Thoughtful Helen Joyce piece in which she brings her characteristic forensic self to an area that is much in need of some clarity.
Barrister Cathryn McGahey likened Allison Bailey’s sexual orientation—that of a female exclusively attracted to females—to the male sexism that holds women back in the workplace, and to the racism of the white supremacists who fought to sustain apartheid.
I had intended to write something else this week, but then Catherine McGahey QC, of Garden Court Chambers and a former vice-chair of the Bar Standards Board, gave evidence in the hearing of Allison Bailey’s case against her barristers’ chambers, Garden Court, and Stonewall, alleging discrimination on grounds of sex, sexuality and gender-critical belief. And what she said was even more extraordinary than the ramblings of Kirrin Medcalf, Stonewall’s head of trans inclusion, two weeks ago (here’s the issue where I focus on what Medcalf said, and the highlights of her testimony on Sex Matters’ website). And so I decided to change tack.
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When I sat down to write this, I knew that I would be angry and distressed. In her evidence under oath, McGahey analogised three situations, repeatedly and in detail: women attempting to rise in their careers against male opposition; black South Africans fighting for full civil rights; and men who think of themselves as women trying to get lesbians to accept them as sexual partners. The glass ceiling; apartheid; the cotton ceiling—three barriers she framed as similar, with oppressed people on one side and oppressors on the other. This puts Bailey—a black lesbian and survivor of sexual assault who rose from humble origins to high in a respected profession—on the same side as men who think women aren’t up to senior jobs, and white supremacists.
www.thehelenjoyce.com/joyce-activated-issue-7/