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.

Here's an interesting article on challenging prejudice and overcoming self justification bias (tl;dr: curiosity is the antidote)

www.bbc.com/future/article/20160907-how-curiosity-can-protect-the-mind-from-bias

Tomorrow is OD and BC on Wed.
I need to be super efficient tomorrow before 2....

Ooh, thank you @DomesticatedZombie that's a good article! There's a great quote in Hans Rosling's Factfulness book about trying to always be pleased and excited about the idea of new information changing your opinion, rather than feeling threatened. (He puts it better, I'll have to dig it out!) But I like the idea of carrying Curiosity around like a little mental amulet! :-)

I'm really interested too that the ones doing the original denouncing in Maya's case mostly chose not to write up their complaints when asked. EM obviously is visible, if not having to account for herself on the witness stand, but the bundle shows that LE went back to the original complainants in the Washington office (as part of his efforts to canvass a 'range of views' on Maya's behaviour ) to ask for more info, and only one of them responded. So even internally, when asked, 'Before we burn her, what exactly did the witch do?', only one of them even replied. There's a lot in there about how terrible Maya's views are, and that "at the bare minimum this kind of behavior should preclude a person’s ability to work at or otherwise be affiliated with our organization. " (Bare minimum? Sacking's too good? What else do they have in mind?)

but the only substantive accusations are:

• I'm told she handed out pamphlets (which she didn't write, in an office on another continent, and in fact there was one of it, she didn't hand it out and it was commonplace for people to bring in publications and materials) Burn the library!
• Her twitter masthead has a photo with a placard that says woman: adult human female. Burn the dictionary!
• She retweeted a tweet (by someone else) that "advocates the idea that “sex is defined by biology” and in the last month has tweeted numerous times with similar sentiments" Burn the witch. Sex is defined by self ID! Babies don't have a sex at all until they're old enough to decide, just a cute little corpse until then!

It's 1458 in the bundle - I hope the writer one day grows up and feels ashamed of it. But I wonder about the ones who chose not to respond. Did they realise it had all gone too far? Did they clock why they couldn't quite articulate what she'd done that was wrong and decide not to follow through? Or just didn't quite find time to fill in the form...

I remember listening to this EXCELLENT pair of radio podcasts just before lockdown, unpicking the details of two 'purity spirals' - one in children's publishing and one in the online knitting community. In both these cases, there were massive pile-ons, but no-one really willing to come forward and defend what they'd done when it came down to it, frightened of the consequences. So many people deeply hurt, emotionally, psychologically and financially.

Lots of parallels: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d70h

Maybe he can give you a tune, Pear. Don't know if they take requests, can you email court and ask? They'll be wanting to get in some practise for the musical.

Top three requests:

Maya Forstater -
Luke Easley -
Ben Cooper -

@foodfiend

Ooh, thank you *@DomesticatedZombie* that's a good article! There's a great quote in Hans Rosling's Factfulness book about trying to always be pleased and excited about the idea of new information changing your opinion, rather than feeling threatened. (He puts it better, I'll have to dig it out!) But I like the idea of carrying Curiosity around like a little mental amulet! :-)

Love Hans Rosling.

Also rec this: davidrobson.me/the-intelligence-trap/

The online knitting community was the one that strangely led me to this board.
Lots of the women involved I considered friends, some online, some in real life. I couldn't quite believe what happened, the denouncing, the cruelty.
It nearly broke a woman I know who has a successful business. She couldn't say anything publicly but I know there were lots of emails sent privately, people with small businesses terrified it would take them down but couldn't say anything from fear of their livelihood. Another 'friend' was leading the charge - I haven't spoke to her or bought anything from her since.

I just couldn't compute what was happening at the time, these were all lefty, radical women. I still don't really understand it. I do think it relies on people keeping quiet because they fear for their jobs and income.

It's why I admire Maya so much. She's put herself up front and has taken so much abuse. For what? Having a sensible rational opinion.

"After all, the best defence against witch-finders is a population that doesn’t believe in witches."

Amen to that.

BCQC's x-exam is teasing out the utter nonsense of this particular purity spiral

So even internally, when asked, 'Before we burn her, what exactly did the witch do?', only one of them even replied.

Wow, missed this telling detail.

I just couldn't compute what was happening at the time, these were all lefty, radical women. I still don't really understand it. I do think it relies on people keeping quiet because they fear for their jobs and income.

For those who missed that whole affair, it's very interesting. At least from the outside - probably not the word Mollyollydolly would use.

Find out more:

Gavin Haynes Unherd article - "How knitters got knotted in a purity spiral"
Gavin Haynes BBC Radio 4 documentary on it (along with Young Adult publishing)
Katherine Jebsen-Moore's series for Quillette - parts one, two and three.

What's utterly bizarre about all this is that if you ask TWAW types whether they believe you can self ID as a different race, almost all say no. If you started a discussion about say, the Salem witch trials they'd happily talk about the madness of crowds and can see exactly how a purity spiral operates, and how terrifying it is.

