Press release by Maya's lawyer - useful if talking to your own employer

[ChristinaXYZ]

There are some very quotable pieces in the above press release. Especially if you are bracing yourself for a discussion with your boss in the UK. Might be a handy article to save.

www.doyleclayton.co.uk/resources/news/forstater-v-cgd-europe-ors-maya-forstater-succeeds-employment-tribunal/

"Doyle Clayton partner Peter Daly, who has represented Ms Forstater throughout her litigation, said:

“This is an extremely important judgment.

Maya Forstater’s successful appeal last year demonstrated that gender critical beliefs were in principle protected by the Equality Act and the European Convention on Human Rights.

This judgment is the “proof of concept” of that principle, and shows that those legal protections are tangible and enforceable.

Gender critical people cannot be discriminated against on the basis of their beliefs, and the courts will protect them where unlawful discrimination occurs.

“Importantly – and contrary to much commentary and speculation – this judgment establishes that the legal protection goes further than protecting the mere holding of gender critical beliefs: acts of manifesting the belief through lawful speech and action are protected. The mistaken assertion made by some that gender critical people were protected so long as they never gave voice to their belief – in effect, compelling gender critical people to remain mute – was always mistaken and is now shown to be so.

“This is therefore a judgment with broad and biting real-world implications.
Employers and service providers need to understand these implications.""

I might be wrong headed but isn't being able to have GC beliefs but not be allowed to express them without repercussions a bit like the "don't ask, don't tell" that used to be the rule in the US military. Iirc this was condemned by gay rights advocates and is now no longer the case.

I'm glad that was scrapped and I'm glad for Maya. I think the clarification will have effects beyond GC people.

The parallels they have successfully drawn are basically with religion. This gives employers a useful frame of reference. Some people might believe in gender identity etc. but not believing is fine, saying you don't believe is fine. Basically no-one can force you to pretend to believe things you don't. No-one can punish you or fire you for not going along with it.

Huge impact in practice.

The question I would really like to ask my employer but have always been too scared to ask is;
When and how did/do they engage with the women at work to understand the varied female perspectives before bringing in new policies that affects all the women. And if they do feel that they canvas female opinion, do they feel that they really allow those women to freely express any concerns?

Thank you

So if a work policy is that not using preferred pronouns is bullying and discrimination and that people can use the toilet that matches their gender identity, does this ruling have any implications for challenging those from a protected belief standpoint?

Yes, I'd like to understand if this means HR/EDI people can enforce pronoun policies on employees?

Surely it would be the equivalent of asking everyone to state their religion and if you don't have a religion then you need to choose one or make one up.
Keep relating every question back to religion and if the result sounds unreasonable then it probably is.

Sorry, a bit more! With regards the toilets, this is more practical than belief. This would need to be argued under sex discrimination rather than belief.
This ruling means we can speak about our GC beliefs so long as we're not deliberately offensive.

I have a question, and this is not something I would ever act on, by the way.

But maya originally lost her job because the GC things she was saying were reported as making an unsafe environment for trans people, right?

So, over the years I have seen horrendous things written about GC on twitter. The name calling, accusations, bullying. Are any of these people now vulnerable to being reported to their workplaces for making it a hostile environment for anyone they are working with who are GC?

Someone I know in real life, who has now disowned me, said on twitter that all GC were a bunch of cu**s who should fuck off; we were stupid and bigotted; and worse of all was when he said women were going to get raped anyway so what's the need for same sex spaces....

He is not anonymous, he is on twitter under his name, with a photo of himself, and talks about his job regularly. I assume that someone could now report him to his boss for making a hostile environment for any GC coworkers he may have?

And again, I would never do it.....

Could you imagine? The courts would be swamped.

Maybe not courts.

But if I worked with someone who spoke to me like that, whether in person or on social media, what if I reported them?

Or, if one of my friends GC colleagues saw how he spoke to me, on twitter, could they report him to their workplace saying it made them feel unsafe?

It just seems that a lot of people who previously felt quite emboldened and threw out completely unfounded accusations, threats and insults might now be vulnerable. I include people in the public eye. People who work in broadcasting, acting, medicine, politics, police. If they have ever said anything that may be deemed an unreasonable, threatening, harassing way of expressing their beliefs, then are they now vulnerable?

It's the battle of the beliefs, I guess. I would not discriminate against a transperson in the work place - I would treat them exactly the same as anyone else, but if I'm demanded to use incorrect sex pronouns, that comes into conflict with my GC beliefs and where does that leave me?