Now that gender critical beliefs are a protected philosophical belief

[SecondGentleman]

The Equality Act applies across many different areas, not just employment law. Service providers, unions, political parties – all have to comply.

Let’s have a list of the ways in which gender critical women have been treated that are now unlawful. I’ll go first:

• Venue owners who cancel bookings from gender critical groups are now legally the same as Pontins when they cancelled a load of bookings from presumed Travellers.

• The Labour CLPs that threw out women for having gender critical views are now legally the same as the Labour CLPs that refused to process applications from Jewish people.

• Cafes that display signs saying “No TERFS” are now legally the same as cafes that display signs saying “No blacks, dogs or Irish”.

WE KNOW.
I do find it mildly hilarious that we on FWR have been spending the past year or so telling TRAs that have insisted Maya winning will mean "anyone will be free to harass trans people" that of course it won't, because it's about the right to hold the belief, not how it is manifested, as detailed IN MAYA'S OWN ARGUMENT.

And now we're getting it mansplained back to us!

WEEEE KNOOOOOOWWWW ! WE TOOOOOOLD YOUUUUU!!

@NiceGerbil

I must admit I don't understand how knowing that biological sex exists in mammals and there's male and female is a belief TBH

Biological sex is a fact. The belief is that biological sex is politically important, and is not capable of being overridden or replaced by gender identity.

@Tibtom

You can hold gender ideological views, but you cannot go round and forcing colleagues speech or disrespect them in other ways that go against dignity and respect in the workplace.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

So much misrepresentation of what this case was about on here and on twitter. This is what is going on:

1. Maya claimed she was discriminated against when her contract was not renewed, on grounds of her "religion or belief", which is one of the protected characteristics in the Equality Act. Maya was and is not "on trial" for holding those beliefs or manifesting them.

1. CDC said that they did not believe Maya's views amounted to "religion or belief". The Tribunal agreed. The Appeal Tribunal didn't.

1. If Maya had lost the appeal that would be the end of her case (unless she appealed to the Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court) because she would not be protected from discrimination in the terms of the Equality Act. It was always going to be the case that if she won the substantive issue of whether CDC discriminated against her would have to be decided by a further tribunal hearing.

1. So the next tribunal will proceed to examine whether CDC did in fact discriminate against Maya. I repeat, Maya has not been taken to court for holding her beliefs. It is CDC who have been taken to the tribunal for alleged discrimination.

1. Maya will need to prove on the balance of probability that CDC did not renew her contract because of her beliefs. I'm not privy to all the details of course, but I suspect CDC will will say they did not renew her contract either for some entirely unrelated reason nothing to do with Maya's views, or because Maya's tweets etc were offensive. So whilst there may well be discussion in the next hearing of whether what Maya said was offensive or not, and whether an employer is within its rights to dismiss an employee who makes such statements, I repeat again, Maya is not on trial.

All the TRA's and their allies used to gleefully quote that not worthy respect in a democratic society line at GC woman and now not only is the belief worthy of respect in a democratic society it is protected all we are hearing is "yeah but, no but, misgendering" and complete misunderstandings of the case, the appeal and the law which is of course not unusual coming from them.

Tibtom The Equality Act 2010 does not apply in N Ireland - we have our own legislation (Fair Employment and Treatment Order 1998) that deals with our specific history and in some ways it grants us more support for freedom of belief and religion than the legislation in GB. In Northern Ireland, the Fair Employment and Treatment Order prohibits discrimination, harassment or victimisation on the grounds of religious belief or political opinion.

If I remember my Uni studies correctly, parts of our Fair Employment and Treatment legislation were used as models for elements of the Equality Act 2010.

At any rate, Northern Ireland is part of the ‘United Kingdom’ but not of Great Britain. and we still have our own Equality legislation here e.g Disability Discrimination Act 1995 still applies here unlike GB where DDA 1995 was superseded by the Equality Act 2010. We also have:

Sex Discrimination (Northern Ireland) Order 1976 (Amended 1988)
Equal Pay Act (Northern Ireland) 1970 (Amended 1984)
Race Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1997
Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (NI) 2006

Hope this is of interest

Forgot to mention we also have legislation that protects against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation too.

For anyone who might be interested in N Ireland’s equality legislation, here’s a quick overview:

www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/diversity-and-discrimination

I found The EAT’s detailed judgement today, re Maya’s appeal, interesting and I’m glad the original ruling was overturned. When I read the original ruling, I was surprised at the Judge’s reasoning and his finding - today’s ruling makes much more sense in terms of the Equality Act and Human Rights Act. I still have reservations about how much influence the Equal Treatment Bench Book has on the way judgements are reached - it gets quoted a lot in both the original and the appeal findings for Maya’s case. If the Bench Book was written with input from organisations that hold the opinion that Gender Critical beliefs are wrong, then I have concerns about its impartiality.

