Flying the flag of inclusion. Credit: Belinda Jiao/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty
In 2019 I lost my job after tweeting about the difference between sex and gender identity.
Since then, I have heard from hundreds of women and men who have been discriminated against and harassed at work for expressing the “gender critical” view that human beings cannot change sex, and that sex matters. Some cases, like mine, have become publicly known, but they are the tip of the iceberg. Many of the people who have endured complaints, and been subject to internal disciplinary processes, go unnoticed. As do those so afraid of losing their jobs that they remain anonymous when expressing their views online.
Despite this, the debate has gone mainstream in the last three years. Today, the gender debate can be heard in parliament, academia and the media, as well as on social media and in discussions between friends. There have been best-selling books on the subject and all manner of public figures — from Trevor Phillips and Tony Blair to Martina Navratilova and Tanni Grey-Thompson — have spoken up on the issue.
More people are speaking up about the need for clarity about sex, for safeguarding and women’s rights. They work in education, healthcare, in parliament and the media. Most of all, there are parents speaking up to their children’s schools.
I first started tweeting about the issue in 2018, back when the UK government was consulting on whether to reform the Gender Recognition Act to gender self-ID. My remarks were deemed so outrageous that the Center for Global Development (CGD) decided not to offer me further employment.
In 2019 a judge declared that my belief (that there are two sexes, that human beings can’t change sex, and that sex is important) did not count as a philosophical belief for the purposes of the Equality Act, that it was “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”.
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Why has the judge who slanderously remarked that biological views of dimorphism are “not worthy of respect in a democratic society” not lost his job?
“The complaints by people who read my tweets came from the US. The consultants who investigated me were from the US, and so were the decision makers who decided to let me go. Radical gender ideology arose in the campuses of elite North American universities and has spread to the UK, and other countries.”
The fact that this case was something initiated in the US is something I had not appreciated before. The Judge seems to have drunk from the US Kool Aid.
We have been so used to adopting ideas and trends from our American cousins that we have forgotten that they have had a very problematic past. The society was founded by people whose religious beliefs were more extreme than was usual in the lands of their birth and this has continued to produce a society that has a much higher level of religiosity than in the UK. But into this mix they introduced a black slave population. The most extreme prejudice against blacks existed in the US in a way that it never has in the UK. It was only in 1967 that the US Supreme Court struck down the apartheid like anti-miscegenation laws that disfigured some 16 States in Loving v Virginia and other US Supreme Court cases led to the dismantling of Jim Crow laws and practices. CRT is simply another extremist reaction to its racist past filtered trough a highly religiously influenced world view. The Trans movement is a similar extremist US originated belief of the same type.
These weird and distorted views should never have found a foothold in the UK.
Follow the money. In a country where ‘health care’ is a business, there is money to be made in cosmetic surgery to enable people to ape their preferred sex. There is also pressure from the homophobic Christian Right who would rather have a pretend ‘daughter’ than a gay son, or a pretend ‘son’ than a lesbian daughter.
The identitarian Left believes that it is being ‘progressive’ by supporting this nonsense but, actually, it is being used by interests that it used to despise.
Yes, there is a good conversation between Andrew Doyle and Helen Joyce on YouTube that highlights the regressive nature of the movement to support the idea that boys who like girly things and are not gender conformist are really girls and should transition to their true sex and vice-versa.
As Andrew Doyle says the message is that the bully who used to tease the boy with girly tastes that he was really a girl is now the regarded as right. Previously the progressive view was that the boy should not be targeted just because he had gender nonconforming tastes.
https://youtu.be/KAYR8GUJsqo
The change in view is weird and perhaps the two factors you mention are important drivers in this change.
I don’t think cosmetic surgeons are driving the trans ideology, and trans surgeries would surely be only a small part of their business in any case. (BTW–is cosmetic surgery free under the NHS?)
And as a conservative Christian American–and therefore presumably a member of the “Christian Right”–I have never heard of any person or any group who preferred or advocated sex change operations over having a gay child, and this is definitely not a common Christian belief.
The US exports many crazy ideas, but this one seems to have been originally imported from schools of thought in Germany and France.
Yes, many people gain much enjoyment in conflating the erroneous outliers with orthodox Christian belief, then misrepresent the rest of the Bible to suit their own hatred agendae. [sigh] It was ever thus.
