Maya Forstater Tribunal March 2022- Thread 2

[Sophoclesthefox]

Forgive the presumption, @Mforstater, but you’re probably busy in the pub right now, or passing on all of the fan mail to you legal team so I’ve made a new thread to carry on the fascinating discussion.

Round up your cats, rabbits and weasels, and let’s go!

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From thread one, here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4498167-Maya-Forstater-hearing-starts-Monday

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

I always had red and black down as being the anarchist flag colours

@InvisibleDragon

Off topic rant:

Just catching up now. I'm surprisingly annoyed by AG feeling "uncomfortable" about discussing certain topics.

The idea of a penis makes her uncomfortable. The idea that some trans women have penises makes her uncomfortable. The idea that some men commit sexual assaults and have nefarious reasons for accessing female spaces makes her uncomfortable.

Could she possibly check her enormous privilege for just one second? Some of us have actually experienced men doing the things that she can't bring herself to contemplate. Some of us work in jobs that bring us into contact with men who have done these things. Or children who have been harmed by such men.

These ideas she can't contemplate are some people's reality. Not talking about them doesn't make it go away. We can't actually identity our of our past oppression. We can't identify out of material reality.

Felt exactly the same. It's very much on topic.

another day of work lost to this nail biter

listening to someone whose world view is

'if what I believe puts you in danger or makes you uncomfortable, could you just not talk about it please?'

'oh, and if you do talk about it, I'll try to get you fired'.

which is super ironic, because AG certainly feels that what Maya believes makes her uncomfortable and puts people in danger

Maya didn't try to get anyone fired though

Surely the entities stealing women's rights are legislators?

FPFW were campaigning against the reform of the GRA by legislators.

I work in publishing and can confirm that sex and swearing do not go down well with American readers.

This is so weird, it seems there are such extremes in the US - one the one hand very buttoned up and prudish and one the other a complete free for all anything goes.

InvisibleDragon it's completely relevant.

We're not discussing hypothetical penises, here. We're discussing an ideology that has led directly to women being assaulted in prison by males, to riots in support of a male who exposed himself to women and girls in Los Angeles, to women being physically attacked by males, to women hving to meet in secret locations, to bomb threats, to rape threats, to job losses, to ostracisation, to an overall chillling effect that has cast a pall over the women's rights movement for the last decade.

Waiting to be let back in now.

Still going to be with AG, just for a few more minutes apparently.

@VestofAbsurdity

I work in publishing and can confirm that sex and swearing do not go down well with American readers.

This is so weird, it seems there are such extremes in the US - one the one hand very buttoned up and prudish and one the other a complete free for all anything goes.

Yes, you could speculate that the former attitude leads directly to a reactive response seen in the latter.

There's not much online about Judge Glennie but he's been in role as a paid Employment Judge since 2009 (when Jack Straw appointed him - there's a blast from the past) and he is a London-based barrister.

I'd like to think he'll be supportive of the use of clear biological terms.

Indeed I'm not quite sure what AG wanted to be used instead. Silence?

@InvisibleDragon
Well said! This is what is bugging me about her testimony. It is childish and reveals zero empathy for those safeguarding is there to protect.

Hi

This may have been on the previous thread, i haven't had time to read but could we maybe have a quick guide to the Dramatis Personae here, I'm having difficulty following who's who?

Thanks for the thread, esp Tabby's transcription.

Here we go...

EJ has decided to complete the evidence as planned and then address the additional evidence mentioned this morning.

BC reminds AG where they were. Discussing review of MF's tweets. One of the points (BC says) was AG's position that it is inherently unacceptable to argue that in some situations it may be appropriate to ask someone about birth sex.

BC goes back to MF's updated blog. AG had this when she was reviewing the tweets. Draft attached to email (MF's). You can see the paragraph they have already looked at. Now there is a new bit and MF says it can be argued that the harms and risks to women are justified by the benefits (to trans people).

