UK Employment Tribunal dismisses discrimination challenge over views on gender recognition
A researcher at a think tank has lost a challenge to her dismissal after she tweeted that transgender women cannot change their biological sex.
Maya Forstater worked as a visiting fellow at the Centre for Global development, an international think tank which campaigns on poverty and inequality. Her employment contract was not renewed in March 2019 due to, in her opinion, views she had expressed on social media regarding Transgender people. In her tweets, she expressed her opposition to reform of the Gender Recognition Act to allow people to self-identity as a different sex.
Before a substantive hearing could take place, the employment tribunal had to determine whether her view on Transgender people that “men cannot change into women” was protected as a ‘philosophical belief’ under the Equality Act 2010.
In rejecting Ms Forstater’s case, Judge James Tayler stated that “The Claimant believes it is a material reality that there are only two sexes, male and female, and it is not possible to change from one sex to the other, even if that individual obtains a Gender Recognition Certificate”. The Judge believed “the Claimant’s view, in its absolutist nature, is incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others”. He observed that Ms Forstaterwas not entitled to ignore the legal rights of a person who has transitioned from male to female or vice versa and the “enormous pain that can be caused by misgendering a person”.
Click here for the decision in Forstater v CGD.