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Edith Lyre

Before the judge, Forstater argued that her belief (which she felt deserved legal protection) entitled her
to out trans people who pass as their legal gender. It is due to this aspect, that Forstater’s belief was
found to be unprotected. As Judge Tayler would note:

Even paying due regard to the qualified right to freedom of expression, people cannot expect to be
protected if their core belief involves violating others’ dignity and/or creating an intimidating, hostile,
degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.

It is clear that Forstater’s belief — which was the focus of the case, not her actions or intents — is not
protected insofar as the entitlement implied by it fails the criteria above. To make the situation clearer,
we should start with two key facts that differ from the UK media’s accounts:
1. Forstater was not fired. Rather, Forstater’s consultancy contract — with the Center for Global
Development, a thinktank based in DC — expired and was not renewed.
2. No reason was given by the Center. Forstater may suspect her anti-trans activism is the reason,
but no evidence thereto has come to light. A Preliminary Hearing was held to determine
whether Forstater’s belief were protected, well before any investigation into her suspicions (or,
even, if an expired contract actually counts as a termination) was expected to take place.
Forstater has blatantly lied about this, and UK media sources have either lied too, or simply copied their
stories from dishonest sources. (From this pattern of dishonesty, while not conclusive, it is certainly
reasonable to assume that Forstater took the case up with the deliberate intent of enshrining anti-trans
discrimination into legal protection.)

The above provides important context for all of the following. It should not surprise anyone familiar
with UK media practices to learn that, as every major media outlet (including typically progressive
outlets such as the Guardian), has reported, Forstater’s tweets and online and verbal commentaries
extend well beyond the scope suggested here:

She was accused of using “offensive and exclusionary” language on Twitter for saying “men cannot
change into women”.

As I said, even the Guardian has kept this line of reporting:

The Central London employment tribunal convened a preliminary hearing over the issue of whether her
tweets, such as “men cannot change into women”, should be protected under the 2010 Equality Act.

There are no exceptions to date, that I could find, to this incredible journalistic failure/malpractice. It

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Edith Lyre
should suffice to just drop — direct from the case paper — the tweets and remarks brought into
consideration throughout the hearing:

(Note: Pips/Phillip Bunce is a nonbinary person who is quoted in the case paper as saying “for me,
being gender fluid means I am non-binary, at no fixed point on the gender expression spectrum.’)


““I’ve got a Q for my male twitter friends who have pledged not to appear on all male panels - if u were
invited on a panel w Pip Bunce – one of FT’s top 100 female champions of women in biz & another guy
would u say yes or call the organisers & say sorry I don’t do manels”

[A manel is a panel with only men on it]

“Bunce does not ‘masquerade as female’ he is a man who likes to express himself part of the week by
wearing a dress”

“Yes. & weird he felt entitled to accept the award, instead of saying “sorry there has been a mistake I am
a man who challenges gender norms”

“He is a part-time cross dresser who mainly goes by the name of Phillip”

“Bunce is a white man who likes to dress in women’s clothes”

(Referring to the statement ‘trans women are women’ as ‘a literal delusion’:)

Of course in social situations I would treat any transwomen as an honourary female, and use whatever
pronouns etc...I wouldn't try to hurt anyone's feelings but I don't think people should be compelled to
play along with literal delusions like "transwomen are women.

(A suggestion that name-changes (let alone gender- or sex-) should be illegal for trans people/present an
‘exploit[able] loophole’.)


“Interestingly for alI my radfem followers who have read this far in a thread that is for the tax and
transparency people :) it does raise (but not answer) the question of privacy for trans people changing
their names. Which as we know would be a loophole that would be exploited.”

(An implied refusal to use nonbinary pronouns; ’plural pronouns,’ Forstater calls them:)

On Twitter I referred to Murray by the pronoun ‘he’. This was not purposeful or meant to cause harm. I
had simply forgotten that this man demands to be referred to by the plural pronouns “they” and “them”.

In reality Murray is a man. It is Murray’s right to believe that Murray is not a man, but Murray cannot
compel others to believe this. Women and children in particular should not be forced to lie or obfuscate
about someone’s sex.
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Edith Lyre

(Advocacy for the prohibition on blood donations from same-sex attracted men/implied disgust at cis
women receiving blood donations from trans woman:)

“This is madness. The FDA and American Red Cross replaced the objective criteria of sex with the
subjective criteria of self declared gender identity in screening blood donors for HIV transmission risk.”

(A retweet of an image, as Judge Tayler describes it:)

A newspaper cartoon of a person flashing two women at “Hampstead Heath Ladies Pond” with the
caption “It’s alright – it’s a woman’s penis”.

The above sit among many others, and while very few of these actually indicate the unprotected aspect
of Forstater’s belief, neither does “men cannot change into women,” and they are remarkable for the
contrast they pose against the accounts of the UK media. Before continuing to a deliberation of what
aspect was unprotected, Forstater’s antagonisation of the court proceedings deserves mention. Article 10
of the judgement written by Judge Tayler, under Terminology, reads as follows:

I use the term trans woman or trans man to refer to transgender people by the gender they are living.
When it is necessary to do so, I refer to sex assigned at birth. I appreciate that the Claimant objects to
this term, considering that sex is observed at birth, but she did not suggest that she viewed the term
“assigned” to be offensive. I consider it is broad enough to include being assigned because of observation.
I will not use the term cis-woman as the Claimant finds it offensive. Where necessary to do so, I will
refer to women assigned female at birth. I have sought, wherever possible, to refer to people by the
pronouns they prefer; although, in some cases, I do not know the person’s preference.

