happen so fast? That’s what so many of us keep wondering: the complete saturation of the media, government policy, school systems, psychology and medicine with unwavering promotion of the notion that people can change sex—with or without medical transition.

A societal upheaval this big doesn’t happen without a lot of funding, and the money has been flooding into medical clinics, summer camps, and every other conceivable outpost of the transgender child initiative, with a seeming acceleration in the last 2 or 3 years.

One source of gushing cash is the Tawani Foundation via its billionaire CEO and Director, 66-year-old Colonel (ret.) James “Jennifer” Pritzker, one of several family heirs to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, who announced a transgender transition a scant 3 years ago. (continues)

4thwavenow.com/2016/07/11/follow-the-money-trans-billionaire-makes-new-1-million-grant-to-chicago-pediatric-transition-clinic/

see also more recent article which refers to the above:

"The Open Society Foundations & the transgender movement"
Posted on May 25, 2018
by Michael Biggs

Michael Biggs is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St Cross College. He researches social movements and collective protest.
(extract)
"The transgender movement has transformed cultural norms and social institutions at breathtaking speed. Most of us, becoming acquainted with the trans issue for the first time, are astonished to discover the extent of the gender revolution. The movement has accomplished in a few years what the movements for women’s and for gay and lesbian rights took many decades to achieve.

Part of the explanation is the amount of money behind transgenderism. The Gender Industrial Complex, as we may call it, has many components. Lucrative sponsorship comes from pharmaceutical companies and medical providers. Charities originally established to fight for homosexual rights (like Human Rights Campaign in the United States and Stonewall in Britain) wield large budgets. Last but not least, three American billionaires have bankrolled the transgender movement on a global scale: Jennifer Pritzker, whose activities were detailed in another blogpost, Jon Stryker, and George Soros." (continues)
4thwavenow.com/2018/05/25/the-open-society-foundations-the-transgender-movement/

AngryREsister - oh, please do - and amend and make it yours any way you like.

I was trying to be not too hostile to Labour or Trans people who are not part of this witch hunting.

I would just like the Labour Party to think about these questions in relation to the people who speak for them.