Actually I have heard directly from a Southern Baptist pastor that he cannot accept gay relationships, but he can accept trans people (including those with surgery).
The majority of gay people (similar to straight) cannot endure lifelong celibacy.
(Witness the demise of Exodus International for its decades long extreme failure rate.)
And if you are on the Christian Right, you know the traditional reading of Scripture for gay relationships.
Is the pastor an anomaly? I think not, but neither have I conducted a poll.
Just chiming in.
“There is also pressure from the homophobic Christian Right who would rather have a pretend ‘daughter’ than a gay son, or a pretend ‘son’ than a lesbian daughter.”
I agreed with your comment until you came out with that. Do you have any evidence to back up the slur? I am an atheist. but have many friends who are devout Christians, some of whom are deeply offended by self identification and who are against the current promotion of homosexuality on family and health grounds, but none to my knowledge would treat their children in the manner to which you allude.
I know, and I had been counting on the UK to save the day by rejecting the entire critical theory apparatus. I thought, “British people are far too sensible to take this seriously.”
The good thing is that the decisions by the British courts with regard to the transgender issue are influential in US thinking. Those of us who are concerned for the loss of women’s spaces take heart from these decisions as well. JK Rowling has become a heroine here.
Good points. In Britain, in the 18th century the ability to vote depended on paying rates. Consequently women could vote if they paid rates. Within Westminster if one controlled a front door and hearth one could vote which meant there was black man who could vote as he had the wealth.
Reading Orwell, it was white American troops who complained about the freedoms black troops had and the fact that white British women went out with them.
If one wants to see the difference in attitude towards race notice the difference between the forces of the USA and UK in WW2, especially The Burma Campaign and The Chindits. Men from all parts of The Empire fought and died together against the enemy; the jungle and The Japanese.
Problems were encountered when Indian officers were sent to the USA: one major who had the DSO was barred from a hotel. In 1943 It was American troops who objected to a Learie Constantine West Indian test Cricketer staying at the Imperial Hotel, Russell Square, not the management. Learie Constantine became the highest paid professional sportsman in Britain in 1929. In Britain after WW2, Havildar Umrao Singh VC mentions how after white women came up to kiss his moustache when he was in London. Indian officers fought in the British Army in WW1 after coming down from university. Prince Ranji went to Cambridge and played cricket for England in the end of the 19th century and was praised by W G Grace, C B Fry, etc. There has never been a ban or limitation of Jewish people entering public and grammar schools or university nor anyone from an ethnic minority or nor preventing sex between races and it would be in complete contradiction of the belief in liberty and fair play to do so.
As the saying goes ” America sneezes and Britain catches a cold “.
Lots of west Africans fought in the Burma Campaign .
I still think the UK is a kind welcoming place but owing to multiculturalism {all cultures are of equal value..not} I wonder if many immigrants appreciate our history good and bad.
The West Africans were superb jungle fighters in Burma, especially in The Chindits and are mentioned in the memorial to them. The Left Wing Middle Class Intellectuals did very little fighting WW2 as Orwell had stated in many essays, so were not in combat with peoples from all over the Empire. Did any LWMI serve in the Chindits for example ?
…those interested in the very different views on race held in Great Britain and the USA in WW2 should find a few minutes to view the various You Tube accounts of “The Battle of Bamber Bridge”…it is very instructive, especially for those choosing to believe that the UK was a racist hell-hole, and claim it still is…
Yes trans ideology is cult like.All supposition and no science.Fact sex is determined at birth, it’s the chromosomes innit?
There will be weeping and gnashing of dentures if we disagree with the high priests of this religion.Live and let live is not enough, we must all believe or be cast into outer darkness.
Meanwhile we have Russia invading the Ukraine and Canada has declared martial law because the working classes have risen up against Blackface Trudeau.
As an American, I absolutely agree with this analysis of our instinctual Puritanicalism as a society – across ideological lines.
The judge didnt lose his job because he ‘merely’ made an error in law. He failed to understand the legal test and misapplied it. That is why the appeal succeeded. An appeal succeeding is a serious humiliation to a judicial office holder.
What law governs his statement not worthy of respect in a democratic society?