[Some typographical errors were corrected, and the italics are my own.]

Forstater has tried to demand, claiming offence at both terms, that neither ‘cis-woman’ nor ‘assigned
female at birth’ be used in the proceedings. Here, she has raised an objection to the Judge even
suggesting that trans women are women. She has tried to force all participants in the legal proceeding to
misgender trans people, as doing otherwise, she claims, offends her. Judge Tayler warns that, even were
Forstater’s belief to have protected characteristics, any sacking of Forstater (which, recall, was never what
actually occurred) would still, nonetheless, be lawful on grounds of harassment. Tayler:

It is important to note that if a person is guilty of unlawful harassment of others that conduct is likely to
be the reason for any action taken against them, rather than the holding of a philosophical belief.
Having protected characteristics, including philosophical beliefs, does not prevent people from having
to take care not to harass others.

And:

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Edith Lyre
…in considering some of the Claimant’s tweets it is necessary to consider whether they evidence the
nature of her belief or are statements she made that are based on that belief, or even may not actually
reflect what she believes, having been made in the heat of the moment. For example, I was taken to
certain tweets by the Claimant, particularly retweets, which it strongly arguable included stereotypical
assumptions about trans people (see paragraph 34 above). On the totality of the evidence I do not
consider that those specific tweets represent the core of the Claimant's belief.

In short, Judge Tayler is saying: Even if we find that your belief is protected, even if we find the Center
considered your belief when choosing not to renew your contract, and even if we find that a failure to
renew a contract constitutes a termination, they were still in their rights to fire you, because you can be
found guilty of harassment. Forstater had to have known that her case could not prevail, and with that
in mind, we should recall my earlier note that: ‘From this pattern of dishonesty, while not conclusive, it
is certainly reasonable to assume that Forstater took the case up with the deliberate intent of enshrining
anti-trans discrimination into legal protection’ — that is, so long as Forstater’s whole intent were only to
establish a harmful precedent, only the preliminary hearing mattered.

Of course, to quote the judgement directly, ‘The specific belief that the Claimant holds as
determined in the reasons is not a philosophical belief protected by the Equality Act 2010,’ so Forstater
never got past step one. Some of the above quotes explain the Judge’s reasoning thereto, but the
following is perhaps the clearest — most articulate, and therefore most likely sincere — characterisation
of the unprotected aspect of Forstater’s belief. To quote her:

“Under the Gender Recognition Act 2004, a person may change their legal sex. However this does not
give them the right to access services and spaces intended for members of the opposite sex. It is an
offence for a person who has acquired information in an official capacity about a person’s GRC [Gender
Recognition Certificate] to disclose that information. However this situation where a person’s sex is
protected information relates to a minority of cases where a person has a GRC, is successfully “passing”
in their new identity and is not open about being trans. In many cases people can identify a person’s sex
on sight, or they may have known the person before transition, or the person may have made it public
information that they are trans. There is no general legal compulsion for people not to believe their own
eyes or to forget, or pretend to forget, what they already know, or which is already in the public
domain.”

From the second ‘however’ and on, Forstater outlines a personal interpretation of the 2004 Gender
Recognition Act (revised in 2017) that, in fact, is not consistent with the act. She makes clear a
presumption that, if she deems a trans person non-passing, or concludes their past to be ‘public
information’ (i.e. if she thinks ‘enough people already know’), then she is within her right to out them,
i.e. ‘to disclose that information.’ Her belief, she indicates, contains this entitlement, and it is that
aspect which renders the belief unlawful/unprotected. As Judge Tayler resolves:

It is also a sleight of hand to suggest that the Claimant merely does not hold the belief that trans women
are women. She positively believes that they are men; and will say so whenever she wishes. Put either as
a belief or lack of belief, the view held by the Claimant fails the Grainger criteria and so she does not
have the protected characteristic of philosophical belief.
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Edith Lyre
(Some typographical errors corrected.)

In the sentence, ‘She positively believes that they are men; and will say so whenever she wishes,’ it is not
the simple belief that trans women are men that is unprotected, but the believed entitlement to ‘say so
whenever she wishes’ and, may we add, about whomever she wishes, and to whomever she wishes.
In reading UK media, especially when its issues relate to trans people, it is evident that no
amount of caution is too great. To characterise the above, as JK Rowling has done, echoing the false
reports of popular media, as ‘forcing women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real’ is grossly
disingenuous. It is necessary to recognise these reports from the UK as an intentional manipulation of
the popular narrative, with the aim of demonising trans people and scaremongering against our
acquisition of rights, supports, and social acceptance.
‘Since these statements are true,’ repeats Maya Forstater, ‘I will continue to say them.’ Quite
right, and since we know that Forstater and the UK journals are telling blatant lies, we too should
continue to say so.

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