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

From twitter:

twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1749690643591434485

Sarah Phillimore
@SVPhillimore

This is extremely worrying. This is the same judge who contacted me via LinkedIn, clearly identified in his professional capacity, and then blocked me as ‘disgusting’ when I made some reasonable comment about the tension between the rights of women and trans identifying men. I made a complaint via judicial standards which of course went no where.

This man I believe also contributed to the Equal Treatment Bench Book.

The time for silence about this is over. Those who promote entirely unlawful bigotry agaisnt women must be held to account.

You do all realise the significance of the 'she/her' that McCloud wishes us to use? Take a look at McCloud's photo.

The reference in my quotation from Wiki in the OP.

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

'the second woman Master and the first trans person'

So, not the usual sort of woman then.

Views are undoubtedly influenced by that fact -- how could they not be?

Quite.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair.

donquixotedelamancha · Yesterday 23:37

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).

If I remember, Maya's appeal ruling stated that she (and everyone else) can hold and express views, which disagree with trans ideology, but one must not bully, or harass someone, on account of them being trans. That sounds entirely reasonable to me.

McCloud constantly makes very long, anti gender critical, pro trans ideology posts on Linkedin and has done for years. I don't know of any other judge who behaves in this way. Usually judges are very careful not to express overly political opinions. If I were a gender critical claimant coming in front of McCloud, I would not expect to get a fair hearing.

Looking at the post, some odd things pop out. McCloud heavily implies that 'belief' is not an 'actual' protected characteristic, but of course it is one of the 9. No protected characteristic trumps another (unless the statute says), which means that a woman with gender critical beliefs is just as protected in law as a person undergoing reassignment.

McCLoud erroneously compares gender critical beliefs to racism, but racist belifes are not protected as they aren't worthy of respect in a democratic society. Gender criticism is not like racism.

It's not the case that gender crits see 'gender identity' as a belief. The ideology is the belief that gender identity trumps sex, that one can change one's sex, that a man who says he is a woman literally is a woman, etc. That IS a belief system.

Flimpychunk · Today 08:24

This m** I believe also contributed to the Equal Treatment Bench Book.

Unequal, more like.

That jumped out at me too! This is the 'thinking' process of High Court judges these days?

Yes, or at least ones who've contributed to the notorious Equal Treatment Bench Book.

https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/prejudging-the-transgender-controversy/

https://www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2022/01/03/the-new-interim-version-of-the-equal-treatment-bench-book/

Well, that's a bag o' shite, @RethinkingLife 😡

RethinkingLife · Today 14:11

Yes, or at least ones who've contributed to the notorious Equal Treatment Bench Book.

Well, after reading your link to the Legal Feminist, at least it has had some improvements and perhaps we can hope for more?

'McCLoud erroneously compares gender critical beliefs to racism, but racist belifes are not protected as they aren't worthy of respect in a democratic society.'

Yes, that was very clear and the whole point of the WORIADS part of Maya's case.

What is true is that the beliefs that include 'gender identity' have never been tested in court to see if they meet the Grainger criteria.