Maya Forstater Tribunal March 2022- Thread 4

[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

Thread three, here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4507443-Maya-Forstater-Tribunal-March-2022-Thread-3

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

LE = Luke Easley, Vice president for HR and operations at CGD, first witness for CGD
AG = Amanda Glassman, Chief Operating Officer, Senior Fellow and Board Secretary of CGD and a Trustee of CGD(Europe), second witness for CGD
MP = Mark Plant, Chief Operating Officer of CGD Europe, third witness for CGD
MA = Masood Ahmed, President of CGD and Chair of the Board of CGDE – Respondent 3, fourth witness for CGD

EM = Ellen MacKenzie, an off-stage character at CGD, involved in much that went on.

Maya's website has lots of relevant information and is collating the live tweets.
www.hiyamaya.net

twitter.com/tribunaltweets is the account to look at for the live tweets. Plus some live posting and discussion on these threads.

It is all online. If you want to watch you need to email the tribunal for a log in to [email protected]

They will send you pin number and a link to log in to the tribunal.

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Thank you!

Placemarking thank you. And obviously a huge thank you to Maya.

Place marking here, thanks for the new thread. Can I ask do you have to request a new access pin for each day or will mine from the other day still work?

@Jackiebrambles

Place marking here, thanks for the new thread. Can I ask do you have to request a new access pin for each day or will mine from the other day still work?

Should still work with existing pin number.

Placemarking - so thankful to Maya and all the other superb women shining a light on this situation.

Does anyone know what happened today? I can only see something about extra docs..

Reading and place marking. Enjoying the analysis and the sterling transcription - thank you so much all.

I've asked for a PIN to watch it - I have an actual job to do but the lure of seeing BC has won over my work ethic!

So 2pm tomorrow then, eyes down.

Thank you @Whatamesssss

I hope this isn't too random at this point, but I just wanted to pick up on the discussion earlier in Thread 3 about why people think (or profess to think) certain things, even when they seem to be finding it rather difficult to explain or justify what they think. There were some really interesting points about how people use heuristics/rules of thumb to make decisions they then have to go back and rationalise. I wanted to add that in the current case, I found the concept of 'crony beliefs' very helpful.

The concept is a bit like preference falsification - where people give answers in surveys or focus groups that they think will make them look good, rather than what they really think - but goes further. These are beliefs people really hold, but because it's useful to them to do so, eg to fit in, or to look good rather than because of solid evidence, or explanatory power. And because we don't hold them for very solid or coherent reasons, we're often particularly emotionally invested in defending them from any criticism or counter argument. Sound familiar?

(The essay is long but readable, very interesting and quite challenging. We all do this to some extent - the crucial part I think is how willing you are to engage with counter-evidence, or allow your beliefs to be challenged. Here 'no debate' becomes relevant. meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs)

In CGD's world, the belief that sex and gender are both entirely determined by self ID clearly performs the useful function of signalling that they are 'doing right think' and are the right kind of people.

To most of us it looks totally bizarre to watch them splutter over how without an identity there's just a corpse, or get emotional about the mention of penises in the context of trans women. The inability to come up with anything more coherent than 'that's offensive', doesn't seem to fit with a serious organisation supposedly carrying out research and analysis of topics like trade, tax and economic development, including how policies affect women. ( I mean, it's very odd. Their line of work is supposed to be working out what to think about new ideas! But this really does seem to be something you have to pretend to believe in the UK charity sector right now, and I think the US is even worse.)

As previous posters have said, they would rather lose/look silly and remain virtuous than concede that Maya's (perfectly ordinary and carefully expressed) beliefs have any merit at all. That would mean condemnation and ostracism for them from their peers. The crony belief is earning its keep.

If they lose (and I sincerely hope they do - they treated her abysmally) it will be very interesting to see how this plays out. Will funders be happy to see that they've sung from the correct hymn sheet of 'inclusion' and 'tolerance' in the face of the nasty TERF Islanders? Or will the witness statements have shed enough light on the incoherence, and crazy authoritarian intolerance of it all, for funders to back away?

@Chrysanthemum5

I've asked for a PIN to watch it - I have an actual job to do but the lure of seeing BC has won over my work ethic!

Does he know he's a heart throb now?

Evening fellow vipers. Who is desperately hoping for various colleagues to cancel meetings tomorrow afternoon so that we can follow along for the submission (from whomever it is that has first slot).

Is it bad that I'm hoping for the same for Wednesday morning? It's completely unrealistic but I finally get how excited people must have been about following a TV series and the arrangements that they made not to miss an episode.

I don't mean to sound flippant. This is so important for Maya and to have a sense of the other cases that lie ahead for Allison Bailey, for Jo Phoenix, for too many other women.

Plonking myself here to keep up.

Joining everyone else on the bench!

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So am I right in thinking that Ben's summing up tomorrow afternoon and Olivia is summing up Wednesday morning?

Place marking!

Tweeting the closing statements will be fun. Tabby, you better rest your digits this evening.

PMK for tomorrow. Just caught up on todays session. More astounding testimony I see.

I'm hoping that I will be able to catch some of tomorrow but it starts not long before school finishes so will have to go and get children

Has anyone used an ipad to follow the proceedings? Does it work ok?

I'd very much like to observe BC tomorrow but don't have a laptop/PC.

I'm only at 1220 today because I had to go out, but is EM's surname actually Machiavelli? I'll be back when I've caught up...

Oh I've FINALLY caught up!

Tabby HOW do you do this?! 🧙 Thank you to you & the other scribes.

Maya I'm just in awe of your calm, these were your bloody colleagues

(Am willing to pay all my money to see Nicola Sturgeon locked in a cage with Ben)