That judge has not lost his job, for the same reason that the judge who decided that women working comfortable, easy till jobs should be paid the same as men working warehouse jobs also kept his job, and why media presenters can claim a female footballer or tennis player has to be considered as good as a male, and keep their jobs.
Biological views of dimorphism are not worthy of respect in a democratic society. Not any more.
That’s not a ridiculous statement, that’s a basic underpinning of the legal system, media, universities today.
If you disagree, you are soon done for, as someone points a finger and starts screaming “misogynist”.
Women like Maya have worked hard over decades to make it so, they are only complaining now because they are in the receiving end.
Wait till (hopefully) the trans nonsense has died down, and then try suggesting to Maya, JK Rowlings, Kiera, Professor Stock, that men and women are biologically different and it’s fine if men do better in certain fields (or vice versa of course)
Then see what happens to you.
Your post is incoherent.
Let me simplify this for you
“men and women are biologically different and it’s fine if men do better in certain fields (or vice versa of course)”
The majority of those working in media, civil services and education would strongly disagree with this statement (whether sports, STEM, IT…)
That, in essence, is the root of what the judge said:
“Biological views of dimorphism are not worthy of respect in a democratic society. Not any more.”
And he is right. Not about the biological view on dimorphism per se (which anyone but an intellectual would agree is fairly obvious and natural) – but the unacceptable nature of holding such views in his social circles.
Men and women are the same, any deviation (to the disadvantage of women) is because of evil patriarchal forces and in no way due to biology, and anyone suggesting otherwise is a heretic.
Actually till workes don’t earn more than warehouse workers. 12,500-21,000 for counter service assistant vs 16,000 to 24,000 for warehouse worker. Courtesy of nationalcareers.service.gov.uk
If you are so concerned for the warehouse workers, maybe you should look at other men working easy jobs in warm offices, who are paid vastly more than men doing heavy lifting?
The issue is that male pianists, architects or teachers are regularly paid more than female pianists, architects and teachers, even though the latter are same or better performers.
I wish this issue were in the past, and as a society we had our hands free looking at ever diminishing pockets of unfairness.
Even according to the official statistics women are down from 10 to 15 percent, and this does not take into account lack of opportunity for promotion, and established pay disparity for entire jobs, which are traditionally male or female.
“Group Sex Matters!” That’s something we can all get behind, so to speak!
And meanwhile Russia has invaded Ukraine….
I think the West is a tad decadent to worry about trans issues.Whatever happened to live and let live?
I don’t know about the UK, but in the US a great many national judges and justices can’t be fired except through impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by a two-thirds majority of the Senate. Perhaps the UK system is similar.
Something that outrages me is judges who don’t have to stand (UK) or run (US) for office, or for re-election, presuming what is and is not “democratic”. They are an aristocratic holdover, and are in no way democratic themselves.
It is very good news that Maya Forstater is making progress in this way, but it is not the best news possible,
“The Equality and Human Rights Commission, the UK’s human rights law watchdog, intervened in my case to say that my belief is indeed protected. And it has gone on to change its position on gender self-ID laws.”
The best possible news would have been that the EHRC’s position on this controversy is irrelevant, and that the issue of belief is irrelevant. Biological sex is a fact, not a belief, as is the fact that sex is assigned at the point of conception and is impossible to change thereafter. What ought to have won this argument is not the cultural relativism inherent to the processes of the EHRC, but the principle of freedom of speech and the right to rely upon facts in one’s defence of it.
That said, on the matter of Maya Forstater’s personal circumstances, any victory for her is welcome. I am sure she has been through hell over this, and it is good that she has emerged victorious.
Indeed. I always thought the same.
Sex is not assigned. It is determined at conception and formally identified at birth. I strongly object to the abuse of language as a weapon of propaganda.
You change the language so as to change the culture. You are right to strongly object.
I agree. My first thought when I heard the ruling about a “belief being protected” was — What belief? Women are female and men are male. The people who say otherwise are the ‘believers,’ and I’m happy to let them believe in whatever they like, but it doesn’t change reality, and it doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t be able to criticize those ‘beliefs.’
As we all know in this inverted world facts Are trumped by feelings.
