Maya Forstater Tribunal March 2022- Thread 3

[Whatamesssss]

Thread one, here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4498167-Maya-Forstater-hearing-starts-Monday

Thread two, here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4505825-Maya-Forstater-Tribunal-March-2022-Thread-2?pg=1

Also, this seems to be the origin of the lie about handing out pamphlets:

In the email from the CGD staff and in other conversations with London-based staff, it sounds like Maya may have been handing out pamphlets in the office for a rally on the issue of protecting same-sex spaces. CGD should clarify for Maya and all staff that such activities can’t happen during work hours or on work property, regardless of the issue.

'CGD is a private organization and can do essentially what it wants.'

Right... These people really don't understand employment law in the UK. Yet CGD took their advice. Tank think.

Just checking in... I have gremlins and can't seem to hear anything on the link... Will try again tomorrow. Thanks @tabbycatstripy sterling job!!

Is there any 'authentic academic research' in existence that explains how female penis differs from male penis?

CGD is a private organization and can do essentially what it wants.

Oh dear

Tank think is genius.

Argument itself is offensive. Maya’s main argument that transgender women are not women is at baseline offensive because it seeks to eliminate the existence of a group of people.

''eliminate the existence'' 🙄 How much did they pay these clowns?

Reading the QI report into Maya, and got to this bit:

People don’t pick their gender - they are born with the gender identity, sexual orientation, etc that they are. Because of the rules that society imposes, individuals go through a process of self-discovery and so their expression of their gender identity may change over time. In speaking to an expert on transgender issues, the expert said the closer analogy is if a child of color was adopted by a white family and told for years they were
white until they saw their adoption papers and realized they were a person of color. Who they are didn’t change, just their understanding of who they are.

That's just bonkers isn't it? White parents telling their black kid they aren't black? What world do they live in?

I would love to know who that expert was, and exactly what their claims to "expertise" were.

Has Ben Cooper QC drilled into this report yet with any of the CGD witnesses?

I think he's visited it on a number of occasions.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

CGD is a private organization and can do essentially what it wants.

Oh dear

Oh dear indeed.

When I consulted a colleague who chairs the LGBTQ studies for her university, she was surprised to learn that Maya was a researcher, and mentioned that she would be unlikely to seriously consider any scholarship coming from Maya’s employer based on the lack of academic rigor and weak argument structure from the blog)

I find this interesting because of Kathleen Stock's appraisal of the evidence that was put before the Miller committee and was accepted uncritically. I note that we were not given any indication of the standing of this colleague who chairs the LGBTQ studies for her university — I wonder about this because that might cover somebody like Sally Hines or the Lego person (Alison Phipps?).

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4159627-Alison-Phipps

Surely, surely, anyone with any moderate hold on reality and the facts of this situation would know that Maya is not ‘denying the existence of’ or ‘seeking to eliminate’ a group of people.

Surely, surely, anyone with any moderate hold on reality and the facts of this situation would know that Maya is not ‘denying the existence of’ or ‘seeking to eliminate’ a group of people.

Right, but these people are never talking about reality.

They're always talking about words.

When they say "women" they don't mean actual people, they mean the word.

When they say "some lesbians do dick", they don't mean "some homosexual females", they mean "some people who call themselves lesbians".

Any statement they make is a statement about how they're using the word, not about the actual characteristic of an actual defined group.

So given that, the statement "Maya’s main argument that transgender women are not women is at baseline offensive because it seeks to eliminate the existence of a group of people" makes sense - it's the group that's being eliminated, not the real people. She's denying that "transgender women" exist, because they're men. (Of course, they're just thinking of males. Obviously there are lots of female transgender women).

Now, because they're always thinking of words, what Maya does by denying "transgender women" is worse than saying that "lesbians do dick".

The first is invalidating the "transwomen" group, so is bad. The second is retaining the "lesbian" group, so is fine. It may have redefined individuals, but "lesbians" as a group still exist. The group just isn't made up of homosexual women any more. Indeed, the group is stronger because it's more inclusive. The group has been expanded, not eliminated. Yay!

