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

What's clear from all this is that we are two nations divided by much more than a common language.

It's worrying how much the trans doctrine has seeped into every fibre of people like LE for whom it is a catechism. And he works for a think tank!

I loved the bit on crossdressers though. Wonder how long before stonewall quietly ditch them from the trans umbrella?

If she loses on an employment technicality, she will still have won, and I would hope that the judgement would have some content along those lines.

If i ever start doubting that i might be on the wrong aide of history, I will just read that transcript. Total and utter bollocks can never be the right side of history.

Total and utter bollocks can never be the right side of history.

Quite. It's what keeps me going. Sooner or later this insanity will end.

Thanks for the new thread @Sophoclesthefox, and huge thanks to @tabbycat for your sterling work

@BenCooperisaGod

If she loses on an employment technicality, she will still have won, and I would hope that the judgement would have some content along those lines.

If i ever start doubting that i might be on the wrong aide of history, I will just read that transcript. Total and utter bollocks can never be the right side of history.

Haha, your username! And hear, hear.

I am also still snorfling at “He’s dead, Ben, you can stop now” 🤣

Thinking about some of Tabbycatstripey's questions ...

1) Was she employed or did she have a reasonable anticipation of being employed?
I'm thinking yes. Maya was named on a grant application intended to fund her workstream as CGD personnel. She was told that if the grant was successful, she would be employed, and was even included in emails from senior leadership intended for employees. The grant was successful and another person working in the same area was employed; Maya was not. Instead she was told she would be considered for a third year on a paid fellowship. This also did not happen.

2) Did they have a right to balance the feelings of team members against her protected beliefs?
Surely this is the point of protected beliefs/characteristics? You can't discriminate on that basis. They got around that last time by saying that Maya's belief was not worthy of respect in a democratic society. They can't do that this time because the appeal established that her belief is protected. Ben Cooper QC has been doing a lot of work this afternoon to demonstrate that CGD leadership issues with the tweets etc were not about the tone but about the belief itself being inherently offensive - and has effectively got them to say so explicitly. That doesn't look good for CGD because if the problem is the belief, that's discrimination.

3) Did any of her communications actually break the norms of the office, in any objectively reasonable way (compared to how other topics were dealt with)?
On this, I don't think it's about office norms (although those seem to have differed between the US and UK offices). After all "it was normal in this office for men to comment on women's bodies" would not really be a defence against sexual harassment. I think it will come down to the text of the employee "handbook" that was referred to this afternoon. So about tone/harassment/behaviour towards colleagues. There seem to be emails from/to senior leadership saying that Maya has not violated any conduct rules. CGD also don't appear to have followed a standard HR disciplinary procedure that involved informing Maya that they thought there was a problem. Both of those things would seem to be good for Maya's argument because it undermines the CGD position that the issue was about conduct.

@nevercis

What's clear from all this is that we are two nations divided by much more than a common language.

It's worrying how much the trans doctrine has seeped into every fibre of people like LE for whom it is a catechism. And he works for a think tank!

I loved the bit on crossdressers though. Wonder how long before stonewall quietly ditch them from the trans umbrella?

They'll never get that genie back in the bottle.

Not to mention how do you distinguish between a crossdressing male who would like to use women's spaces and a TQ+ male who would like to use women's spaces? Interview on the door? Sincere declaration?

We're going to have to clone Layla. It's the only solution.

@Artichokeleaves

Yes to the puritanism/regurgitating of the grimmer societal bits of Christianity. Its the Mr Murdstone end of the market, complete with females having original sin (cis privilege) that makes them intrinsically guilty and deserving of suffering, the word 'love' gets mentioned a lot but it is nowhere to be seen in action, the righteous sitting in judgement over the heathen scum, and any break with the faith involves being cast out.

Has anyone suggested exporting non compliant females to Australia yet, or re opening workhouses? Magdalen Laundries?

And the homophobia. Don't forget the homophobia. All these years these nice liberal people have been trying to suppress their latent homophobia and now, suddenly, there's a new religion that allows you, albeit at a slight tangent, to get the gays.

But yes, the virtue signalling, the 'Don't ask me questions about this, I'd rather-go-quietly-mad trying to hold it all together than be a gender heretic' stuff...

I said it on the other thread but it's still bouncing around my skull. If this influential think-tank that can raise millions from people like Gates doesn't or won't recognise the financial and tax implications of sex, how can anything they produce be trusted?

It's quite sad isn't it?

Suddenly there's a righteous excuse to be a nice person and let loose on looking down on and sneering at females, homosexuals, people Not Like Us, the unbelievers.