In the 1990’s, Stonewall made fantastic progress in changing our attitudes (and that includes my attitude, btw) to gay people. One of the key components of their approach was that they not only won the argument, but they also did their best to win over hearts and minds. In other words, their successful strategy of the 1990’s was more or less the opposite of their tactics today, i.e. cyberbullying, etc., to make our politicians and other civic leaders just as terrified of being accused of transphobia as they are terrified of being accused of racism.
Many (all?) of the original Stonewall leaders have apparently broken ranks with Stonewall. The LGB Alliance was created in opposition to Stonewall.
Why should one have a pre-formed ‘attitude’ towards a group (‘gay people’), rather than individual people that one encounters from time to time?
I take people as a I find them, regardless of their allegiances or proclivities.
Hi Arnold. you ask why one should have pre-formed attitudes towards a group. Regrettably, the answer is “prejudice”. The sad fact is that, in the bad old days, that prejudice was pretty awful.
I’m the same as you. I really cannot get my head around the assumption that people automatically see an individual as a clone-like representative of an ‘identity group’ and therefore will oppress or judge them. I might have some instinctive first judgements or impressions (culture is important and undoubtedly shapes people), but I know any individual can be raised in a culture and reject many aspects of it, or not subscribe to some hive mind ideology just because you have x characteristic. It’s nuts. I don’t think I’m that unusual? To me, identity politics is just another form of in/out group tribalism dehumanising those not in the tribe. It’s as old as humanity itself and far from ‘progressive’.
Perhaps if we referred to the self-proclaimed progressives consistently as the “regressives” or “tribalists” the truth might filter through to those who are not wholly brainwashed. After all they have stolen the concept of liberalism as a cloak for illiberalism.
The best argument Stonewall had in the 1990s was that you didn’t choose to be gay nor could you choose not to be, so it was wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of something they had not chosen.
Their current stance is that you can choose your sex and you can choose to be attracted to someone who claims to be of whatever you sex you prefer. Therefore a gay woman who won’t sleep with a man who claims to be another gay woman is exercising prejudice.
These two positions are wholly irreconcilable. If the latter is now true, then everyone who’s gay has chosen to be all along. If lesbians can be instructed to find men attractive, then they could have been instructed to do so in the 1990s, and gay men can likewise be told to choose to find women attractive now.
Logically therefore Stonewall should now be campaigning for the repeal of everything it has hitherto won.
That is indeed my recollection of Stonewall’s argument in the 1990’s.
It is interesting how difficult it is to find research that investigates that claim of homosexuality being entirely generic.
And how asinine that logic is.
Even if being gay is a choice, you have no right to discriminate or judge them because it’s their life, their choice.
And on the contrary, being “born a certain way” is no excuse if we deem that behaviour to be harmful to society.
You wouldn’t accept paedophiles or criminals just because they might be born that way.
Being gay is not harmful to society, whether choice or genetic.
Using “homophobia” as a bludgeon to attack social institutions like marriage or imposing “education” on 5 year olds is a different thing altogether.
Excellent point, clearly stated.
Having benefited from a primarily science focused education I have always hoped that our understanding of the differences in human behaviour versus the ‘norm’ of binary sex would grow and help offset the bigotry instilled by society and religion. Slowly we seem to be making progress in our knowledge of the neurological differences which can be evidenced using new technology. It is therefore deeply depressing to see neuroscientists such as Sam Stagg (@sammysammystagg) suspended from Twitter for reporting scientific research in this area. His ‘crime’ was to discuss the notion that human behaviour may be attributed to neurological differences independent of sex. Yes gay, lesbian, bi and trans are born this way, just as we are all born male and female.
Stonewall will keep pushing against frontiers until there are none left. Their reason to exist ended in 2013.
Thank you Maya for fighting the good fight. For speaking out when it would be easier to let yourself be silenced. For keeping going when others would have quit. Your courage and persistence are making all of us a little bit freer. Thank you.
When a society starts shutting down speech, however offensive some individuals may find it, that society is finished. This is straight out good guys and bad guys, and anyone who has a “no debate” mentality is a bad guy.
What if those complaining about it now are the ones who shut down free speech to begin with, and are likely to revert to type as soon as they find it convenient again?
