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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Maya Forstater hearing starts Monday

999 replies

MForstater · 06/03/2022 15:28

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 Hmm.

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

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
Sophoclesthefox · 15/03/2022 11:59

@nauticant

LE: I didn't understand that belief was protected under UK law at the time I was involved in the decision-making.
Oooft.
EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 15/03/2022 12:00

@nauticant

The list of attendees to the teleconference is certainly growing. Quite a few recognisable names in there.
Is it a good spread from all the interested parties and perspectives?

(I've rarely more regretted that work is back to back so I don't have any capacity to dip in and out.)

nauticant · 15/03/2022 12:01

I was condensing what tabbycatstripy laid out in proper detail Sophoclesthefox.

tabbycatstripy · 15/03/2022 12:01

BC: Read out 'My issue is not that she expressed an unpopular view...' (roughly). You are aware that people express opinions on controversial or unpopular things all the time?

LE: Yes. People don't come to me offended often.

BC: 'Standing by her inflammatory rhetoric' is a reference to her reply?

LE: Yes.

BC: That a transwoman is not a woman?

LE: Yes. It felt inflammatory.

BC: You describe the renewal of her VF as a question of whether to hire her?

LE: Yes.

BC: In US terms, that means just engage.

LE: Yes. We hire consultants.

BC: US dictionaries all put it as employing someone.

LE: That's the dictionary but in practice it's broader than that.

BC: Even if we use engage, that's still revealing. You've been trying to present the VF as honorific. But it's not, is it?

LE: I don't agree with you.

tabbycatstripy · 15/03/2022 12:01

(Break from me.)

Datun · 15/03/2022 12:02

@tabbycatstripy

LE might include BC in his dating pool... Imagine if these two go out for a bite to eat after the session. BC would order a hamburger and LE would find that offensive. BC would ask whether LE was hungry and LE would say he didn't know.
I don't know why, but that has so tickled me. It just encompasses the whole nonsense. Very funny.

🤣🤣🤣

bishophaha · 15/03/2022 12:02

BC: So if you are going to act on complaints from staff, you should take the trouble to really understand claimant's views.
LE: I thought we had

By skimming an article? You didn't think that. You said you hadn't understood her views.

nauticant · 15/03/2022 12:03

For those who have chosen a non-anonymous online identity EmbarrassingHadrosaurus, the most noticeable are journalists, lawyers, and activists, with a gender critical slant.

tabbycatstripy · 15/03/2022 12:04

BC: MF sent you her blog. Makes clear she isn't pushing strongly for it to be at CGD. She's trying to write it clearly without giving offence but says it is necessarily exclusionary because male excludes female and vice versa. It's clear why she's writing it. She would like your comment and it's fair in the circumstances.

LE: It's not how I interpreted the receipt of the blog.

BC: She's not trying to persuade you. The heading of the blog and conclusions are primarily focused on arguing that this is a topic on which there is legitimate debate. No?

LE: Yes, but there were lines about predatory men, drawing comparisons between TW and predatory men. No-one had ever sent me a blog before and I inferred that she was advocating for its publishing.

BC: It is not a proselytising blog. It is a blog from a particular point of view setting out the issues and inviting discussion.

LE: I disagree.

BC:

nauticant · 15/03/2022 12:07

BC: if you take comments about 98% of sexual crime being committed by men to be an attack on all men, that would be an MRA position.

LE: [avoids engaging with the question]

tabbycatstripy · 15/03/2022 12:07

BC: The point you just made about predatory...

LE: reads: 'There are predatory men who would exploit and do harm.'

BC: You haven't referred to this before. Is this the fearmongering?

LE: Yes.

BC: This is revealing. Do you understand MF's point in her blog and elsewhere is that there are two parts to the reasons for same-sex spaces. The first is that most crimes of SV are committed by men and so women need safe spaces. Understand?

LE: Now, yes.

BC: You understand that saying that doesn't mean all men are predators? That's an MRA argument. Yes?

LE: No, I haven't considered that. I don't know the right wing arguments.

BC: You understand that to say men commit most sexual violence, so that we should have safe spaces, isn't the same as saying all men are predators?

LE: Yes, but I didn't take that distinction from the blog.

BC: But do you understand the proposition?

LE: I'm confused.

BC: Do you understand (repeats).

Sophoclesthefox · 15/03/2022 12:07

@nauticant

I was condensing what tabbycatstripy laid out in proper detail Sophoclesthefox.
Oh, ok, gotcha! I misunderstood. Thought it was a bit blunt Grin
Datun · 15/03/2022 12:08

It appears as though they were offended by a protected belief and were subsequently discriminatory on the basis of that offence.

The fact they didn't know it was a protected belief doesn't matter I assume.

Surely they're banged to rights. They're admitting it.

And they still appear to think that they can discriminate because they still find it offensive!

nauticant · 15/03/2022 12:11

BC: do you know that most transwomen are intact males?

LE: I don't know. I don't know the statistics.

Datun · 15/03/2022 12:11

@tabbycatstripy

BC: The point you just made about predatory...

LE: reads: 'There are predatory men who would exploit and do harm.'

