Victoria McCloud comment re Forstater

[RethinkingLife]

Comment from Maya Forstater about McCloud.

High Court judge thinks:

1) That belief is not an "actual" protected characteristic
2) That S26 EqA harassment is based solely on feelings and does not have a reasonableness test

3) That manifestation of belief is not protected

Quite worrying.

The funny thing is that it is in response to a post about this article which suggests that GC discrimination is not much of a problem and is being nipped in the bud already with a little bit of training.

Also in that thread DEI trainer [Barnes - see image] suggests equating how do we protect people gender with critical beliefs to "how do we protect racists?", "how do we protect homophobes?".

Read the Jo Phoenix judgement and remember not to compare your colleagues to #RacistUncleAtTheDinnerTable

https://x.com/MForstater/status/1749531003797057835?s=20

NB: McCloud was the youngest ever Master in the High Court when appointed, and the second woman Master and the first trans person
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_McCloud

Some people think they can make stuff up.

Gender identity is a biological characteristic?!!??

Well, apparently such thought-leaders are illustrative of the intentional diversity of judicial appointments. It's certainly intellectual diversity. Like today's Adams vs ERCC ET and the discussion about 'some people believe human beings are mammals'…

No, I think the judge means that gender reassignment is a protected characteristic, not a biological one.

She's right on the law but is expressing it in a very partial way. Of course being a feminist doesn't confer any right to treat any protected group badly but there has never been a case of that (to my knowledge).

All the cases of harassment and discrimination have been towards feminists and its not usually trans people doing the harassing in employment cases. So the supposed clash between the PCs of gender reassignment and belief is a red herring.

so as to present a biological characteristic (gender identity) as a contested belief.

Although McCloud does proceed to mention "gender reassignment" in the next sentence.

Thanks, I misread it. She's talking more shite than I thought.

Incoherent and self interested. Also way out of touch given all the recent court victories in our favour.

Not what was quoted (& in my experience judges use their words carefully!)

I'm x-posting all over!

It's very much like reading the bad faith legal interpretations of another MN fave. With less added bundles!

The audio visual information is of a similar state too

Is an Employment Appeal Tribunal "a low level court"? I know the original employment tribunal wasn't precedent setting, but the appeal was.

Well, if a Gender identity tries really, really hard and umm identifies as a biological characteristic and then makes an invocation to urrr the Great Gender God Woo then...

They still remain the sex they were born at birth and the gender identity is shown again that gender has little to do with biology or reality.

The audio visual information is of a similar state too

So it is.

'Employers are used to dealing with Gender Critics who have religious beliefs that gay people are sinful'

What nonsense. Deliberately misunderstanding what criticising gender is actually about is not a good look for a judge.

To be fair, it must be infuriating to have spent all that time influencing the judiciary's Bench Book and despite judges receiving "secret trans training" that the public aren't allowed to know the details of and then .... all these cases with judges acting independently and applying the law!

Almost as if the judiciary are impartial and not Stonewalled like so many other institutions. 😄

Bigots gonna bigot and this person is just misrepresenting reality and the law to oppress women.

Let’s hope that the majority of high level judges, when faced with a very reasonable woman saying she believes sex exists and is important in some circumstances will continue to find in their favour,

Given those women are able to define their arguments and make points that are impossible to disprove and they are being ostracized by those who, like McCloud, argue without proof that “gender identity” is a biological fact and would place it above sex, even where that would detrimental to women, any logical judge would have to draw the same conclusion.

Had McCloud stuck to gender reassignment (even though there might have a problem with that, as even that is poorly defined) there might have been a leg to stand on, but as the argument is based on the ideological position that “gender identity” has a biological basis, McCloud is looking as legless as a drunk man after a five day bender.

Edited for pronouns having watched the video.

Video is out of date. They've had blue hair from the ears downwards for a couple of years.
Just like all those other female judges and lawyers. Oh hang on.

Mmn. It's that 'compatability of a belief system with a job that requires impartiality and capacity to see non believers as equally human', and 'conflict of interest' thing again isn't it?

How on earth is someone who expresses themselves so badly a high court judge?

McCloud will now presumably not be able to hear cases where these are factors. So if the goal was advancing gender woo then it's a fail.

Because people aren’t always given positions based on merit.

Is Mccliud male or female?

The views are so strongly through the biased lens with limited ability to engage with the views they are rejecting means that they don't understand them and are not responding to them as they are. This is the fundamental issue: engaging with them and understanding them would require letting go of the core beliefs about gender. This belief system and impartiality are not compatible.

Any judgements made on this basis would be likely to end on appeal rather like the first judgement in Maya's case: where the judge's personal bias was evidenced, and meant his findings were overturned.

Considering we're also now seeing court judgements directly mentioning harassment as well as prejudice in framing other views as 'transphobic' it might even mean a future response to a biased judgement went further than the one in Maya's case.