Stonewall’s strategy of “no debate” on its push for gender self-ID has backfired. The unreasonable and unrelenting attacks on people as obviously calm and compassionate as Professor Kathleen Stock and JK Rowling have led more people to look again at the policies being promoted in the name of “trans inclusion”, which chip away at areas of life formerly designated female-only.
I wouldn’t presume to understand the “journey” a trans person has been on, or the struggles – both personal and societal – they will have faced, but I would suggest the situation is made many times worse by the so-called “Allies” who have rallied to the trans cause. Their insistence that everybody should be forced to accept their imposed orthodoxy, under the threat of cancellation for those who don’t comply, is much of the reason for any push-back.
For anyone who has previously campaigned for equality, the whole Self-ID issue seems a very strange hill to choose to die on – and wholly self-defeating.
If gender is merely a case of self-identification then, at a stroke, the concept of Feminism is dead. The Gender pay-gap argument, already on very thin ice, entirely falls through into the freezing waters below and women’s sport – that has made such advances in the last few years – ceases to be fairly competitive, and thus comes to an end.
The contradictory nature of the whole argument means it cannot survive scrutiny. It exists and perpetuates because anyone who dares gainsay it can be shouted down by activists as a mere bigot and thus someone who does not deserve an explanation or to be reasoned with. But if sensible, sober people try to man the barricades (person the barricades??) to defend and legitimise the concept of self-identification, then they have to be able to square all the various contradictory circles that dwell within the argument.
It cannot be done.
My (30 year old) dictionary defines Gender as “The quality of being Male or Female”. More recent online dictionaries have broadened the definition to include this idea of gender being on a spectrum. Can we not have a different word to describe this spectrum other than “Gender”?
This re-definition, surely, is where much of the argument derives from. Most people can, quite correctly, define gender in the way it has been used for all of our lifetimes, until its meaning was expanded-upon and changed very recently. They are now being told to deny that truth – or be denounced as a bigot.
If I meet a trans person and they ask me to call them a different name, or by different pronouns, I will acquiesce simply out of courtesy. They are entitled to their choices, their sense of self, they can do whatever makes them happy, and who am I to judge?
However, when activists that I haven’t met INSIST that I must fall into line with the new dogma – one that flies in the face of long-established meaning – then I don’t see why I should be forced, why anyone should be forced, to play along.
It doesn’t matter by what name you call yourself, or the life you choose to lead, even what you add to or subtract from your body through surgeries, you don’t change chromosomes. Individuals having two X chromosomes are female; individuals having one X chromosome and one Y chromosome are male.
Must we now deny science as well as twist the language to accommodate the new activist orthodoxy?
As I say, on an individual basis, I am perfectly willing to accept someone for who they are, however they choose to define themselves – to do otherwise seems unnecessarily rude or intolerant. But no one should be forced, on pain of public shaming and “cancellation”, to say things or believe things that are not factually true.
“If I meet a trans person and they ask me to call them a different name, or by different pronouns, I will acquiesce simply out of courtesy. They are entitled to their choices, their sense of self, they can do whatever makes them happy, and who am I to judge?”
Therein lies a bit of a problem, in my experience. I had a ‘gender fluid’ person in a therapy group I ran maybe 15 years ago. He was a non-effeminate, balding male called Peter (let’s say). But Peter occasionally wore a wig and, when he did, the entire group had to call him Polly (let’s say).
The wig was apparently all that was required for Polly to feel entitled to make frequent trips to the Ladies, invariably when others of us were present.
Showing ‘courtesy’, respect for another’s ‘choices’ and ‘happiness’, all whilst suspending ‘judgement’, can be difficult (and potentially irresponsible) in real world situations.
There is someone exactly like that at Credit Suisse:
https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/mistranslated-i-split-my-time-as-pippa-and-philip-20171002
Sometimes he wears a frock to the office, uses the ladies’ toilet and expects to be addressed as “she”.
These people used to be known as “transvestites” and were widely pitied.
He sounds like an autogynephile. I don’t know why trans women don’t argue more vociferously against AGPs being included in the “trans” label. These are men who know they are men who get off on wearing women’s clothing and infiltrating women’s spaces.
Individuals having two X chromosomes are female; individuals having one X chromosome and one Y chromosome are male.
