Guardian: A politically toxic issue: the legal battles over gender-critical beliefs

[CheeseChamp]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/19/a-politically-toxic-issue-the-legal-battles-over-gender-critical-beliefs

"The social worker Rachel Meade’s win against the council and her profession’s regulator means she joins a select but growing group of gender-critical feminists who have successfully brought discrimination claims on the basis of their beliefs.

Gender-critical feminists believe sex is biological and cannot be changed, and disagree with trans rights activists who say gender identity should be given priority in terms of law-making and policy. Clashes in workplaces – in some cases with those who regard the focus on biological sex as transphobic – have led to a string of employment tribunals.
On Monday, a tribunal began hearing a constructive dismissal claim from Roz Adams against Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. Next month, Kenny McBride’s case against the Scottish government is due to be heard in Glasgow, while judgments are pending in a claim from Prof Jo Phoenix against the Open University and that of the Green party’s former deputy leader Shahrar Ali against the party.
In all four cases – and more in the pipeline – the claimants argue they were discriminated against because they hold gender-critical beliefs."

Not sure I agree on the last part:

"She added that the media attention afforded to gender-critical cases perhaps suggested that they were more common than they really were. In fact, she suggested there were likely to be a greater number of claims brought by transgender people alleging harm, though many go unreported.
“The overwhelming majority of employers are not setting out to discriminate; they’re not just thinking ‘well all people with gender-critical views are bad, so we’re just going to get rid of them’,” said Lewis.
“They just have got strong alternative views in the workplace and they haven’t known how to navigate through that conflict.”"

I think there is an automatic assumption by grifting good for nothing HR types that gc views are bad. And hopefully that is now being set right. Well done to strong women getting us here.

Re Judges
Sex offenders are still referred to in court as 'she' on a regular basis. Couple of current threads on about them.

Christ that Finn Mackay article in the Guardian makes my head hurt.

Looks like the Guardian have mixed up advertising and reporting in this print informercial:

The upshot of the article seems to be 'It's all a legal minefield. Employers, don't get caught out'. That is then followed by a quote "really good organisations like the CIPD... take all that [case law] reasoning, they give advice and training to employers and then employers are clear about what they need to do.” A link to the service that any employer reading can buy there and then is included in the quote.

Is the Guardian getting a fee for every click on that link? A commission for every sale concluded through that link? Or has the Guardian been played?

If your company is in a Stonewall strangle hold, the last paragraph seems very naïve

Finn is a foolish woman who has no clue what gender critical feminism is actually about.

That means you are gender critical. Don't be scared of that. TRAs try and make out that gender critical people are some sort of ogres but it's just short hand for people who know you can't change sex.

Finn is very old fashioned. Maybe just look around and see people who aren't tied to those stereotypes aka the original 'gender non conformers' (who know they haven't changed sex though)

Classic cognitive dissonance.

She thinks there must be even more discrimination against transpeople than there is against people who know what reality is, and her view is based on… What?

She wants it to be true, so it must be 🙄

What terrible journalism. Hopefully she’ll get replaced by AI soon.

I don’t recognise the world described by Finn either. As children of the 70s, we grew up under the influence of the first wave of feminism: girls had Lego and dolls and bikes and climbing frames, and were taught woodwork as well as cooking at school and encouraged to be physically active. Nothing seemed to be closed to us on the basis of our sex as we grew up.

Finn is either from a place that restricts girls’ and women’s lives to a horrible degree OR has fabricated the myth of a gendered world in order to give credence to genderist ideology. My guess is the latter.

Agree. It’s key background context.

The guardian are utter hypocrites. They're disgusting. They change with the tide.

I cancelled my subscription and got them to delete my online account

Yes, it’s bizarre, isn’t it? We are being lectured on sex stereotypes and how bad they are by someone who has bought into those stereotypes to such an extreme extent that they claim their choice of stereotypical clothing and behaviour make them the opposite sex (though Finn would undoubtedly use the word “gender”).

And unfortunately for Finn, I think the phrase gender identity ideology will creep into the mainstream whether the government use it or not. It’s a natural term for a belief system that is so outlandish and goes so much against observable reality that it’s almost intevitable it will come to be viewed in those terms.

But Finn considers Finnself to be the true bridge that will reconcile all and mostly make GC women and feminists understand the error of our ways and "end the wars".
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/05/finn-mackay-the-writer-hoping-to-help-end-the-gender-wars

Your favourite search engine will bring up helpful links from past discussions.
mumsnet finn bridge feminism

Disappointing to see how little Finn has progressed in some areas but not harming their career or profile so

I thought the article was loaded with passive aggression. from the picture of Maya looking stern...alongside 'toxic' etc. They are probably getting worried about prosecutions against themselves. It's always 'gender critical beliefs' not those that believe that sex is real and binary...which of course is true and believed by most, many of whom don't realise they have gender critical beliefs. It is all so weaselly. eg 'in which gender-critical feminists and advocates of transgender rights have been at loggerheads'
eg why not 'advocates for women's rights and trans rights activists?'

What did I just read? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/19/gender-ideology-tories-ministers-schools-conservative

After I read it I went looking into Finn Mackay, and I found some really confusing stuff. Lists of achievements to do with feminism and women's activism, yet refuses to use the pronoun 'she' about herself, and appears to have no breasts?

An interesting comment piece in the Mail on Sunday about the erosion of the social contract that Stonewall's regressive values are having:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12988069/MAIL-SUNDAY-COMMENT-Stonewalls-stealthy-erosion-values-checked.html

The campaign group Sex Matters, founded by Forstater, has identified at least 19 current cases.

And yet the Jan 19th Guardian articles says it's a false impression that there are lots more GC cases than GI cases. So are there really 19+ current discrimination cases by GI or trans people that no-one has heard of? Surely Stonewall is keeping track and supporting these cases, or what else are they spending their subs on?

@Flickersy GMB should be the little boy shouting that the emperor is actually naked.