The Legal Feminists have been reading this blog by Melanie Field,@EHRC's former Chief Strategy and Policy Officer linkedin.com/pulse/do-we-ne…
The blog starts with the usual expressions of regret about the "tone" of the debate — and the usual implication (often spelled out, though not here) that both sides are to blame.
Broadly speaking, the protection from discrimination on grounds of the different protected characteristics provided by the EqA is the same.
But the exceptions work very differently, and that reflects what very different kinds of things the PCs are.
Jun 2 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
McCloud says if FWS win their appeal: "I would be female for some things, like death and marriage, but I would be forced to be treated as male by employers, shops, goods and services".
This is wrong, and obviously so.
independent.co.uk/lgbt/pride-lis…
A GRC deems the holder's sex to have changed for some limited purposes. The words of s.9 of the GRA are wide. ("all purposes"), but that's necessarily confined to those fairly few purposes for which the law distinguishes between male and female; and there are exceptions.
Apr 29 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Yesterday's thread on Rachel Meade's case concentrated on damages, but the recommendations made against Social Work England and Westminster City Council are also significant.
crowdjustice.com/case/unlawful-…
WCC must train all its managers and HR staff on freedom of expression and protected belief, to include the implications of the EAT judgment in Forstater. It must share full details of that training with Ms Meade, including details of the trainer and any slides, handouts etc.
Apr 28 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
Social worker Rachel Meade has been awarded £40,000 for injury to feelings against @SocialWorkEng and @CityWestminster, aggravated damages against both, and exemplary damages against SWE.
thetimes.co.uk/article/social…
Exemplary damages are awarded to punish conduct that is "oppressive, arbitrary or unconstitutional". They are rare.
Mar 3 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
It's important and significant that @HadleyFreeman uses masculine pronouns for Scarlett Blake and Barbie Kardashian in this piece. Well done @thetimes.
thetimes.co.uk/article/indulg…
It's important because the myth that people who assert a trans identity have a legal right to have others "respect" it by using their preferred pronouns has been so widely spread. That's nonsense, but many people believe it.
Dec 30, 2023 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
Demands for preferred pronouns and article 8 - a short 🧵
It seems to be widely assumed that a the claim of a trans-identifying person in the workplace to have others compelled to use his or her preferred pronouns is based on article 8.
Dec 29, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
While we're looking back at 2023, our top 10 posts (by number of views) for the year. Some surprises here.
At no.10, with 1,258 views, one of Naomi Cunningham's several posts on "misgendering", this one from July 2021, in which she unpacks the EAT's disclaimers on the subject in Forstater: legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/07/27/mis…
Dec 2, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Excellent thread.
One further point. People sometimes say "proportionality isn't a numbers game", but proportionality is a numbers game. It's literally what the word means. In the discrimination law context, it's not solely a numbers game - but numbers certainly matter.
If you let children self-identify into facilities provided for the opposite sex, that will put girls at a particular disadvantage compared to boys.
Nov 4, 2023 • 30 tweets • 7 min read
A few thoughts on the FWS judgment.
It's disappointing, if not ultimately very surprising, that the Inner House of the Court of Session upheld the ruling of the Outer House that a GRC does change a person's "sex" for the purposes of the EqA.
The court starts its analysis with the now-traditional preliminary obeisances to the sensitivity and difficulty of questions around sex and gender.
Oct 16, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
This is an employment tribunal judgment about gender reassignment discrimination. First instance, so of no weight as precedent.
But quite interesting all the same for its treatment of the comparator question.
gov.uk/employment-tri…
A comparator, it will be recalled, operates as the "experimental control" in a thought experiment. Was the protected characteristic the reason for the treatment? Well, would someone who was the same as the claimant in every respect *except* the protected characteristic...
Sep 6, 2023 • 27 tweets • 9 min read
The Legal Feminists have been reading CIPD's "Transgender and non-binary inclusion" guide.
They say they consulted "a broad range of stakeholders" - some with transgender and non-binary "lived experience". (We wonder, in passing, what other kind of experience there might be.)
Aug 20, 2023 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
A young person with a trans identity failed in a PSED challenge to a local education authority. The LEA having provided for the claimant's needs by way of an EHCP, it couldn't be said that it had failed to have the due regard required by the PSED.
11kbw.com/knowledge-even…
The result seems obviously right, but aspects of the reasoning and language in the judgment are concerning.
Jun 18, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Small wonder schools are resisting FOIA requests for information about their teaching on sex and relationships.
Schools are likely to treat covert recording of teachers as a disciplinary matter. In general that's fair: teachers should be able to teach without fear of covert recording.
Jun 16, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Mrs Higgs, a school employee, expressed on Facebook concerns related to her gender-critical and Christian beliefs about relationships education in primary schools.
An ET held that she was dismissed not because of her protected beliefs, but because the school thought that someone reading her posts could reasonably think that she held transphobic and/or homophobic views. So no unlawful discrimination.
Mrs Higgs appealed to the EAT.
Jun 14, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
A somewhat surprising decision by the MPS.
These messages are, on the face of it, capable of amounting to a number of offences. 1/
At the lowest end, there are offences under s.127 Communications Act 2000 (sending a message of a menacing character) or s.1 Malicious Communications Act (sending a threatening communication with intent to cause distress) 2/
Jun 6, 2023 • 26 tweets • 6 min read
This is a legally illiterate document. Let us count the ways.
"GOQs" went out with the EqA; it's now just "occupational requirement". Detail, but it's not an encouraging start.
Jun 5, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
This is the clearest possible bulk harassment of all Oxfam's gender-critical staff: deliberately demonising them with this hate-filled imagery. Our DMs are open. legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/09/09/don….
"If you want to make this real – well, run the thought experiment, substituting in groups defined by other protected characteristics for “TERF” in “Be less TERF.” It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it?"
Letting men who say they are women use women's facilities makes those facilities mixed for all women: a detriment to a class comprising 51% of the population, for the benefit of a class comprising (at the almost certainly inflated Census figure) less than 0.5%.
Even the classes of women who are unable to use mixed facilities by reason of trauma caused by male violence, or for religious or cultural reasons, are likely to be much larger than the class of trans-identifying men who seek access.
Apr 13, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Making a case and building a consensus is how proposals to amend the GRA should have begun. Instead, proponents of reform chose to pretend that there was already a consensus among all right-thinking people, and howl down and punish dissenters as bigots.
That tactic is the explanation for the toxicity of the current debate. It is toxic because those who want to change the law are wholly intolerant of dissent.
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