Maya Forstater court case

[Bardonnay]

Sorry to link to the DM but they've covered Maya Forstater's upcoming court case here:
https://mol.im/a/7683207.

Maya's account of events is here and her post links to updates about the case: https://medium.com/@MForstater/i-lost-my-job-for-speaking-up-about-womens-rights-2af2186ae84

This truly frightening. Thank you to everybody posting updates.

Legal Feminist
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Stonewall recognise the diff btwn sex and gender identity. Cannot be inherently hateful to say trans women are male when it is recognised that a person's sex may not match their gender identity.

Legal Feminist
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the difference between sex and gender matters, and there are certain circs in which need to make the distinction for fairness to women & girls, and we need to talk about it. She then loses her job for talking about it. Fundamentally wrong and unfair.

Sorry if I'm being really thick here, but how can GC views be described as a belief? Belief has an element of faith, surely, and is unprovable but sincerely held. GC views are fact, or am I missing the point?

A massive thank you to both Lydia Lambfruit and legalfeminist.

I honestly can't see how it doesn't pass the five tests

I can't either, and yet I could imagine an argument that says that a belief in scientific fact isn't really a belief. I mean, we all believe the world is round, right? But the reason we believe it's round is because it actually is round. It would only become a matter of personal conviction if loads of people started arguing that the earth was flat, and that saying that the earth was round was offensive and hurtful. And it's only at that point that it becomes a philosophical belief - in which case I suppose a clever lawyer might argue that it's not a philosophical belief of longstanding.

Sorry, I'm just trying to imagine the worst possible scenarios.

Religious beliefs/freedoms don't seem to hold much water in relation to the proposed changes to the GRA and the provision of single-sex spaces...so I doubt it

I’ve been puzzled by this too Latin.

I presume it’s because “stating the truth” isn’t a protected characteristic under the EA so wouldn’t be an argument for unfair dismissal?

Sorry that was for @BovaryX :-)

@LatinforTelly climate change is based on science and is also something that is a firmly held conviction, impacts life etc.

Royal Corgi
There's a netflix doc about flat earthers. Very interesting to watch, luckily they've been afforded zero power but some would definitely grab the opportunity if presented. There's also a bit of a financial gain industry sprung up around it, again insignificant as things stand but we all know all it takes is big injections of cash, lobbying and policy capture for the status quo to flip.

Someone should tot up all the times the defence have referred to transwomen using "man", "male", "he" and "transwoman", rather than "woman", and "she", and put this to the judge at the end.

It will illustrate immediately that:

a) no one on the defence thinks that transwomen as women for all purposes;

b) it's impossible to talk about important matters affecting transfolk (and non-transfolk) without identifying people accurately and counting them accurately for this purpose. Regardless of what gender-identity (if any) a person expresses for the purpose of, say, buying office stationery.

Good arguments

@legalfeminist
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R has not taken a position on whether innate gender identity constitutes a belief. They say not covered but not why, not dealt with in their evidence or xx or skeleton. Now in closing, only submission is way we have put it is logically incorrect.

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Legal Feminist
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Two fundamentally oppositional points of view. Gender critical v gender identity. GC ppl don't accept they have a gender identity, or the starting point of trans rights movement which is that everyone has a gender identity.

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Legal Feminist
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It is a metaphysical notion and completely unprovable. The notion of blue / pink, adventurous and manly / kind and cake-baking, and that if you don't identify with those things maybe you are trans, is an important point.

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Legal Feminist
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The gender identity perspective meets the Grainger criteria and their beliefs should be protected, but so should the beliefs of those who don't believe gender trumps sex.

Legal Feminist
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Ideological domination of g. identity over g. critical will be bad for women and girls. There is no precedent in human rights law for one to always trump the other.

Cheers Bardonnay. I was just wondering if it would change the trajectory. I guess the defense will try to argue that:

or in conflict with the fundamental rights of others

Maya’s belief that ‘women’ is an exclusive category restricted to biological sex is in conflict with TWAW?

Sorry if I'm being really thick here, but how can GC views be described as a belief? Belief has an element of faith, surely, and is unprovable but sincerely held. GC views are fact, or am I missing the point?

"Belief" in this context doesn't mean quite that, Latin. The "Grainger test" case clarified that too - the judgement in that included this:

"In my judgment, if a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based on science, as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection by the Regulations. The Employment Judge drew attention to the existence of empiricist philosophers, no doubt such as Hume and Locke. The best example, as it seems to me, which was canvassed during the course of the hearing, is by reference to the clash of two such philosophies, exemplified in the play Inherit the Wind, i.e. one not simply between those who supported Creationism and those who did not, but between those who positively supported, and wished to teach, only Creationism and those who positively supported, and wished to teach, only Darwinism. Darwinism must plainly be capable of being a philosophical belief, albeit that it may be based entirely on scientific conclusions (not all of which may be uncontroversial)."

(Someone very helpfully posted it earlier in the thread - can't remember who but thank you!)

@BovaryX yes, whose fundamental rights should we privilege?

Themostbeautiful, thank you for that post, that’s really interesting

I've done a complete 180, I'm now terrified. If Maya loses its the beginning of the end.

Ahh thank you hiptightonions, drspouse and themostbeautifuldogintheworld. Sorry, I haven't read the whole thread thoroughly and must've missed the earlier post.

So basically the TRA argument they are putting forward is:

Everyone is assigned male or female at birth in a completely arbitrary way by looking at their genitals. As you grow up you may realise that your gender identity doesn't match your "randomly assigned gender". That makes you trans. If your gender identity is female and you were assigned male then you were never male, you were always female you were just "assigned wrongly". Therefore a transwoman is as much of a woman as someone who was "assigned female at birth".

Ok. But then the massive hole in the argument then is what are you transitioning from and to then?!. If you were always as much of a woman/female as anyone else (and the only difference was a mistake on your birth certificate) then why do you have to "transition"?! Why do you need hormones and surgery and to change your name?

Bardonnay, it’s really fascinating that this case is highlighting the core issue and the implications if she loses are chilling. As many others have said, reading the excellent reporting on this thread, which has been far more extensive and illuminating than anything in the mainstream media, the defense case seems incredibly weak. But it is about competing rights. I just hope Maya wins.

@BovaryX Absolutely. It's just bloody terrifying how high the stakes are here

I've done a complete 180, I'm now terrified. If Maya loses its the beginning of the end.

Me too teawamutu. I was quite hopeful yesterday given the comparative quality of the witnesses, but the closing submissions are much less clear cut and blatant untruths are going unchallenged. I could easily see HHJ coming down on the side that TWAW, and then we're all fucked. And would have nowhere to comment on the fact we're fucked or mobilise how to become unfucked, because this board would be shut down faster than you can say 'literal violence'.

I feel for the judge.

Imagine having to listen to days of "yeah but, no but, yeah but, no" and jargon, which happens to also have a huge amount of support from the public, politicians and bodies like the Police, education and universities...and then trying to come up with a way of phrasing "sorry, no, you have not made your case, because sex is immutable and that's maybe upsetting for you, but, it is true"

Surely there is no other sensible finding to be had!

Yes. And the precedent it will set if she loses. As others have said, it is hard to comprehend that we have arrived at a point in the West in the 21st century in which the dictionary definition of woman caused Maya to lose her job. I wonder how long before the dictionaries are changed?