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 got a log in, but it seems impossible to join muted? I click to be muted but it says I'm not 🤷🏼‍♀️

BC has been awesome. Some insight from yesterday

Clearly people who work in woke think tanks have no idea just how uncontroversial the idea that women don't have penises is for most of society.

and furthermore seem to believe they're entitled to form virtual lynch mobs over it.

Haven't caught up with this thread properly but scrolling down Tabby you are phenomenal.

Is there a problem with the lighting in the CGD office? MP is blinking so much I'm starting to worry that it's Morse code and he's a hostage.

You can turn off your microphone and camera before joining

@Triotriotrio

I got a log in, but it seems impossible to join muted? I click to be muted but it says I'm not 🤷🏼‍♀️

The conference hosts do that, it's not something you can do yourself despite what they say.

Each day I've chosing the setting to be muted and then that status took a minute or so to get updated as such on the screen Triotriotrio.

BC: Let's be clear, in neither london nor Washington can you point to any other belief having been ringfenced against discussion?

MP: Correct

Ouch. Ben is very good isn't he

MP answered with a straightforward "yes it is" to blog posts being circulated to colleagues in CGD. BC took ages trying and not ultimately succeeding to get such a straightforward response from LE and AG.

MP: It's some kind of sentiment, I don't know what it is exactly. I don't know if the sentiment is about the publication or the content of the publication. (I paraphrase very slightly.)

This is not looking good for how unclear the emails are nor people's ability to interpret them. How do these people ever get something constructive done if email is used not to communicate but to code the need for other conversations in deniable forms (e.g., face to face or voice)?

MP denying that sending trans allyship material to MF was for the purposes of trying to persuade her of another way of thinking about this.

BC: Back to where we were. How discussion developed from EM's email on robust discussion. You say you want to renew and need to think through VF and making her a SF.

MP:Yes

BC: You ask will there be a backlash? Nobody answers explicitly but it was answered in fact in the affirmative.

MP: I don't know.

BC: Note that EM asks someone else to make a point she would like made, yes?

MP: Yes. AG was working closely with CGDE

BC: AG's response and LE's response, which is where you note that people being offended happens all the time. True, isn't it?

MP: Yes

BC: There was discussion at this time of the blog post, and she sent that to you?

MP: Yes

BC: You didn't reply to her saying there was anything unacceptable about it?

MP: No

BC: Back to bundle. Your view at that point was that the claimant could discuss her beliefs calmly and openly?

MP: That's what I said, yes.

BC: And you also recognised here that the matters she raised do have some impact on development policy?

MP: Could, yes, do, yes.

BC: Back to bundle. Part of the global education programme that CGD runs is focused on girls' schooling?

MP: Yes

BC: We see that reflected again here (another doc). Yes?

MP: Yes.

BC: MF's beliefs are relevant therefore to things like the gathering of data on how women and girls are treated?

MP: We could discuss that, yes.

BC: To policy measures you might take with single sex benefits and facilities?

MP: If that was research, yes.

BC: So - though there is no complaint about decision not to publish the blog - but you wouldn't say it was ridiculous to suggest the blog has relevance to sector?

MP: Correct. But a dsicussion would have to be had.

BC: Normally, where someone submits a draft for comment, feedback would be provided to improve it, yes?

MP: yes.

BC: Back to bundle. We see Miss Schulman suggesting how to work with the individual to make it work for the platform? And if it wasn't right, you would try to help them place it elsewhere?

MP: Yes.

BC: Back to bundle. You said in an email here that you would work with MF to do that.

MP: Yes.

BC: And EM replies - not copying others - her sense is that regardless, we will not publish it. Want to give you a heads up on the sentiment so you don't waste your time. I suggest that the unusual degree of adverse reaction is telling. The message you get is leave it, don't do what we normally do.

MP: That is essentially what she says. As a reader, I don't understand her sentiment exactly. It's unclear.

BC: But you didn't see it as particularly problematic?

MP: I thought it needed some work but it might have been workable.

BC: Back to bundle. You had an exchange with MF after receiving blog post.

MP: Yes

BC: You send her an article from NYT being critical of the Trump administration policy on trans people.

MP: Yes.

