Goldfish, eh

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

divamag.co.uk/2021/06/11/a-minor-but-inconsequential-victory-director-of-transactual-and-chair-of-trans-media-watch-reflects-on-the-maya-forstater-case/

Our old friend and extreme porn advocate Jane Fae has been commissioned by Diva magazine to pontificate about the Maya Forstater case. You'll all be amazed to hear Jane thinks it doesn't matter very much. See interesting analogy below, concerning an overexcited and overindulged daughter. Jane, of course, has a daughter and chose the night before daughter's AS level exams to break the news of Jane's transition, so Jane knows all about picking your moment to tell your daughter potentially upsetting news.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/18/gender-dysmorphia-daughter-dad-woman

*
There is a familiar energy to yesterday’s case. It’s been a long day at the fair. Mummy and daddy have spent loads of money – and half the afternoon – on the hoopla. Eventually, their efforts pay off. As they collect their prize, their precious princess is over-joyed.

“Mummy!”, she proclaims proudly: “a goldfish!”

She doesn’t mind that it’s a lop-sided, incontinent goldfish. Or that all the other little boys and girls got one too. Today, she is a winner.

“Shall we tell her?”, daddy whispers in the car home.

“No”. Mummy shakes her head. “Let her have her dreams. For now.”

As goldfish, so legal verdicts. Yesterday was a minor but otherwise inconsequential victory for transphobes and evangelicals. But unless the tribunal decides that personal belief gives you the right to hassle work colleagues and clients it is a hollow one, destined, in time, for that great toilet bowl in the sky.

Which, after all, is the ultimate destiny awaiting goldfish and bad laws everywhere.
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I can't see the analogy and the goldfish story is incomprehensible even without reaching for any analogy. (Are there continent goldfish? Everyone won or it took half a day's time and effort - which?)

It's drivel

Yes, that about sums it up.

Fact-free, overemotional, bad faith drivel. It's all they have.

What age group read Diva? I am old enough to know about goldfish as prizes but wasn’t that a long time ago?

Oh c'mon, I love it. Finish this sentence.

Defensive patronising is the hall mark of ...........

That eas commissioned? Somebody paid for it? I would have asked for my money back. Or flushed it down the loo.

If we compare that to Peter Daly's excellent piece looking at the potential implications of Maya's win I feel quite embarrassed for Fae and Diva for thinking such drivel will cut it any more.

It says so much about them as a person doesn’t it? And yes, telling their own daughter on the eve of significant exams is telling too…

What are Fae's qualifications, or expertise, to pronounce that this outcome is minor, or not legally interesting? By what metric does Fae state that it was a 'minor' legal point? To my mind, the judgment was not won on a narrow technicality, but entirely ripped to shreds the lower court's findings. Fae doesn't provide any argumentation to back up the point that this was 'inconsequential'. It's just a bald assertion, something we are meant to accept. Fae says the case is minor, and so it is. Don't ask for reasons.

I find that this links back to the trans activist side's fascination with the postmodern, subversion and identity. If Keira Bell loses her appeal, there aren't going to be many (if any) gender critical feminists shrugging and saying 'it was to be expected. Yes, this is an inconsequential win for the trans side. it's like a dead goldfish, no biggie." Gender critical feminists, rather, will be upset and disappointed because they figure that losing that case actually means something - it has consequences in the real world.

But no, as usual, the trans activists say black is white and up is down - you silly women, this isn't REALLY a win despite Maya winning. And so they just identify that they have won, and they identify the case as never being of much practical import at all, and they retcon reality so that it's always been the case that this was a stupid little case, not worthy of any attention. Ignore the triumphant, salivating with glee, tweets from trans activist last year when Maya lost. I just find it fascinating how they manage to live life like this, so blinkered and stuck in a dream world. Wins are transformed into losses, and important cases are 'inconsequential'.

But unless the tribunal decides that personal belief gives you the right to hassle work colleagues and clients ...
In case anyone missed it, here is an excellent thread from earlier today.

So the goldfish is women’s rights and the writer is getting ready to flush them down the toilet? Sounds about right.

Surely if it was so inconsequential, our favourite extreme porn advocate wouldn't have been commissioned to comment on it.

But no, as usual, the trans activists say black is white and up is down - you silly women, this isn't REALLY a win despite Maya winning. And so they just identify that they have won...,

Nailed it

Is it maybe a story about the ultimate cruelty and futility of lying to #bekind ?

Of course Fae finds it inconsequential. And had the court found against Maya, this would have been the greatest ruling on human interaction since the 10 Commandments.

Maya didn't try to change the law or break the law in her behaviour. No new laws were created in this judgment. The judge merely confirmed what was already set out in the EQA 2010 - Maya's protected right to hold a belief. The parties who have been trying to change, bend and lie about the law are the TRAs.

Hmm. Who to believe here? The lawyer who wrote a clear, eloquent account of why the judgement matters, or the non-lawyer whose main claim to fame is campaigning in support of violent and sadistic pornography?

She doesn’t mind that it’s a lop-sided, incontinent goldfish.

Why the long faeces?

How do you know if a goldfish is incontinent?

I’ve been trying to come up with a punchline to that.

The "incontinent" goldfish is the oddest detail of this odd and self indulgent drivel.

OMG just in case of any doubt - I genuinely didn't mean 'faeces' to be a play on anyone's name. It's a joke I read over on the joke thread that's on chat!

But unless the tribunal decides that personal belief gives you the right to hassle work colleagues and clients it is a hollow one, destined, in time, for that great toilet bowl in the sky.

Misunderstanding? Misrepresentation? Misinformation? Or just believing your own hype?

Maya's tribunal was not about whether she had the right to hassle work colleagues and clients, because she did not do those things.

It was about whether her employer could or could not cease to employ her for stating an opinion outside of work on a proposed law reform and its implications for the rights of a group protected under the Equality Act. A group Maya belongs to.

Maya argued that her employer dismissed her unfairly for exercising her freedom of speech - in her private life = outside of and unrelated to her work - on a protected belief.

The first tribunal said, no, your belief is too extreme to be protected, and so Maya had no right to claim unfair dismissal.

The appeal judge said the first judge applied the law incorrectly and Maya's belief is definitely protected.

And now another tribunal will decide whether Maya was unfairly dismissed for taking part in a public debate and expressing opinions her employer objects to its employees holding even when they are only expressed outside of work.

At no point was there a suggestion of Maya behaving in an unacceptable manner towards colleagues or clients.

I think a lot of them are convinced she's still going to lose because they heard she spent all day misgendering a non-existent trans colleague, which is why she was sacked.

Presumably Fae knows that's not true, but is writing an article that is consistent with that widespread view without saying it explicitly.

Cardinal