Yes. But male and female denote sex and sex is not defined by chromosomes. Chromosomes are the sex determination mechanism (in humans x – y) – that determine which sex an organism will develop as.
Sex is the particular reproductive strategy – the developmental, supporting and production structures (the phenotype) that result in the production of either large immotile gametes (female) or small motile gametes (male).
The discussion of gender is an interesting one. I assumed it was a legitimate concept that described a real phenomenon. But now I am not so sure. I have been considering the position that gender does not exist. As such, a person is an individual – either an adult human female or male with their own individual characteristics.
If that idea was correct though you could banish sex segregation in sporting events and it wouldn’t make any difference. There is surely a middle ground that accepts
Individual idiosyncrasies without denying the broad-brush consequences of sexual dimorphism.
Gender. Much confusion, I agree, because when people talk about this they very rarely bother to define their terms up front.
My understanding of this really thorny thicket :
Sex. Crudely, the bits your born with determined by the X and Y chromosomes in your cells modifiable to a degree by the hormonal soup they are bathed in while in utero. Later on also determined by secondary sexual characterisitics (e.g. disposition of body hair and musculature, body shape etc.) These secondary characterisitics show huge variation in individuals implying that there are many other, external and internal factors that effect their development.
Gender. A set of social, psychological, and emotional traits often influenced by societal expectations that classify an individual as “feminine” or “masculine”. Crudely, “boy babies wear blue and girls pink. Boys play with guns, tractors and take more physical risks. Girls play with dolls, playdough and indulge in less direct physical violence”. This quality exists on a spectrum.
Sexual orientation. An individual’s emotional, romantic or sexual feelings toward other people. This quality also exists on a spectrum from asexual to bisexual to straight to homosexual and lesbian. This orientation can and does change over time in some individuals.
Gender identitiy. An individual’s deeply held personal, internal, sense of being male, female, or maybe neither. A person’s gender identity may not always correspond to their biological sex.
X and Y chromosomes are as susceptible to epigenetic and neuro hormonal influences as any other chromosomes so in no way are any of these categories or feelings or behaviours they give rise to cast in concrete.
As always, this is way more complicated than people would like it to be. Either you are interested and wish to engage in this complexity or you don’t.
I have known 2 transgender individuals in my life, both biologically male. Totally different people. Both gentle, compassionate fathers with children before they transitioned. Very different characters in other ways.
Hi Elaine. I tend to think that most people have engaged a little too timidly in the ‘complexity’ of trans ideology. The majority, who believe in ‘live and let live’ have not engaged at all but are now being confronted by the real world consequences of ‘gender’ being deliberately substituted for ‘sex’ in this debate.
I too have known, and worked with, trans individuals. I am increasingly concerned to see children and young people on the autism spectrum deciding their sense of ‘otherness’ can be explained by their being ‘in the wrong body’. This will have tragic consequences for many.
Middle aged fathers becoming ‘women’ is not the most worrying development; as you suggest, it is not new, and wondering ‘why’ is a niche interest. Promoting the concept of ‘gender identity’ to ever younger children, by contrast, is worrying. There will be casualties, and these will be amongst those who are already most vulnerable.
That judge should have been thrown out of the law, frankly. To whom are judges actually accountable?
Sadly, nobody. They exist in ivory towers of seculars lefty abundance. They are the true tool of power wielded by the Islington mafia.
The higher courts, which happened. That judge got it wrong and will learn. The attitude you express is akin to the hysterical cancel culture complained of!
Well, it’s not. Cancel culture is seeking to censor and destroy anyone who voices an opinion with which the hard left disagrees. I am suggesting that basing a supposedly neutral legal judgment on a hard-left position renders the judge in question unfit to be one.
I don’t think the judgment could ever have been described as neutral, either way, but the reason was based on logic and (albeit erroneously interpreted/applied) law. That doesn’t make the judge unfit, just incorrect in this instance.
Calling for a sacking for misapplying law that leads to a result that happens to accord with an unwelcome political viewpoint is not logical, but emotive: a witch-hunt. Very much like the author of this article apparently suffered.
Don’t be afraid, move forward, the world of rational human beings will support you.
Bravo Maya and bravo Keira Bell.
Splendid article with a final paragraph that should be repeated ad infinitum word for word.