Thanks for explaining this, SecondGent. "Biological sex is a fact. The belief is that biological sex is politically important, and is not capable of being overridden or replaced by gender identity."

I was boggling about how sex could be construed as insignificant, so this whole thing had to be argued on freedom of belief.

But I guess I missed the wrinkle about political importance. I could never have been a lawyer.

In any case, thank everyone who worked on it and Maya for enabling sense to prevail.

This judgment does not mean that those with gender-critical beliefs can ‘misgender’
trans persons with impunity.

Would this also apply to the use of cis for those of us who reject gender?

I suspect CDC will will say they did not renew her contract either for some entirely unrelated reason nothing to do with Maya's views, or because Maya's tweets etc were offensive.

I suspect they will find this quite hard to substantiate, given how much time they spent in the original tribunal explaining exactly how problematic they found her views, and how much international consternation they were causing.

They spent the whole first case saying how appalling her views were and why they justified her firing...

They went all-in on the assumption they could get the case dropped at that stage. I don't believe they can realistically fight the second stage now, unless the tribunal ignores all previous evidence they've given, and Maya can't resubmit it.

Thanks from me too. I was struggling with understanding how biological fact of two human sexes can be a ‘belief’ when it’s just observable provable reality. That is: It doesn’t matter if I believe in biological sex or not, still a real thing ,whatever I think.
Equally that it doesn’t matter if I believe in gender or not, it’s still an article of human-made changeable personally-held belief or faith whatever I think of it... gender doesn’t meet any objective test of being reality.

Still can’t quite follow then how it’s held to be a ‘belief’ that reality can’t be overridden by x or y other belief... because there isn’t any reality in which belief can override or replace that reality... there’s only a belief system in which that can happen. Which isn’t a reality obviously. They’re like oil and water.

And we have to live in reality or we’re all collectively fucked surely? Without reality norms we don’t have society? So many things wouldnt work if belief trumped reality. However I will keep on boggling on all this and read the judgment which I haven’t done yet.

Thanks for explaining around NI Utopia I hadn’t clocked the distinction properly. I had assumed the NI ‘gay cake’ case was directly applicable here (I’m in England) but maybe it isn’t then?

Thank you Heidi really helpful to have a summary before I try to catch up on all this over the weekend.

And so grateful to you if you’re reading, Maya

Thank you @UtopiaPlanitia for that wonderful explanation on NI equality legislation! As an NI woman, I've always struggled with the difference, and felt on the back foot when trying to discuss sex as a protected characteristic.

I still have reservations about how much influence the Equal Treatment Bench Book has on the way judgements are reached - it gets quoted a lot in both the original and the appeal findings for Maya’s case. If the Bench Book was written with input from organisations that hold the opinion that Gender Critical beliefs are wrong, then I have concerns about its impartiality.

Why is this included at all? Did it pass through parliameny? Or is it in effect an industry guide put together through meetings with lobby groups? Can anything be done to address this?

@CardinalLolzy

WE KNOW. I do find it mildly hilarious that we on FWR have been spending the past year or so telling TRAs that have insisted Maya winning will mean "anyone will be free to harass trans people" that of course it won't, because it's about the right to hold the belief, not how it is manifested, as detailed IN MAYA'S OWN ARGUMENT.

And now we're getting it mansplained back to us!

WEEEE KNOOOOOOWWWW ! WE TOOOOOOLD YOUUUUU!!

Quite!

Great question about the ‘cis’ thing.

Does the judgment mean that we can reject gender idealogy being imposed on us as women, by our employers or a public body or private company or charity?

And, does this mean organisations can change all those high-handed gender-jargon references in their public information documents like the charities and NHS bodies to ‘people who menstruate’ or ‘people with a cervix’ when at the same time they omit to use the word ‘woman’ at all. Will these organisations need to change them back to read ‘women and anyone who [exclusively female biological function xyz’?

Can we use this judgment which presumably comments clearly on belief and reality as another reason to complain when we’re only offered ‘gender’ in official surveys when they actually mean to gather information on biological sex? (Fine to ask about gender beliefs if you want to know about that- but it’s not a substitute for biological sex information. And it’s not OK not to gather sex statistics at all. Nor is it OK to fudge the data results by using ‘gender’ when you mean sex and want sex data. Quite understandably some people will give a gender identity answer if asked a ‘gender’ question. )

Does this judgment create any tension with the contents of the Gender Recognition Act? The GRA legally ‘recognises’ that you can change sex on paper for legal purposes, which is a recognition that then places specific and serious requirements on other people in society?

