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

There goes my UCU membership.

If the idea of biological sex is incoherent someone better tell the Human Rights Commission. Clearly all their guidance on gender reassignment is incorrect.

@Waterl00 Thanks for enlightening me. I will be relinquishing my UCU membership

You are all paying for this. And will continue to pay....

I am writing a piece for publication about how this will trash equal pay. If no-one is legally male, its all entirely voluntary, then equal pay legislation is dead.

I would like to hear how UCU envisage equal pay legislation working when we have to first prove a man is a man. With no record of anyone's sex.

So it's your union doing this to you.

I used to belong to UCU and always, always, always read through the candidates' statements in detail before deciding who to vote for. The phrase 'UCU Left' was a red flag because it usually showed very clearly somebody who wanted UCU to campaign for Palestinian rights and so on but wouldn't be putting much effort into improving members' working conditions, pensions and so on. I was paying the sub for the latter so cast my vote accordingly, for all the good it did.

Many years ago my employer did a job evaluation exercise, as required by HEFCE, and really badly messed the whole process up, leaving some people facing 25% pay cuts with no realistic possibility of appealing. UCU (or possibly its predecessor body AUT?) was as much use as a chocolate teapot.

So glad to be out of that now. I expect Clair Quentin belongs to UCU, given CQ appears to be employed by KCL as a research associate alongside being a Ph.D. student at QMC.

Good, Catmaiden, mine too. If you’re interested, head over to Academics corner and the strikes thread to see my opinion of the UCU and it’s leader and handmaidens.

Where is that Pota, I might post about this UCU nonsense over there.

Is the Judge in this case male or female?

Waterl00 here you go

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/academics_corner/3732596-When-do-you-think-the-strikes-will-be?msgid=91692661#91692661

Pota2 yes, the cool girls. Sometimes also those who are cool with strangulation during sex, changing sex segregated facilities to open house, etc. And think we're hateful because for us, that's just not cricket.

I was a member of UCU in a former life. I ended up in a situation where I had a strong case for constructive dismissal. My UCU rep didn't even respond to my email asking for advice and support, and still hadn't by the time I left having negotiated my own settlement and reference. Never have I found it easier or more satisfying to stop any subscription.

If no-one is legally male, its all entirely voluntary, then equal pay legislation is dead

One of the American contributors on this board (can't remember her name sorry) has theorised in the past that this is in fact why there is a huge amount of mystery funding for the trans lobby. To dismantle these rights.

support campaigns to remove the requirement and practice of gender assignment at birth

Anyone with a working brain cell should be able to see how utterly naive this is, let alone a union of bloody academics. Do they really think that by not recording sex we'll all magically be free of gender?!

The Maasai tribe don't put male/female on birth certificates (they don't have birth certificates) and they don't have gendered pronouns either. The vagina-havers cut their hair short and the penis-havers grow theirs long and cover themselves in feathers and jewellery. How very progressive.

Yet somehow they've managed to figure out that it's the babies born with vaginas that should undergo genital mutilation, are not allowed to go to school, are forced into marriage and are beaten by their penis-bearing husbands. How strange.

Just went to cancel my membership and the list of reasons it gives you to select as to why you are leaving does not allow you to register any kind of disagreement with UCU's articulated agendas. I guess I'll just go with wishful thinking and say I've "gone abroad"...

I have started a thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/academics_corner/3747717-UCU-trashing-Equal-Pay-legislation

Ta Water

The Equality Act 2010 intrinsically recognises a difference between transwomen and women, including those transwomen with GRCs, and explicitly provides grounds for excluding transwomen from women's spaces where this is required to meet the needs of women. So RC's whole argument would equate to saying the Equality Act makes it legal to 'harass' trans people and therefore that the law is the problem. RC council has completely ignored the fact that the exceptions are there to uphold the human rights of women and girls to single sex provisions where we need them (and that this need is solely determined by women and girls who require female only provision in order to have our human rights upheld). It is nothing short of remarkable just how bad a job they are doing. I really can't imagine Maya losing this on the grounds of the GC position not meeting the criteria for protected belief, and I think that regardless of what happens on the other consideration re employment, that Maya will succeed in creating the legal precedent that being gender critical is a protected position in the UK. And if that happens it will be huge for us.

Final post linking to the new thread:

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3747575-maya-forstater-case-thread-2-for-the-mumsnet-massive

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3747575-maya-forstater-case-thread-2-for-the-mumsnet-massive Your link didn't work, Bardonnay, but this one should.

Thanks @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I don’t think there’s much comparison with Brexit. Irrespective of what you think about its outcome, there was a referendum in which 71 per cent of eligible voters did so. This is being implemented without any democratic mandate as a consequence of regulatory capture. As many have posted on this board, most people are unaware that this is going on and the reason why is because the media barely reports it. This is an agenda being aggressively promoted by an extremely powerful lobby group. If Maya loses this case, the options for skepticism are seriously limited

support campaigns to remove the requirement and practice of gender assignment at birth

By all means, there’s no need to assign gender at birth, but does anyone actually do this?

I think they mean assign biological sex at birth. Which just is.

This whole thing is making my head explode.

I want to know how you ‘assign’ at both or otherwise?

So when the doctor or midwife magically assigns a random 'gender' does that then mean the baby develops with male or female physiology based on this pronouncement?

Do they think if someone writes down male on a birth certificate then the baby will magically develop testicles and a penis that will need to be surgically altered later in life if the person decides they are really female?!

Is it like the Harry potter hat thing?

I thought people running around with broomsticks playing Quidditch was funny. People genuinely thinking the recording of sex at birth is like some Sorting Hat assignment is far more worrying.