The second gender war
by Maya Forstater, The Critic:
At the end of 2021, the debate on sex and gender and the conflict with women’s rights feels very different, at least in the UK, from the way it felt at the end of 2019. There have been a series of legal wins and cultural shifts. People are finding a voice and wrenching the discussion back to reality.
In 2019, I became the poster child for standing up against harassment and discrimination at work for having ordinary beliefs about the two sexes.
After some of my tweets about sex and gender offended a couple of staff members at the headquarters of the Washington-based organisation where I worked, I was investigated (without being interviewed) and let go. When I launched my tribunal complaint of belief discrimination, that in turn sparked an investigation of me in my role as a scout leader. A scout leader in Dundee reported me for “misgendering” on Twitter; Scouts too investigated this without interviewing me or considering my evidence.
The judge in my employment case picked up on this “misgendering” incident (I tweeted “he” instead of “them”) and my defence of myself to the Scout Association, concluding I was an “absolutist” who would cause harm to colleagues at work, and therefore should have no protection against discrimination and harassment myself.
In June this year the Employment Appeal Tribunal overturned this judgment, creating a precedent that gender critical beliefs are “worthy of respect in a democratic society” and therefore people who hold them are protected from discrimination. I will now go on to another tribunal next year (three years to the day after I lost my job) to challenge my employer’s treatment of me. The Scout Association recently apologised for their two year investigation.
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