BC: You haven't referred to this before. Is this the fearmongering?

LE: Yes.

BC: This is revealing. Do you understand MF's point in her blog and elsewhere is that there are two parts to the reasons for same-sex spaces. The first is that most crimes of SV are committed by men and so women need safe spaces. Understand?

LE: Now, yes.

BC: You understand that saying that doesn't mean all men are predators? That's an MRA argument. Yes?

LE: No, I haven't considered that. I don't know the right wing arguments.

BC: You understand that to say men commit most sexual violence, so that we should have safe spaces, isn't the same as saying all men are predators?

LE: Yes, but I didn't take that distinction from the blog.

BC: But do you understand the proposition?

LE: I'm confused.

BC: Do you understand (repeats).

Fucking hell. This man is in HR, right?

These are all the TRA arguing points coming up one after the other.

Ben Cooper is getting to blow up TRA rhetoric on a plate.

tabbycatstripy · 15/03/2022 12:13

BC: Do you understand another reason is not to do with the risk of a man going in and abusing the women, but that some women have had serious experiences in SV from men?

LE: Are you asking if I understand that some women have experienced SV?

BC: Yes.

LE: Yes.

BC: And in rape crisis centres, those women need spaces where they feel safe.
LE: Yes.

BC: Do you understand and agree that lots of women experience lower levels of those things?

LE: Yes.

BC: Do you understand lots of women therefore value same sex spaces as places where they can feel safe?

LE: Yes.

BC: Do you understand that the point GCs make is that maintaining those safe spaces, even excluding transwomen, isn't about saying transwomen pose a particular risk?

LE: That's not my understanding. I interpret it as the presence of a TW in a single sex space makes them uncomfortable.

BC: You're right about that. Do you understand that two harms need to be balanced? The potential harm a TW may feel when she isn't allowed in a space?

LE: Yes.

BC: Do you know that most TW are intact males?

LE: No.

BC: Do you agree with me that although we are all careful to respect TW identities, many people still see the physical characteristics of a male body and a male person in a TW?

LE: I don't know what they see.

BC: That's the point isn't it? Everyone has a perception. But lots of people experience the material reality of that person and see male characteristics?

LE: You're asking me for someone else's perception?

BC: But you are very keen on it being offensive to challenge someone else's perception. There may be lots of women who are perfectly comfortable sharing a same sex space with TW. But MF's point is that there are also lots who don't. That doesn't make them bigots. Do you understand?

LE: I understand that's MF's view.

BC: Do you not understand that that's not the same as implying there is a particular risk from TW?

LE: That's not what's in the blog.

Waitwhat23 · 15/03/2022 12:14

LE doesn't seem to be well informed on any subject at all, to be honest. If I was in his position, I would have read as many sources of information as I could have got my hands on to avoid the embarrassment of 'I don't know' or 'I don't understand'.

OvaHere · 15/03/2022 12:14

LE really does know nothing, doesn't he? How is it possible to be a senior HR person and know so little about the world around you? Hmm

nauticant · 15/03/2022 12:14

I've lost count of the number of times that BC has found another way to express that just because someone at CGD finds something offensive, then in the view of CGD it must be offensive by definition, that it must be universally offensive. That is, that CGD are blinkered by their own prejudices.

SallyLockheart · 15/03/2022 12:16

Ben Cooper is amazing

Ereshkigalangcleg · 15/03/2022 12:17

LE: I didn't understand that belief was protected under UK law at the time I was involved in the decision-making.

Why didn't LE inform himself of the legal position in the area this specific employee was in? We're not subject to US employment law in this country.

tabbycatstripy · 15/03/2022 12:17

BC: That's exactly what's in the blog. 'Some women may feel quite comfortable with these things... But not all women do.' (Reads from the blog.) Even women who fall outside these groups should have the right to single sex spaces and privacy. Not the same as saying any man who identifies as a woman is doing so with ill intent.

LE: That point doesn't stand alone in the blog.

BC: It says there are predatory men. Not predatory TW. Predatory men who might exploit a new law. That's not an irrational fear, is it? Sexual crimes committed overwhelmingly by men. Yes?

LE: Yes.

BC: Men who are determined to get access to women do do dishonest things, don't they?

LE: I don't know. Are you implying men are going to dress up as women? I don't find that credible.

BC: You really don't think that's a legitimate concern?

LE: Sounds like fearmongering to me.

BC: If it is, it's not fearmongering about TW, is it? It's about men.

LE: It's implicit.

OvaHere · 15/03/2022 12:17

@nauticant

I've lost count of the number of times that BC has found another way to express that just because someone at CGD finds something offensive, then in the view of CGD it must be offensive by definition, that it must be universally offensive. That is, that CGD are blinkered by their own prejudices.
And that women can't possibly, legitimately find anything offensive ever. It's just not a thing that happens in LE's universe.
tabbycatstripy · 15/03/2022 12:17

(Right, have to have a break now!)

Distractable · 15/03/2022 12:18

I wonder whether being cross examined like this will make LE question his own beliefs. How can he possibly keep it up when it's so clearly demonstrated to be nonsense?
And how did you become GC Luke? Under cross examination in an employment tribunal...