BC: You were clearly not sending it as a neutral act. You wanted her to reflect on her positions.

MP: I wanted to tell her of some of the discussion in the US.

BC: Back to bundle. She responds, I know Trump is no feminist, but I think this reflects the general mess in this area. (Long reading about sex discrimination). Pausing there, her engagement there is an entirely serious and thoughtful one?

MP: Yes.

BC: She explicitly recognises that a central issue is how to reconcile interests and rights?

MP: Yes. She says that.

BC: You never understood her to be dismissing the problems faced by trans people?

MP: No.

BC: And she concludes by saying there needs to be more debate. That was the central message, wasn't it?

MP: She did want more debate.

BC: No matter if it's difficult, all the more reason to discuss it?

MP: Yes.

BC: You agreed with that?

MP: Yes.

BC: You make an important point about the US system and the problems of executive action.

MP: Yes.

BC: Calls it a social dictatorship. You are agreeing that we shouldn't take the position that one side of the debate is right and shut down debate.

MP: To be clear, yes, the debate should not be shut down.

BC: And you say these are complex issues that need to be discussed.

MP: Yes.

BC: That's what MF was doing all the way through.

MP: Yes.

BC: Back to bundle.

I wonder if it was less about Maya's actual tweets, and more about the traction they were gaining.

And yes, this idea that you can hold a belief, you can say you hold it, and that's it, end of discussion, is clearly not correct. What would be the point in saying you can hold a belief internally, but never be allowed to talk about it?

Surely you can hold the belief, of course you can express it, but it can't turn into harassment.

Perhaps this needs to be clarified in law. Because at the moment, it will rest the whather or someone is offended, not necessarily by the fact you hold a belief, but by the fact that you talk about it in any way, shape or form.

It's completely unworkable.

In other words, BC is getting MP to admit that CGD were willing to discuss with MF their views but thought it was wrong for MF to discuss her views with them.

argh - I've had pesky work zooms this morning - into the tribunal again now

MP seems much more straightforward

BC: formal end of VF was coming up. We see an exchange between you, AG and LE copied in and Ms Schulman. An explicit decision is taken not to change anything else for now.

MP: Yes.

BC: That's the message you convey to MF.

MP: yes.

BC: The position CGD takes that the relationship ended in October isn't accurate, is it? Express understanding that the VF wouldn't actually terminate.

MP: Formally it expired, but we continued to keep MF on the website as a VF.

BC: When you say it expired, with all of these things, if the parties agree it won't expire, then it doesn't, does it?

MP: She continued to use the title and we let her.

BC: She continued to perform work?

MP: yes but independent from VF.

BC: But is is standard practice that the term of a contract is a moveable feast, and if work is done and paid for, then it is.

MP: Depends on contract.

BC: Back to bundle. We see January 2019 MF continuing to work.

MP: Yes.

BC: And well into February, MF is still working on contract.

MP: Yes.

(Right, break for me!)

Can I ask a procedural question please? Given EM's role in this, how come she's not been called as a witness (or maybe she has and has refused)?

One reason could be that because EM was canny in not putting much in writing, cross-examination could get bogged down into "you thought X", "no I didn't" without there being much objective evidence to force the issue.

They're breaking now.

That was a short discussion about how, though they said her contract ended, that had no formal meaning since the work and use of the title and place on website didn't, and that was mutually agreed between the parties (also more on EM and how she was cryptic etc.)

I think they get to choose their witnesses? Not sure how it's agreed but they are not 'called', I don't think.

I am loving seeing Maya's entirely reasonable, informed stance laid out here, and all the ways the 'unbigoted' 'liberal' people tried to stifle, shut down, silence it.

@tabbycatstripy

I think they get to choose their witnesses? Not sure how it's agreed but they are not 'called', I don't think.

Yeah, I have vague recollection on day one of BC saying something along the lines of 'not surprised EM won't be part of this" which suggested that CDG (or their legal team) decided who to 'put forward' but I wasn't sure how it works...

MP acknowledging that in some of their projects understanding the difference between the sexes and the need for safe female space was necessary. How do you square that within an organisation that won't allow the existence of separate, immutable sexes to even be discussed?