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

I think there's a real push atm to make any reference to "male" in relation to "trans woman" problematic. The idea that trans women shouldn't be described in terms of them being male probably didn't even exist at the time that Maya was tweeting. Things have moved on considerably since then.

This is an excellent point. This stuff moves fast.

Yes, the counsel for the respondent actually challenged Maya on 'male' to refer to TW as being innately offensive. How else is she supposed to express her belief? I don't get it.

@nauticant

We seem to get drawn again and again into the argument that although employers must not discriminate against employees having gender critical views, there's no way in which these can be raised in the work place because some people will be offended. But those people can raise the opposing view because that aligns with the spirit of the age. This is a bad path to go down.

Surely raising GC views in the workplace would include, for instance, objecting to allowing trans women to use the women's loo, raising safeguarding concerns regarding trans people's sleeping arrangements on any overnight stay with shared accommodation? We see people asking questions about this continuously on this forum.

I personally was teaching an RSE class on honour based killings this week and refused to refer to murdered women as 'people with vulvas'.

So when it comes to the question of holding views is fine, you just can't express them yadda yadda.... Well, how does someone express these views in the above scenarios and still keep their job, then?

@tabbycatstripy

Maybe counsel could ask them that: how could MF have expressed her core beliefs, in the workplace and where relevant, without being regarded as so 'problematic' that she had to leave the organisation? What could she have actually said that would not have led to this situation?

Exactly. This is becoming the pertinent question!

You can't, rabbitwoman. This is all about reducing the range of your speech until you can't reasonably object to practices that require you to go against your own beliefs. You can't say you're not comfortable saying 'people with vulvas', because of course that is the accurate and inclusive term!

'Inclusive' itself needs to be challenged. No, it is not inclusive to make women and girls feel like an assembly of random body parts and then abuse them for their objections. It's misogyny.

I should have made clearer what I was saying rabbitwoman. The "reducing the range of your speech until you can't reasonably object to practices that require you to go against your own beliefs" (thanks tabbycatstripy) is what's being pitched in court by the QC for CGD and is being repeated by some on this thread. The big question is whether the Employment Tribunal will be awake enough and assertive enough to realise that they're seeing an over-reach that tramples over the favourable decision MF got in the High Court.

That's right, nauticant. CDG are relying explicitly on arguments that contradict the established judgment of the High Court: they are continuing to argue as if MF's stated beliefs are inherently transphobic. If they were not, they would not object to her use of the word 'male' for male people, or express their opposition to the view that, through being directed to participate in work activities as if she does believe in gender identity when she doesn't, she, and not necessarily anyone with a sex-incongruent 'gender identity', is being subjected to a hostile working environment.

Ahhhhh. I see nauticant - but it is a frustratingly complex case.

I have always thought that fairness, via a tribunal, was inaccessible for so many not just because of the cost but because it is so hard to understand. Believe me - I have been through two tribunals, that you really would have thought were open and shut cases but when you actually wade through the legalise and jargon, I was surprised by how little protection an average person really does have at work.

It does scare me to think that a short while ago I could have been sacked for refusing to say 'people with vulvas'. But worse, the people who think 'people with vulvas' is the correct and appropriate phrasing to use are the ones with flags and Stonewall posters in their classrooms. What am I allowed to display in my classroom?

Seeing this kind of policing of speech taking place in a court case, a context where the ability to speak in your own terms and to be understood by those hearing you, is astonishing to me.

What's even more astonishing is that in court cases not related to gender identity ideology, it would be possible to raise this as a significant problem, but I suspect that Ben Cooper is grinding his teeth over this while realising that if he kicks up a fuss his client will run the risk of being punished.

'Seeing this kind of policing of speech taking place in a court case, a context where the ability to speak in your own terms and to be understood by those hearing you, is astonishing to me.'

Yes. OD is like, 'But what is wrong with being separated by gender identity? Why would you mind just going along with the culture of the organisation?'

Because she doesn't have one and that is a protected belief. It's like asking an atheist to go along with a system where they separate by faith. 'But why aren't you happy saying whether you're Jewish or Christian? What's wrong with that?'

Then when MF points this out, she gets incredulousness. 'How is that the same?'