Gates and co are apparently the equivalent of the hugely rich and powerful Christian foundations that underpinned the Empire and colonised heathens and forcibly enforced Better Ways upon them while destroying their beliefs and cultures as backward and inferior. They can't be trusted.

What drives me nuts is that they would be hugely indignant at the suggestion that they not only absolutely don't get a lot of the words and ideas they claim to be 'woke' about such as the evils of colonization; they are absolutely blind to the fact that they are full on the same in values and actions. Same scripts, the lot.

Thank you for transcribing tabby. And thank you Maya, how you put up with all that bullshit and still carry on is awe inspiring.

Anyone else been drawing up their interrogated by Ben Cooper fantasy list

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1503730643653611525.html

Unrolled tribunal tweets here if anyone wants to peruse the highlights. There’s a lot to enjoy there

@Sophoclesthefox

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1503730643653611525.html

Unrolled tribunal tweets here if anyone wants to peruse the highlights. There’s a lot to enjoy there

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1503669176946286592.html

Starting this morning.

I am also still snorfling at “He’s dead, Ben, you can stop now”

For some reason I hear this in the voice of Ygritte (Rose Leslie) saying “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” It enhances my enjoyment.

Another one here watching and reading—appreciate Twitter reporting but Mumsnet comments so much more thorough and amusing.

Thanks to all who have provided coverage, thoughts, information, and opinions.

100% support (and digging again, if needed) for Maya Forstater.

Ooh, I hope Ben frames some questions around homophobia. Let's get it all out there. Let's hear how homosexuality is not based on sex.

I want to see how that goes down with the liberals in the US.

And also, this is a think tank concerned with the economy and its affect on poverty?

Why in the world would you want people who have to deal with money be so sensitive to illogical, one eyed, and unscientific ideological capture???

I've been following all day. Agog.

Thanks, @tabby for the previous thread contributions, and everyone else for comments and questions and answers.

For some reason I hear this in the voice of Ygritte (Rose Leslie) saying “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” It enhances my enjoyment.

Enjoy the gif.

And also, this is a think tank concerned with the economy and its affect on poverty?

Why in the world would you want people who have to deal with money be so sensitive to illogical, one eyed, and unscientific ideological capture???

I'm seriously concerned about the psychic numbing (coined by Lifton) on display from senior people in the thinktank here. They're numb to the issues that affect women and girls, all they can see is their own ideological bias.

Thanks for the new thread. Maya I hope you have enjoyed today as much as we have. I'm loving Ben, but as always mumsnetters win the internet today with
He's dead Ben, you can stop now

I wonder what the story on this at the Gates Foundation really is? Have just read Melissa Gates' Moment of Lift and she's very clear on the reality of womanhood, in all sorts of ways. OTOH they are American... I am tempted to write to her saying how much I enjoyed her book (I really did) and mentioning Maya. Also that I'd love to read her post divorce memoir. Though perhaps she agreed not to write it... Wouldn't a US JKR-equivalent "I'll speak the truth and you can't stop me" be awesome? She's a good candidate.

.

Wouldn't a US JKR-equivalent "I'll speak the truth and you can't stop me" be awesome? She's a good candidate.

I'd think Melissa definitely has the resources to let her wield comparable power.

Gates and co are apparently the equivalent of the hugely rich and powerful Christian foundations that underpinned the Empire and colonised heathens and forcibly enforced Better Ways upon them while destroying their beliefs and cultures as backward and inferior. They can't be trusted.

I think at some point billions of dollars donated by the tech hyper rich is going to flood into social justice causes and might end up causing chaos.

They're numb to the issues that affect women and girls, all they can see is their own ideological bias.

If you wanted a report on how global poverty affects women and girls, they'd have to be last people you'd ask.

Do they not understand that in their world, you could be asking for a report on middle-aged men??

According to Amanda Glassman's CGD company bio linked on the last thread she was Chair of their Working Group on Family Planning. How does the jolly old gender identity ideology work in that context I wonder?

@CriticalCondition

According to Amanda Glassman's CGD company bio linked on the last thread she was Chair of their Working Group on Family Planning. How does the jolly old gender identity ideology work in that context I wonder?

You might be startled at the number of academics and policymakers in Family Planning, Reproductive Services, Sex-Based Health who specialise in Global Health and yet are onboard with this ideology to the point that calls their previous 30 years or so of research and service into grave question.

Anyone else been drawing up their interrogated by Ben Cooper fantasy list

Oh yes.