Maya Forstater hearing starts Monday

[MForstater]

Hi all,

Thank you so much for all your support: emotional, intellectual, financial, spiritual(!) reading the Mumsnet feminism board is where this all started for me!

The case starts tomorrow.

It is all online. If you want to watch you need to email the tribunal for a log in to [email protected]

It kicks off at 10am - the first bit will be "admin" between the judges and the lawyers working out the timings, issues and any reporting restrictions .

Once that is all sorted the judge and the panel will go away to read (probably for the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday)

I will most likely give evidence Wednesday and Thursday.

@tribunaltweets will be tweeting the whole thing (assuming they get permission from the judge)

Links to papers will go up throughout the case at www.hiyamaya.net.

Any other questions I am happy to answer them (apart from the ones where I have to say "that is for the tribunal to hear"...)

I have made a spectators guide with FAQs etc here

Lots of love

Maya

BC says this is a legitimate academic, philosophical and public policy debate. Does LE agree? Suggests LE is very reluctant to accept his characterisation of the debate as legitimate. LE disagrees that he is prejudiced. BC asks does LE agree that there is legitimate debate about these issues?

LE is struggling to understand (his own words).

Now LE agrees that there is legitimate debate.

He made the deliberate decision not to attempt to understand Maya's views. Fair enough, but then he shouldn't have had any input into how she was treated because of views he deliberately chose to misunderstand.

BC suggests this legitimate debate includes the case of Pips Bunce as an example of the problems that emerge if you conflate sex and gender.

BC says that when LE says one of the things that most struck him was the misgendering of Pips Bunce, is LE not really saying that there is no legit debate?

LE: That's not what I'm saying.

BC asks whether LE was 'taken to task' at CGD for not understanding, and whether he was told to go back and look at the tweets again with the correct viewpoint.

LE denies this and says he made up his own mind.

BC says LE was clearly prompted to go back and reconsider.

LE agrees but says he came to his own conclusions.

BC says LE was given the correct and proper line.

LE denies this.

Women with opinions = offensive.
Women discussing those opinions = offensive.
Women who get angry = offensive.
Women discussing stories that are in the news = offensive
Women describing a man exactly as he describes himself = offensive
Women's tone when talking = offensive
But even if a woman uses a 'nice' tone = that's still offensive.

Why won't you STOP thinking things and stfu women?!

Sounds like a toxic place to work.

BC says LE emailed the core group to suggest interim steps: one, say to complainants that he was going to engage in a dialogue with MF and reiterate that her position isn't that of CGD, and two, raise the issue with MF and tell her that it is about tone, and tell her there is a difference between her position and CGD's.

LE says yes.

This is painful to read.

I'm currently painting and decorating wearing work trousers that belonged to my son and an old shirt that belonged to my partner. Am I now a man? Just asking ..,

BC and LE discussing LE's references to MF's tweets about 'material reality'. BC suggests LE didn't taken the opportunity to understand what MF meant about how 'material reality' affects women, in policy terms.

LE says he took a thoughtful and measured approach.

BC says LE brought his own prejudices to bear, in deciding that any indication that someone doesn't believe a transwoman to be a woman is evidence that they are denying someone's reality.

but your subconcsious /unconscous bias is what we have to explore at tribunal

And how...

regardless of the strength of Maya's case in other areas such as employment status, this is painful to observe. Is LE that stupid or just totally captured by gender nonsense?

LE says he is not prejudiced to say that that statement is offensive.

BC asks whether LE agrees that his own position is that any statement to the effect that a transwoman isn't a woman is transphobic, bigoted and offensive.

LE says that statement is offensive.

BC again suggests LE had been prompted to go back and comb MF's tweets with that in mind. LE says no.

BC comes to Mr Ahmed agreeing with LE's proposals with regards to MF. LE then drafted an email. LE agrees.

BC asks whether LE uses the same example (material reality) from MF's tweets, calling it an inflammatory and exclusionary statement. LE agrees.

BC says LE says CGD did have an institutional position on how perceptions of gender may not correspond to sex. BC says it's not just a policy to treat people according to preferences, but that it is an institutional position on the nature of womanhood.

LE says this isn't an institutional position on womanhood. He again tries to differentiate between an internal and external position.

BC says this isn't what his email says. LE's draft email (that MF never saw) says MF's beliefs were contrary to CGD's institutional position.

LE says he only does internal work.

I don't think LE is stupid at all but he does come across as totally captured, even to the extent of saying things in his testimony that are damaging to CGD because he knows that the alternative, to go against the orthodoxy, is unthinkable, and certainly unsayable.

BC says that part of the draft was taken out because CGD doesn't take institutional positions.

BC says LE also wrote to the complainants. He told them he had contacted MF to say her views were contrary to CGD's views. LE says he discussed with MF that her use of inflammatory and exclusionary language is unacceptable.

BC summarises the complainants as being happy with this response. LE says yes, they thanked him.

This is a riveting example of organisational capture. It is quite astounding when you see it laid out like this. And the completely unbalanced position.

Luke Easley-Misled, apparently

BC asks LE whether he agrees that nobody thought MF had failed to do what she had been asked to do. LE says he thought MF's response was 'problematic', but she did what she had been asked to do.

BC reiterates: was she perceived to have done what was asked of her?

LE says yes.

BC says LE said in an email that MF's response was indicative of the risk she posed in the workplace in relation to misgendering and humiliating transpeople.

@bishophaha

Ironically my post just now was hidden, because I used a word that is offensive here but ok in the US, as an example of US/UK language differences. Eg "scheme" usually means something nefarious in the US whereas it's neutral here. Was wondering if LE's offence at "cross-dressing" was similar.

I'm intrigued to know the word! Can you give a synonym? Or general area. On the language of racial issues America pushes the new language and we are a bit behind. On disability issues America seems behind us on the language, and common words sound old fashioned here.

I do wonder what a British judge is going to think about this pearl clutching about the term 'cross dresser'. Presumably depends on the judge. But there's even the cultural trope here of High court judges cross dressing at the weekends. I don't think the terminology brings the shame that LE thinks.

Here in Britain 'gender fluid' appears to us as a new name for something old. But maybe in the states its just a new phenomenon?

BC points out that MF said she had no intention of misgendering people in the workplace.

BC asks whether LE is calling MF a liar.

LE says MF said differently in her response (when she said transwomen are men and she will continue to say this). LE says he thought MF was trying to advance her beliefs and persuade him of them.

BC says that is an argument after the event to try to justify their response to MF.

BC says it's clear on any fair and objective reading that MF was trying to 1) explain her beliefs and 2) explain why the debate is legitimate.

LE says no to both.

BC refers to proselytisation - LE says it's clear to him that MF was proselytising.

BC points out that to explain your belief you have to present the arguments for them, and says it is false to characterise MF as proselytising.

LE disagrees.

BC says again, LE brought his own prejudice to bear to say MF was pushing her own bigoted views.

LE disagrees again. He says he was thoughtful and measured.

BC points out that nobody replies to MF to say her response was unacceptable.

LE says correct.