So AG must have been aware that MF was listening to feedback and reflecting diversity of views. Yes?

AG: Yes but we had already decided not to post the blog.

BC: This must have made it clear that the heart of this debate revolves around balance of harms. Yes?

AG: I would hope so.

BC: To say that it is totally unacceptable to argue that you can ever ask about sex (manels but others) the balance tips in favour of asking the question to protect women's rights can't be completely unaccpetable, unless you are absolutist?

AG: It's unacceptable for an employer to interrogate someone's self-ID.

BC: MF has never said the balance should always tip that way at work.

AG: I think it's implied but no, she never literally said it.

BC: In case of manels, she was talking about historic discrimination against women, and saying the balance should tip that way there. You might think that's unacceptable, but are you saying that the claimant's argument itself was unacceptable?

@Mochudubh

Hi

This may have been on the previous thread, i haven't had time to read but could we maybe have a quick guide to the Dramatis Personae here, I'm having difficulty following who's who?

Thanks for the thread, esp Tabby's transcription.

Nicked from Tribunal Tweets

Abbreviations:
BC = Ben Cooper QC, counsel for
MF = Maya Forstater - Claimant
AP = Anya Palmer, assisting BC
OD = Olivia Dobbie, counsel for the respondents
EJ = Employment judge, leading the panel
Panel = any one of the 3 members

CGDE (CGD Europe) – Respondent 1

CGD = Centre for Global Development – Respondent 2

MA = Masood Ahmed, President of CGD and Chair of the Board of CGDE – Respondent 3

BC will continue examining Amanda Glassman's evidence (AG) .

AG is the Chief Operating Officer, Senior Fellow and Board Secretary of CGD and a Trustee of CGD(Europe).

@Mochudubh

Hi

This may have been on the previous thread, i haven't had time to read but could we maybe have a quick guide to the Dramatis Personae here, I'm having difficulty following who's who?

Thanks for the thread, esp Tabby's transcription.

Here you go @Mochudubh:

Abbreviations:
BC = Ben Cooper QC, counsel for
MF = Maya Forstater - Claimant
AP = Anya Palmer, assisting BC
OD = Olivia Dobbie, counsel for the respondents
EJ = Employment judge, leading the panel
Panel = any one of the 3 members
CGDE (CGD Europe) – Respondent 1

CGD = Centre for Global Development – Respondent 2

MA = Masood Ahmed, President of CGD and Chair of the Board of CGDE – Respondent 3
Today Ben Cooper QC will continue examining Amanda Glassman 's evidence (AG) .

AG is the Chief Operating Officer, Senior Fellow and Board Secretary of CGD and a Trustee of CGD(Europe).

AG: Unacceptable from an employer's view. Anyone can have a view, but the suggestion that we ask is not acceptable.

BC now challenging the idea that MF's position is inherently discriminatory.

BC says they have now arrived at a position where AG isn't saying MF's positions were inherently offensive.

AG isn't sure how to respond.

Mochudubh:

Ben Cooper, BC: counsel for Maya
Olivia Dobbie, OD, counsel for CGD

Giving evidence for CGD:
Luke Easley, LE: finished yesterday
Amanda Glassman, AG: currently giving evidenc
Mark Plan, MP: evidence to come
Masood Ahmed: MA: evidence to come

AG accepts MF's view about balance of harms.

BC asks whether AG agrees with him that MF's isn't offensive and discriminatory.

AG says the 'upstream view' isn't offensive, but the implications are.

@OvaHere and @BIWI

Thank you both!

BC says none of the Twitter debate was about how to implement policy.

AG says there were some parts that did.

BC says MF was using this as a thought experiment and AG says we would need to look at specific tweets.

BC says AG identified four individuals' comments on the Twitter threads as evidence of reputational risk.

AG says it is evidence of people in their network being frustrated or upset and that had reputational risk.

That should be Mark Plant, not Mark Plan.