Background

As regular readers will know, Maya Forstater, a writer, researcher and adviser on sustainable development, was a Visiting Fellow with CGD Europe, a subsidiary of the Center for Global Development, Washington DC, a global poverty think-tank. She holds gender-critical beliefs which include the belief that sex is immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity. In 2018, following the launch of a UK Government consultation on amending the Gender Recognition Act 2004, she expressed critical views on transgender issues on her personal Twitter account which some transgender people found offensive and “transphobic”. Some of her colleagues at work complained that they found her comments offensive, and, following an investigation, her Visiting Fellowship was not renewed.

Procedural history

Ms Forstater made a claim to an Employment Tribunal, complaining that she had been discriminated against because of her belief and arguing that the relationship had come to an end because she had expressed “gender-critical” opinions: in outline, that sex is immutable, whatever a person’s stated gender identity or gender expression. She further contended that her gender-critical views were a philosophical belief and therefore protected under the Equality Act 2010 and that she had suffered direct discrimination as a result or, alternatively, indirect sex discrimination because her views were more likely to be held by women than by men. The principal issue was whether, in fact, she held a protected philosophical belief within the terms of s.10 Equality Act 2010. Continue reading →