Incidentally Maya,as a barrister I was struck by the description from the Court of Appeal of the lower court’s pronouncement that your (and our ) ‘belief’ was not worthy of recognition in a democratic society. They called that view ‘jarring’ (‘all the more jarring’ as our law is rooted in a two-sex approach to life) That word may not seem much but I can tell you that in forensic language the court is saying that the decision of the lower court was astonishingly inept. So well done again!
The judgement of the Employment Appeal Tribunal is not light reading but boils down to a finding that the judgement in the lower tribunal had, in effect, misrepresented Maya’s views.
“Radical gender ideology arose in the campuses of elite North American universities and has spread to the UK, and other countries. This is not a positive cultural import.”
It actually did not really, it came from ‘Critical Theory’, which derived the whole postmodernism, poststructuralism, neo-marxism, intersectionality and came from the ‘Frankfurt School’ of thought, Weimar Germany. It was developed from Existentialism, Freudian theory, and Marxism, and first moved to USA in the 1950s, then in 1980 moved to Columbia University fully, where is spread like a virus. Its entire goal is the destruction of the West, and the main tool to achieve that is the destruction of the family.
Naturally wiki is pure propaganda – but here is the link to it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School
and I recommend looking at the 11 points of the FS – they may be a bit OTT, but there is some truth in them. (easy search)
You say this a lot and I can see where you are coming from but there is a lot more to it than the FS.
The main problem is not the idea itself but the speed at which it moves. All young people spend their lives feeding the social media. If something happens it goes viral in less than a day. The politicians watch the social media and react with soundbites. This idea of following the trends quickly is what all politicians do; they try to beat each other to the punch to show that they are more into modern thought.
FS or no FS, if Trans ideas had come forward 30 years ago, they would have hung around for a few weeks and then died.
To be honest, I don’t see the bad politicians (Biden et al) as Left, I see them as afraid – afraid of being behind the times, afraid of not reacting quickly enough. If Biden and friends were younger, they would see the social media for what they are.
Yes, since having emigrated to the US from Europe, I’m horribly aware that much of the US is a nepotistic gerontocracy.
I don’t totally agree with you here, I think most of this came from the later post-structuralist school in France. In particular their refusal to contenance any debate on subjects, their assertion that all views are as good as each other, and there can never be any authority, have all led to the idea that anyone can asserrt anything, no matter how wacky, and never be challenged. Although it is arguable that they were influenced by the Frankfurt School in some ways. They can, of course, be challenged by simply stating that they, too, have no authority to make any assertions.
Good luck Maya and keep going!
In 2019 a judge declared that my belief (that there are two sexes, that human beings can’t change sex, and that sex is important) […] that it was “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”.
I still cannot fathom the grounding justifications for this assertion by the judge – that a truth statement about reality that is a consequence from a scientific methodology and a particular theory of truth, is not worthy of respect. Does he mean it does not have the qualities that deserve respect? If so, what qualities should it have had that would enable it to be regarded with respect?
I think I will have to read up of the President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s reasoning to see what justifications were made that the original judgement was incorrect.
As a footnote, here is a recent substack that highlights the acquiescence of female swimmers into denying their experiences and understanding of reality for fear of retribution.
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/watching-lia-thomas-win?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct
“Radical gender ideology arose in the campuses of elite North American universities and has spread to the UK, and other countries. This is not a positive cultural import.”
I would argue that there is much more to this than just “racial gender ideology…..”
This is only a small part of the “woke” movement, with extreme censorship, untenable positions such as segregation by “affinity groups,” (think race), and teaching young children the concept of collective guilt of whites, with the collective victimhood of COWs (Citizens of Wakanda), Marxism, multi-culturalism, destroy the nuclear family, Western Civilization, tear down statues, the list goes on. The entire woke lunacy must be rejected every single time, and let’s not limit this to the trans debate.
Of course the US is one of the worst offenders, likely the worst, but I’m not sure I agree with Maya’s “origin theory.” I believe that this leaked from a uni in Sweden, and then spread to the US before crossing the pond once again in variant form to take hold in the UK. This “uni leak” theory should not be dismissed out of hand and merits (a bad word to the woke, who prefer “equity”) an investigation. There has been great cooperation on the lunatic fringe of academia with serious links between SE and the US. An attempt to rewrite a pronoun to be “gender neutral” spread from SE (“hen”) to the US (“Yo”).