Because it plainly is. She can't say she has a male gender identity, a female gender identity, a non-binary gender identity or a fluid gender identity (and I BET, actually, there were not as many groups as there are - purportedly - gender identities in the sessions). She just doesn't have one!

Brilliant contributions from the women here. Making mincemeat out of CDGs argument.

There were a number of times when OD put a question to MF and you could see MF was stumped because she could see a straightforward answer would go down very badly and so had to go around the houses to answer it in another way. Watching this put me in mind of the Maria MacLachlan case, except here MF is understandably playing the political game demanded of her.

She was stumped because the honest answer, in line with the belief that has actually been protected, was being treated as the 'gotcha' question.

OD was basically saying, 'But you say MALE instead of transwoman and that's offensive. Do you not accept that is offensive?'

No! :)

@tabbycatstripy

She was stumped because the honest answer, in line with the belief that has actually been protected, was being treated as the 'gotcha' question.

OD was basically saying, 'But you say MALE instead of transwoman and that's offensive. Do you not accept that is offensive?'

No! :)

A transwoman might be offended if thought of as male, and I'm offended if they're thought of as female.

🤷‍♂️

The point is, you can't fire someone because of it.

Exactly. She is entitled to think they are male and - without harassing anyone or creating a hostile environment for them - she is entitled to say so. CGD are not entitled to say 'TWAW' is their work culture and therefore her legal rights are irrelevant.

@tabbycatstripy

Exactly. She is entitled to think they are male and - without harassing anyone or creating a hostile environment for them - she is entitled to say so. CGD are not entitled to say 'TWAW' is their work culture and therefore her legal rights are irrelevant.

Exactly. There are two protected beliefs, but they are acting as though there is only one. In a massively one-sided way, at that.

Well you can think that, but woe betide you if you say it, meanwhile, we're all bells and whistles out for transgenderism.

Nope.

You can almost imagine this being used as an example for legal students, say 50 years ago. That they would have to come up with a valid defense or prosecution case involving the idea that a man could change into a woman. It’s so ludicrous it’s almost laughable but welcome to 2022.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

Maya must be wishing to pull her hair out.

Snort

@tabbycatstripy

She was stumped because the honest answer, in line with the belief that has actually been protected, was being treated as the 'gotcha' question.

OD was basically saying, 'But you say MALE instead of transwoman and that's offensive. Do you not accept that is offensive?'

No! :)

It is offensive solely because the male person does not want to hear it.

Is there a legal obligation to protect selected others from realities they don't wish to be reminded of? Professor Umbridge had it all backwards didn't she? I Must Tell Lies.

'It is offensive solely because the male person does not want to hear it.'

Yes. We are being expected to lie to protect the feelings of others and that is unethical and unjustifiable on every level.

'People with vulvas': who decides what particular body part is to be used at what moment in time?

I am a vulva... better to stick with I am a woman. I don't suppose men want to say I am a penis.

@WearyLady

'People with vulvas': who decides what particular body part is to be used at what moment in time?

Quite.

It turns out, in fact that “people with vulvas” can refer only to women and girls, as it transpires that transmen, who are supposed to be the group gaining inclusion by this torturous, demeaning language, don’t like being referred to as such, either. Whodathunk?

And transwomen won’t thank you for being scooped into the group of “people with penises” should anyone happen to be under the impression that that language is suitably inclusive (not that anyone ever does use it).

It’s not really intended to increase inclusion, it’s meant to signal conformity to the belief system. It doesn’t have to make actual sense to do that.

The analysis here is spot on, thank you everyone. I hope Maya’s team are having similar discussions (or maybe even reading here? ) The framing of the debate has become clear: they are attempting to impose far greater controls and limitations on the speech and actions of gender critical people in the workplace than was already established in the first part of the case.

It’s quite outrageous, really. It’s nothing we haven’t seen on here before, though.

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.
If only you weren’t quite so extreme.
Let’s start the conversation with the understanding that TWAW, ok?
I know what you’re really thinking, even though you didn’t actually say it.
Etc etc.

But when am I a 'person with a vulva' as opposed to a 'cervix-havre'? I'd hate to get this wrong for fear of causing offence.

Cervix-haver'