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

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

This barrister must surely know that during this interminable process for Maya it has been decreed that nobody has to believe in gender ideology. The belief that nobody can change sex is now explicitly protected in law, thanks to Maya.

I think it's all an act. The barrister seemed utterly incredulous when she asked Maya how it harms her to go along with the separation of men and women (for the purposes of a work break out group exercise) where the groups were split by "gender identity". Maya said it was like being made to pray when you are not religious. The Barrister is pretty sharp and knows every aspect of the case inside out. I think she was feigning incredulity for the benefit of the Judges.

Good luck Maya!

Lots of luck Maya

@NecessaryScene

After it's been established that she has a right to not believe in gender identity, it doesn't seem like a good approach for her former employer to complain about her not believing in gender identity.

Do they remember they're supposed to be demonstrating she wasn't fired for not believing in gender identity?

Exactly!

I was all agog to see how they were going to square the circle of part 1 of the tribunal that “her beliefs are not worthy of respect in a democratic society, and her holding them makes her a terrible person” with the pivot they had to make, having lost on that part, to part 2 of “but of course, that’s absolutely not why we let her go”.

it takes some balls to just…not do that at all I can’t imagine the tribunal will be that easily baffled.

I think the plan from R barrister is to make Maya look a bit paranoid and not up to grips with the main issues

Sending you strength Maya 🤍💜💚

@ATeamAmy

Good luck, Maya. Whatever happens in this tribunal, when history writes the book on the gender shit show, your brave pursuit of your employment rights, and the right to talk about your beliefs and have them respected, will be the moment that turned the tide.

💖

There was also some stuff at the beginning of the day about contacts, job offers, different statuses of "visiting fellows" at ?CDG. So I think the other argument is going to be that they never intended to renew her contact anyway and it has nothing to do with her beliefs about gender.

For what comes across as a dull, dry court case, I am unaccountably moved, tearful.and keenly aware of dominoes falling. Maya, your name will echo for years.

One of these days, I would like to know if Maya was always this rock steady and unflappable under pressure or did all of this make her more so.

"no risk of rape or sexual harassment at work ! "

Is that what was actually said?
Surely not?

Support! 🌟🌟

Following and sending support.

I've just read her witness statement published online, and I may have missed this before, but my jaw literally fell open on reading that the hapless E&D consultants that they tasked to write a report on her also carried out a training session, and when Maya talked to them in the break about her views, and asked whether her friend who was a lesbian should be compelled to consider MTF trans people as sex partners, they responded that it was up to her who she slept with, but she needed to find another label to call herself, "as lesbians include trans women".

Best of luck Maya, totally rooting for you x

@NecessaryScene

After it's been established that she has a right to not believe in gender identity, it doesn't seem like a good approach for her former employer to complain about her not believing in gender identity.

Do they remember they're supposed to be demonstrating she wasn't fired for not believing in gender identity?

Yes, this is what's confusing me! I'm sure they have a good strategy though.

"OD: so you think men are a danger to children?" is some desperate stuff.

I'm watching the sessions as much as I can & sending you all the good vibes Maya. You are doing so well. Keep going. Stay strong. Know behind many of those black boxes on the screen are women rooting for you.

Also women who cannot log in to view it, but on here and on Twitter looking out for updates and sending positive vibes. Plus our daughters who benefit from this cause.

Best of luck!!!

Maya is such an impressive woman. I've seen her give a talk 3 times in real life and chatted to her in the pub a few years ago when she'd just lost her original case, and she was so overwhelmed by just sitting in her living room and watching her crowdfunder go up to, something like £60k in 48 hours?. She's so clear and calm and articulate, ( and humble ) but with a backbone of steel, because she's just speaking the truth, and I think it's just that that gives her the confidence. She never asked for this, to be the postergirl for the Gender Critical Movement, but, my God, we couldn't have asked for a more worthy woman to represent us all.

Also following the sessions. There is no recognition of her right to hold the beliefs she has had legally recognised. It's all 'But surely this is just inclusion?!' Yes: her employer did include some people by allowing meetings to be divided by gender identity. But by forcing MF to participate in those beliefs (and getting rid of her when she wouldn't) they weren't including her. That's the whole point. Not that inclusion of trans people is wrong but that forcing GC people to out themselves or participate in rituals when they don't believe in the underlying concepts is wrong.

There is no recognition of her right to hold the beliefs she has had legally recognised.

I think a potentially fatal problem CGD have here is that almost everyone involved is American, based in Washington DC.

They're in a weird cultural bubble a squillion miles away from the UK legal reality.

Presumably their barrister here is British, and hence maybe more clued up? But are his hands tied by CGD?

Is CGD maybe more interested in being seen to be "pro-trans" and "anti-Maya" than actually winning the case?

Is losing one employment tribunal to one employee not that big a deal for them, so they'd rather continue fighting on the "we're standing up for trans rights/inclusion" bit?

Of course if CGD lose, then that's a big hit for the TRA project as a whole, but that's not their problem. Being seen to heroically lose in a "pro-trans" way is actually good for them.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

I've just read her witness statement published online, and I may have missed this before, but my jaw literally fell open on reading that the hapless E&D consultants that they tasked to write a report on her also carried out a training session, and when Maya talked to them in the break about her views, and asked whether her friend who was a lesbian should be compelled to consider MTF trans people as sex partners, they responded that it was up to her who she slept with, but she needed to find another label to call herself, "as lesbians include trans women".

If you're hired to teach this stuff and somebody points out a systemic flaw in your system, you have limited options…

—Display your personal integrity and be aware that the person to whom you've disclosed your agreement can now use that to disrupt what you're paid to do.

—Accept that you aren't there to train or challenge people or whatever it is these people believe but just to carry out a tickbox exercise to cover HR's back and that you're prepare to propound absurdities that may yet end in atrocities because it's what keeps a roof over your head.

There's quite a grilling of Maya going on by Olivia Dobbie, counsel for CGD.

Maya just corrected Olivia Dobbie for misgendering Clair Quentin!

Classic. Counsel for the respondent just misgendered someone and Maya corrected them