Finally, as a Yank I find it more than a bit odd that a judge can opine on “belief/s worthy of respect in a democratic society.” Believe it or not, some believe that there is a man in a cloud who will return to earth one day to save them from their sins. Others sects have slightly different fantasies. As an atheist, I do not find these beliefs worthy of respect in any society, but hey, believe what you want as long as you leave me alone. But when–as is absolutely common in the US–these fantasies, unworthy of respect in a democratic society in my view–are completely and inextricably interwoven with government policy, how my $$$ is spent, I find that beyond sickening and unworthy of respect in a democratic society.
Jeez – have you seen the latest announcement from the kook Grace Lavery?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10542993/Berkeley-professor-suspended-Twitter-tweeting-hopes-COVID-stricken-Queen-DIES.html
I didn’t know I was reading at Unherd a fascist website that supports Nazis! What was I thinking?
Could Unherd sue her for libel, slander – I can never remember the difference?
OMG, “far-right site UnHeard” [sic]
Slander is spoken, libel is written.
I don’t know if MF reads these BTL comments, but take heart and all the best in your forthcoming tribunal!
From memory, some Spanish guy got the UK courts to say veganismo is a philosophical belief. The world has gone mad. Who are these towering intellectual giants who make and implement our laws?
A philosophical belief in employment terms, that one ought not to be sacked for, much like the philosophical belief of the author of this article.
The towering intellectual giants who make the laws are the MPs we vote in. The system very much allows them not to be the philosopher kings once hoped for.
The judiciary have the task of trying to make sense of it in a fast moving world and generally do a good job. Whatever the outcome of the employment tribunal case, it will not be the definitive answer on this debate.
Notwithstanding the sacking, this issue is ultimately a political question, which should be debated in the proper forum – parliament, not the courts or twitter. I think it is true that most young people have worked out that social media is not a healthy forum. That we have politicians so reactive to a perceived public opinion is a problem. Quit twitter.
It is a shame the UnHerd event was cancelled as I was genuinely looking forward to being enlightened.
I read the GRA with incredulity. It doesn’t define the meaning of sex & gender for the purposes of the Act. They are implicitly different (it’s not the Gender/Sex RA) & then explicitly conflated at 9.1. The consciousness of the foundational lie is evident in the exemption for inheriting titles. Why can’t an eldest daughter inherit a title if they really believe she has become male? Irrespective of the subject, I am ashamed of the government lawyers who drafted such a Law.
What happened to the original judge from the 2019 case? He obviously allows his beliefs to substitute for law. Why should anyone by judged by such a judge?
Interesting discussions on gender self ID that I read today on a couple blogs (links below) that usually cover Scottish politics from opposing sides for and against independence!
Its apparent that the debate is going on everywhere.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-silence-of-the-sacrificial-lambs/#more-131065
https://www.effiedeans.com/2022/01/and-truth-shall-get-you-cancelled.html
People who were under the illusion that they were Jesus Christ or Napoleon used to be committed for psychiatric evaluation and admitted to a mental institution where they would be cared for and pose no threat to society at large. Maybe we should be applying similar rules to this current freak show?
In the US some states have passed laws that give rights to people based on their feelings. That is a very unwise trend. For example, on the political right the “stand your ground” laws allow a person to shoot with impunity if the person feels threatened. On the political left people get access to private spaces reserved for members of a sex such as locker rooms if a biological man feels he is a woman.
My problem with these ideas is no judge or jury can ascertain how I feel.
“The complaints by people who read my tweets came from the US. The consultants who investigated me were from the US, and so were the decision makers who decided to let me go. Radical gender ideology arose in the campuses of elite North American universities and has spread to the UK, and other countries.”
As my comments on the above have mysteriously reappeared I have deleted my reposting to avoid confusion.
Peter LR, so right ,”biological views on dimorphism” anti a democratic society?..according to a judge? ..Used to be that
Democracy was defined as “the rule of the majority, with the consent of the minority “..
Now the woke brigade have it as “Rule by the minority by the cancellation of the majority “..