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!

——————————————————————————————

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

BC: These are analysis words. They are engaging with the ideas.

AG: Yes.

BC suggests a double standard. When MF expresses her beliefs, you characterise her as absolutist and reductionist. When others do it, with opposing views, you don't say this. You infer that they are right and rightfully offended.

AG: I disagree with that characterisation. I am describing people in our network who strongly disagreed with the way she expressed her views.

BC is trying to explore the significance of that. We know people disagreed with her, but that isn't your reason for citing them. You cite them because you believe they are evidence of reputational harm.

AG: I think there were many people in our network with quite negative responses.

BC discusses another tweet.

for your excellent efforts tabbycatstripy

thank you.

Next tweet is Rachael Megar (?). This person describes MF's tweets and views as pernicious. If MF described the view that TWAW is 'pernicious', you would call this transphobia, wouldn't you?

AG: I'm not sure.

BC: RM says it, and to you that is evidence of righteous indignation.

AG: No. I'm not calling out those tweets. I'm describing the part about structural oppression by trans people.

BC goes back to a different page. It's true that MF says there is structural discrimination...

Sorry, lost my place for a moment.

BC says the fact that RM takes a different view from MF is simply disagreement, not such offence that it is a risk of reputational risk.

AG: Still problematic.

BC says all these examples show that if you drill down, what AG actually objects to is MF's substantive beliefs. Yes?

AG: I disagree.

BC says AG had made up her mind by the SPG meeting in December 2018 that MF should not be renewed as VF.

AG: Yes but my view wasn't relevant.

BC asks whether AG's view had no impact on the outcome.

AG says she doesn't think so.

BC asks whether that's because EM was intransigently opposed to MF that it didn't matter what anyone else said?

AG: Not at all. You can read through the whole process and I don't think you can say EM was driving Masood Ahmed's decision.

BC says there was a process, and discussion between (names all the senior people).

AG says yes. Masood was the decider.

BC says those discussions gave AG the opportunity to seek to influence Masood.

AG: I could speak to him.

BC: Are you saying you didn't try to influence him?

AG: No, there were other processes going on... (doesn't really answer)

I'm not following this religiously but have caught up on the Twatter thread that was done for this morning - I'm in Australia so will have to go to bed now, and miss most of this afternoon's (until tomorrow).

I wish you all the luck in the world with this, @MForstater - so far the "other side" have been pretty inept, from what I've read, and really have no solid ground at all. They can't formulate a decent argument, don't know what they're actually talking about, disagree with themselves regularly and are far from coherent. I'd be surprised if this went their way on the basis of their responses!

That's BC done with AG. OD will be invited to re-examine.

BC asks about AG's comment about MF's response to the QI report. QI report is the one that went to AG and MF. That's the one AG saw?

AG: Yes.

AG x examination finished except for tribunal questions. None.

OD taking instructions.

@tabbycatstripy

Nancy Kelley...! I'm hiring out a cinema.

I'll get all our popcorn in. That's gonna be epic stuff

Yesterday I just followed via your posts tabby. Today I'm glued to the hearing. Makes me realise how bloody amazing you are - not just to get it all typed in but to sort the chaff from the wheat and summarise quite complex Q&As. Shero!

OD questioning AG about how often she was in the London office.

AG says probably twice in second half of 2018 and about once in 2019.

OD asks how long she would be there.

AG: Maybe a week.

OD moves to a document in the bundle. This is about the 'fake news' tweet. Not sure where she's going with it. She asks whether AG would consider it unusual to use language like 'fake news' when talking about a protected group.

AG: That would be very different and yes.

OD calling gender a protected category.

@DameHelena

Pluvia and Jackie, I don't disagree with your points (please do note the rest of my post, which I think makes my position clear); but I was just saying how the hand could be interpreted. It does make me think of 'scary old woman' type cartoon figures like Cruella de Vil and the Snow White witch/stepmother.

Trying to not fill up this thread too quickly but I saw the hand as the grinch only in red. Y'know cos the grinch stole Christmas?

AG talking about how they would ensure their panels were diverse. I assume that's in appearance rather than in thought.

@nauticant

OD calling gender a protected category.

FFS! shows how language and law are so important!

OD moves on to manels.

OD says June 22 2018, third bullet talks about the 'operational rule' which explains the gender diversity statement on manels. Was there anything else or was this the document that made staff aware?

AG: There is this, but the communications team would also look out for this and make sure panels were diverse. It was an implementation activity too.

OD goes to the old tribunal judgment referring to MF's core beliefs. Back in 2018/19 did you have a firm grasp of the core elements of the beliefs?

AG: Parts were clear in 2018: sex is immutable, (material reality!), but the next bits were less clear.

OD is done.

AG is finished.

Mark Plant after the break.

snort @ "AG is finished."

@Olderbadger1

Yesterday I just followed via your posts tabby. Today I'm glued to the hearing. Makes me realise how bloody amazing you are - not just to get it all typed in but to sort the chaff from the wheat and summarise quite complex Q&As. Shero!

Thank you :)

@nauticant

snort @ "AG is finished."

:)

@OvaHere

Well on the other side there's a lot that could be said about the choice of baby blue and baby pink as representation. If we're going to go down the road of colour analysis.

Innit

@tabbycatstripy

AG: Pointing out that someone disagrees with MF because she might offend a small group of people who are vulnerable.

BC: Yes, but the person doesn't say it's transphobic or offensive.

AG: She says it could be hurtful.

BC: She's not saying it's hurtful to her, she's saying it could be hurtful to TW.

AG: This is the discussion about panels?

BC: Yes. MF is not saying you shouldn't protect TW, she is saying specifically, manels is about women.

AG: MF is saying we should understand if a woman is biologically female.

BC: Again, MF says we can include all sorts of types of discrimination in the fight for rights, but no need to collapse categories. You understood from her blog that the argument is about a balance of rights?

AG: That's part of it.

BC: You can't sensibly say that MF said anything offensive or inappropriate here?

AG: I think parts of it are objectively hurtful.

She doesn't know what "objectively" means, does she?

tabbycatstripy, you are a wonder, thank you so much for doing this it really helps those of us who are not on Twitter and cannot view the Tweets.

No problem. This is important.

She doesn't know what "objectively" means, does she?

She does not. 'I think parts of it are objectively - ' no.