Would this judgment help us to get the word ‘gender’ struck out of other UK laws where biological sex is clearly meant as the meaning, for the avoidance of doubt?

@NiceGerbil

It's an English case so I think probably nothing? They have their own laws around this stuff.

Of course it might well encourage Scots to bring their own legal challenges.

That's my guess, I don't actually know.

Equality Act is UK wide so applies in Scotland, and decision of EAT should be binding precedent

@EndoplasmicReticulum

Does Mumsnet have to undo a few bannings?

Was just coming to ask this.

I having to scrutinise how I word things on a platform for women is exhausting.

I'm running out of "grateful for the space to talk" ness.

Ive also been thinking of women like Prof Michele Moore and how she's been frequently de platformed for her safeguarding research on yp, trans and the harm.

A friend is an academic who knows her in a professional capacity but also know other academics local to Michele who've according to my friend expressed huge concern about presenting at conferences along side her on other matters, which, given the safeguarding context of her work is absolutely bonkers.

Does the judgment mean that we can reject gender idealogy being imposed on us as women, by our employers or a public body or private company or charity?

I don't think it particularly helps there. Maybe if there are areas where there are rules about things being "secular", but we're not a country like the US where the are things in the constitution about the government not imposing beliefs. The UK is full of religious nonsense in the public domain.

If someone wants to run their org in a religious (gender) way, they largely can, they just can't discriminate against non-believers, treating them worse than believers.

There will have to be other cases (like the one about the census, and maybe a future one about pay gaps) where we pin down whether things are supposed to be actual sex, legal sex, or "gender".

Stuff like sports being gender-segregated can be fought on the grounds of sex discrimination - it disadvantages women.

And, does this mean organisations can change all those high-handed gender-jargon references in their public information documents like the charities and NHS bodies to ‘people who menstruate’ or ‘people with a cervix’ when at the same time they omit to use the word ‘woman’ at all. Will these organisations need to change them back to read ‘women and anyone who [exclusively female biological function xyz’?

Just as an aside, I was having a discussion about nhs/ charity medical literature and words, lack of word woman but men get to keep it etc. Someone working in the nhs said they'd never seen this. I checked cancer research and government websites and although there is some inclusive language, including transmen for example, the word woman was repeatedly there.

Are there currently nhs leaflets and official medical charities who use the "mentruators" language, or has this stopped now thanks to discussions and women pointing it out?

I seem to remember a maternity unit going gender neutral but I'm not sure what happened in the end.

I wish I'd taken a photo of two leaflets on the wall of my Gp's, one on cervical cancer omitting woman and one on prostate cancer using men all the way a couple of years ago.

So I know it's happened. But is it still the case? (I'd love current examples!)

@NecessaryScene

I suspect CDC will will say they did not renew her contract either for some entirely unrelated reason nothing to do with Maya's views, or because Maya's tweets etc were offensive.

I suspect they will find this quite hard to substantiate, given how much time they spent in the original tribunal explaining exactly how problematic they found her views, and how much international consternation they were causing.

They spent the whole first case saying how appalling her views were and why they justified her firing...

They went all-in on the assumption they could get the case dropped at that stage. I don't believe they can realistically fight the second stage now, unless the tribunal ignores all previous evidence they've given, and Maya can't resubmit it.

I’m definitely interested in seeing how this progresses.

They went all in on part one - her beliefs are OFFENSIVE!

Which makes it difficult to argue part two - but of course, we didn’t let her contract expire because of those irrelevant, insignificant beliefs that we just spent two days telling you were completely unacceptable in the workplace. It was...er....something else

Hard to play that one both ways.

Am also interested for what this means for the much vaunted bench book. It needs to be updated with these newly articulated protections for people who don’t share the beliefs it was written to protect, surely?

Does the judgment mean that we can reject gender idealogy being imposed on us as women, by our employers or a public body or private company or charity?

Well, I just said "I don't think it helps", but that's obviously wrong. It doesn't help directly, but it puts people in a position where they can fight to change such policies, and organisations will not be able to just chuck them out for wrongthink.

That's very important.

@DeRigueurMortis

I want to know if that means we can decline to attend presentations at work from Mermaids, Stonewall etc

Excellent point @DeRigueurMortis

@Tibtom The Equal Treatment Bench Book is an ever evolving document that a panel of judges and others amend on a rolling basis. It is guidance to the judiciary on ensure procedural fairness. I imagine that it will be updated again in light of this judgement.

Im looking at an nhs maternity unit; mother and women don't exist in words. So it's all gender neutral. The term "female anatomy is used." And patients.

Breastfeeding is used but there's a whole section on inclusive language too.