But the law does not protect our right to call men men
This bit of the ruling – the most crucial bit, probably – seems to have some ambiguity to it.
The total of what Forstater is saying there seems to be that she called Gregor Murray “he or him” on a particular occasion because she forgot that he was “non-binary” and wants to be called “they/them,” and that she doesn’t consider it “transphobic” to see men as men, and that she shouldn’t be punished for calling men “he or him” in general.
The judge says he concludes from that that she will refer to men as men even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment.
But those are not the same thing. Forstater is saying she called a man “him” on one occasion because she forgot he was “non-binary” and that she doesn’t see that as a punishable crime, but she’s not saying she will call all men “him” on all occasions. She should be able to say that without punishment, but the point is, she didn’t say it, but the judge “concluded from this” that she did. But she didn’t. But he decided she did. But she didn’t.
I’m not sure why the judge gets to interpret what she said more broadly than she in fact said it.
Maya Forstater shared her claimant witness statement. It’s quite good.
https://medium.com/@MForstater/claimants-witness-statement-abe3e8073b41
But she said, in the portion underlined in Maugham’s tweet, that she reserves her right to use male pronouns for anyone she considers male. She goes on to say that she MAY choose to use someone’s preferred pronouns as a courtesy, but she doesn’t state under what circumstances and more importantly, she is not promising to do so. Therefore it seems entirely reasonable for the judge to conclude that Forstater will do as she pleases in this regard even if it violates someone’s dignity etc., which is the relevant test the judge was applying.
If a claimant was asserting a sincerely held philosophical belief that women’s bodies are the property of men, and asserted his right to grab a breast or buttock any time he so chose, it would not be a relevant consideration if he qualified it by saying “well, sometimes I might not grab a woman’s body, as a courtesy, or if I’m in a hurry, or if it’s just not an appealing breast.” The conclusion would still follow that this belief is one whose practice violates the dignity of others, and therefore is not entitled to legal protection under the statute in question.
But I don’t understand how “using male pronouns about someone who is, actually and biologically male” qualifies as “violat[ing] their dignity and/or creat[ing] an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment.”
Where’s the analytical bridge from one to the other?
Screechy @ 3 – But the quote was clipped, and included with several other snips, so it’s not clear how generally she meant that she reserves her right to use male pronouns to refer to male people (not, as you had it, “for anyone she considers male”), which is why I interpreted it as “she doesn’t see that as a punishable crime.”
And why compare the belief that men are not women with the belief that women’s bodies are the property of men? I mean I get that it’s to illustrate “what if it’s a belief that takes away your dignity as a class?” but I also think there’s quite a reasonability gap.
Also – wait a second – using a “wrong” pronoun is hardly comparable to sexual assault! Even if you think it creates a degrading environment, it’s still not even close to grabbing a breast. That’s exactly the kind of “appropriation” of actual abuse to complain about far less actual abuse that gets so badly on our nerves.
@maddog1129;
Perhaps it might be included under ‘disabilities.’ If someone has OCD, then deliberately reminding them “you’ve already checked that light” or “that’s clean” could create a hostile work environment. If a co-worker struggles with mental illness and uses a “split personality” as a coping strategy, referring to their actual name when they’re behaving like their alter might cause them to break down and be unable to work. I can imagine someone breaking through a fellow employees delusions because they don’t want to work with the disabled, or because they think the other person shouldn’t be catered to. If they can otherwise do the job and qualify as disabled, however, the company could fire the truth-teller.
Transgender people get irate if anyone says or implies that they’re mentally ill, but it’s the only analogy I can think of which fits this case.
maddog@3,
Yes, there’s certainly a leap involved there that I was not intending to endorse. I was really saying that it’s a fair inference from her own words that the claimant intends to go on using whatever pronouns for people she pleases.
Given that the UK law declares certain beliefs as not eligible for protection because they offend the dignity of others, etc., I would hope that it does not merely accept all hurt feelings (or claims thereof) as “offending the dignity” of others.
And to be fair, we’re talking about more than a slip-up in pronoun use, aren’t we? This was not a case of an employee who keeps mistakenly using the wrong pronoun because of nonbinary person’s confusing rules — she’s affirmatively declaring that she’ll use whatever damn pronouns she wants, and the other employees can fuck off if they don’t like it. (I’m paraphrasing.)