@yourhairiswinterfire

Argument itself is offensive. Maya’s main argument that transgender women are not women is at baseline offensive because it seeks to eliminate the existence of a group of people.

''eliminate the existence'' 🙄 How much did they pay these clowns?

Feel weird quoting myself, but had a look through Maya's Twitter and saw that she'd answered the QI cost question.

4k

😳

4k

Nice work if you can get it

That report was horrific, the fact that any professional organisation would give credence to that pile of rubbish is insane. Did none of them even read the equality act?

Surely, surely, anyone with any moderate hold on reality and the facts of this situation would know that Maya is not ‘denying the existence of’ or ‘seeking to eliminate’ a group of people.

Remember the evidence by LE on Monday that belief can manifest something into reality, for example a white person becoming black by believing this to be so? It follows that LE would think that disbelief can force something out of existence.

had a look through Maya's Twitter and saw that she'd answered the QI cost question.

4k

I wonder how much they paid the colleague who chairs the LGBTQ studies for her university for her opinion? Or was it mates rates, a square of Lindt and a cup of coffee? The latter feels about right for the level of insight. There they are, decrying MF's evidence standards at a time when we know from Helen Joyce and others that it was almost impossible to place a story within mainsteam media or to be published, and yet the CGD is expected to set store by the opinion of an unnamed colleague who chairs the LGBTQ studies for her university

The CGD must be so proud of their strict adherence to high standards of intellectual enquiry, openness and transparency around now.

@tabbycatstripy

'CGD is a private organization and can do essentially what it wants.'

Right... These people really don't understand employment law in the UK. Yet CGD took their advice. Tank think.

I know, fucking ouch.

Now I do appreciate that we're all commenting from a post appeal decision perspective. It's now completely certain that Maya's beliefs are legally worthy of respect in a democratic society, whereas that hadn't happened at the time this was written. But even giving them the maximum leeway for not having that hindsight, private organisations not in fact being able to do exactly what they want was very well known in 2018-19! There is just no excuse for the stupidity of that sentence.

@HesDeadBenYouCanStopNow

That report was horrific, the fact that any professional organisation would give credence to that pile of rubbish is insane. Did none of them even read the equality act?

I think the Americans think such things as the UK Equality Act don't apply to them their egos override their brains.

The QI report did show they had studied the EA 2010 ("QI did review UK’s Equality Act of 2010", see page 1), but their error was to think only in terms of it applying to other staff members exposed to MF's views, and didn't recognise that it would also operate to give MF rights.

Hardy - they could just have consulted a UK employment lawyer. It's not that hard, is it?

My insight into the consultancy and small private sector market give me the following thoughts:

1. Organisations always want to look bigger than they are. When they wrote in the Gates report that MF was (essentially) an employee, it may have been because they didn't want to look like they rely on freelancers. Implying you have a bigger staff than you do is a thing.

1. It sounds like it was a start-up in London in many ways. A big senior 'big bollocks' person talking in the office about his vasectomy and various other things probably was inappropriate. People did complain. There was probably concern about matching the London culture to the US culture, which I imagine (and seems to have been) more corporate.

1. Cultures of fear are a thing. In mid-sized organisations particularly, it's hard to rely on processes (often, there are none) but easy to quickly gain a reputation for being difficult or intransigent. This may be why it was easy for DEI types to essentially hijack management; everyone else kept their heads down.

These are speculations only.

@Awkwardy

4k

Nice work if you can get it

If that's the total costs, that 2 days charge out rate for a very junior colleague.

They produced 2 reports. They're supposed to have reviewed items appropriately and interviewed people. They made outside consultations (for which they should have offered payment if they were to have any standing).

Take into account the costs of running the consultancy, and that those are gross fees for people in Switzerland, iirc and that's a tiny amount of money in relative terms.

Bear in mind that senior executives were charged out at at up to £6,250 per day for Test and Trace.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/14/consultants-fees-up-to-6250-a-day-for-work-on-covid-test-system