And then they either cannot or will not join the dots. Will not, I think

There was a thread on here a couple of years back about purity spirals in the crafting world, too.

I'm looking for consistency in this sex/gender/race positioning...

From AG's evidence, the belief at CGD (at least the 'institutional position', to coin a phrase) was that self-identification of race was fine, but not if you are pretending (that's very offensive). So at least she believes that race is linked to some material reality? I would assume. I don't believe she thinks you can change 'race'.

But she knows some people hold biological sex and gender to be different. That doesn't offend her, and she knows biological sex at birth is different from gender.

But from her evidence, she thinks it's possible to change sex, and the offence is to suggest you can't, or to ask about someone's current or past biological sex. So for her, the belief seems to be:

• People are born a sex
• They can change their sex to 'match' an inner 'gender identity'
• You can't ask someone about their sex because that's like asking them to show you their genitals.

She also thinks people are born a 'race', but you can't change your race and it's offensive to pretend you can.

I'm just trying to understand where she's coming from.

I'm

Looking forward to BC's closing, he's been stupendous. OD is very good given her call but the difference has been stark.
Amd next time around am I right in thinking RMW is against him?

He is very eloquent and. Intelligent isn’t he? I’d hate to get into an argument with him!

It's actually been fascinating to watch (or read here in my case - thanks tabby and co) him in action, presenting the arguments we've been going over here for years.

His intellect is formidable.

I think what makes him so effective is his patience. He must know exactly where he's going with each point, but whereas I would go straight there, he takes it step by painstaking step, in a way that is almost frustratingly slow. And then, as each loophole is closed, each point of possible misunderstanding eliminated, each opportunity to evade logic removed, you see that each tiny step was crucial and devastatingly effective.

@PenguindreamsofDraco

Looking forward to BC's closing, he's been stupendous. OD is very good given her call but the difference has been stark. Amd next time around am I right in thinking RMW is against him?

Are you serious? RMW? I definitely need to book time off to watch that

IANAL, and accept that I've been listening through bias, but it's been confirmed that Maya lost her jobs because of her lawfully held beliefs, is it not just a slam dunk?

@HouseOfGoldandBones

IANAL, and accept that I've been listening through bias, but it's been confirmed that Maya lost her jobs because of her lawfully held beliefs, is it not just a slam dunk?

I still think it's more complicated than that. The tribunal has to decide whether anything she said or did was in excess (over the line, if you like) of her lawfully held beliefs, such that CGD's perception of risk became more reasonable.

They also have to judge whether she was ever 'employed' in the sense of the law, and how likely it was that she would have been employed in the future. I think there's also a complication about the differences between VF and consultant. They definitely decided never to employ her permanently. They definitely, but at a different point, removed her VF, but they claim not to have severed the possibility of a future relationship with her as a consultant.

I am not sure whether, if the tribunal does believe they severed the possibility of a future relationship with her as a consultant, this would count as denying her employment? Because it was independent consulting work.

So I think it will come down to whether the judge agrees that the tactics they used in deliberately stopping fundraising, and even manipulating other parties to withdraw their suggested offers of funding, amounted to trying to deny her permanent employment.

I could be wrong about some of the above. But it's not as simple as it might sound.

@tabbycatstripy

I'm looking for consistency in this sex/gender/race positioning...

From AG's evidence, the belief at CGD (at least the 'institutional position', to coin a phrase) was that self-identification of race was fine, but not if you are pretending (that's very offensive). So at least she believes that race is linked to some material reality? I would assume. I don't believe she thinks you can change 'race'.

But she knows some people hold biological sex and gender to be different. That doesn't offend her, and she knows biological sex at birth is different from gender.

But from her evidence, she thinks it's possible to change sex, and the offence is to suggest you can't, or to ask about someone's current or past biological sex. So for her, the belief seems to be:

• People are born a sex
• They can change their sex to 'match' an inner 'gender identity'
• You can't ask someone about their sex because that's like asking them to show you their genitals.

She also thinks people are born a 'race', but you can't change your race and it's offensive to pretend you can.

I'm just trying to understand where she's coming from.

I'm

LE also said that sex and gender are the same.

Prelate:

Yes, but that's complicated by this notion of change. To some believers, you can 'change your sex' and then sex and gender are the same. To others, sex was always a spectrum and you don't have to change it for it to 'match' your gender. And for others, gender is a synonym for sex (in the way we mean it - physical sex).

It's very hard to get to the bottom of what these people think.

That article on purity spirals was really interesting.

@PenguindreamsofDraco

Looking forward to BC's closing, he's been stupendous. OD is very good given her call but the difference has been stark. Amd next time around am I right in thinking RMW is against him?

RMW is the junior and has a senior leader QC, iirc.

There might not be any opportunity to see RMW in action. I hope that I'm wrong.

Who is RMW?

Oh.

tabby