I don’t really find her to be some innocent persecuted victim, or a brave truth-teller. She seems like a rather unpleasant person who can’t keep her political views out of the workplace, and should probably have been fired/not-renewed for that reason alone. The fact that UK law doesn’t protect her doesn’t really surprise or offend me.
Which is not to say that people like JK Rowling or anyone here who sees it differently is some horrible transphobe. These are thorny issues and I think there’s plenty of room for reasonable disagreement, which you wouldn’t know from some of the write-ups of this story. (Slate has a doozy up right now.)
I don’t think she was taking her views into the workplace though – she was talking about them on Twitter. I get that Twitter is ubiquitous so she wasn’t being covert or private about her views, but I don’t think she was sharing them on tea breaks either.
Yes, I checked some sources to make sure – she wasn’t taking her views into the workplace. She participated in the broad discussion around the GRA on her own time.
Maybe you think she sounds unpleasant because of the business with Gregor Murray? But he wasn’t a work colleague of hers, and he got some notoriety last year by resigning as a councillor (in Scotland) after publicly calling women cunts and similar. I would feel zero inclination to respect his “non-binary” pronouns after that myself. Then again, I’ve never claimed not to be unpleasant.
It’s not analogous to disability, though, is it? It’s entirely internally subjective and not accessible knowledge to anyone else, and predominantly voluntary. You can’t put on and take off a disability.
And in any case, I still don’t see how recognizing a male as male “offends the dignity” of anyone.
@ Screechy #7
If she were, in what way is that different to Gregor Murray declaring the world must use the pronouns he chooses and people can fuck off if they don’t like it?
However, as already pointed out, her opinions were being expressed in a private capacity. Employers are intruding too far into employee’s personal lives. How long before you will be compelled to show your ballot papers in order to retain your job?
Inch by inch by inch they take our rights away until we have none.
Many of the readers here have likely already seen this, but Jane Clare Jones published the first part of an outstanding analysis of the judge’s ruling.
https://janeclarejones.com/2019/12/21/bad-judgement-part-1/
I have that open right now, patiently waiting for me to get to it.
Yeah, but just try getting that right enforced. Oh, some might, I’m sure, but a recent lawsuit at our school was dismissed by a judge, and it was a lot worse than telling someone “you already turned off that light.”
I am diagnosed OCD. It gives me a great deal of difficulty. I do not typically tell people at work about it, because of two things: 1. Everyone there announces “oh, it’s just my OCD” whenever they do something out of habit or routine, even though they are not, in fact, OCD, but only humans acting on habit (as all humans do most of the time). 2. Stigmatize me. Having the actual diagnosis is not as acceptable as saying “oh, it’s my OCD” with a laugh and a hair swish. I spend endless hours doing and redoing things, because of my OCD, and then the boss comes along and does things that actually make my OCD worse, and I just go on and spend more endless hours doing something I didn’t need to do in the first place because they said something they should never say to someone with OCD.
We have quite a few people with PTSD at work, too. And other illnesses. None of us are given the benefit of accommodations for our disability. They know if they drive us out, they can fill our job with one of the thousands of academics who are desperate for work (well, maybe only hundreds if you narrow it to those willing to move to rural Nebraska), and because they would be replacing someone who had a number of years in, they wouldn’t have to pay them as much. And if judges just dismiss the cases summarily, well, that just gave them the green light.
I have never worked in any office where you could actually get someone to give a flying f**k about any sort of mental disability. But our job is extremely concerned about trans rights, and announced a bathroom policy that is dangerous to women, and made it very clear that there would be no toleration of deviation. So those of us who have PTSD from being physically, verbally, emotionally, and sexually abused by men must allow any man who wishes to use the bathroom alongside us without bolting out, because that might be seen as invalidating or might be emotionally damaging to them. My emotional damage? Who gives a damn?
I’m so sorry, iknklast, it’s a terrible situation and it is infuriating that it is yet another example of a situation where employers aren’t on board with legal protections for anyone and yet, suddenly, accommodations which benefit the people who already have everything they could possibly need are imposed on everyone regardless of what the law says.