Raise a glass to Maya Forstater
She fought for all of our rights – and she won.
Maya Forstater has won. An appeal court judge has today ruled that the tax consultant at a global think-tank, sacked for expressing the view that males and females are biologically distinct and have different life experiences, was wrongfully dismissed. Judge Choudhury said that Forstater’s ‘gender-critical beliefs’ ‘were widely shared’ and ‘did not seek to destroy the rights of trans persons’. The judgement notes, ‘It is clear from Convention case law that… a person is free in a democratic society to hold any belief they wish, subject only to “some modest, objective minimum requirements”’.
Success! Rationality and common sense have won out over intolerance and censoriousness. This is absolutely worthy of celebration. But, at the same time, we need to ask why Forstater was dismissed in the first place; why an employment tribunal found against her, and why she was put through two years of legal hell for saying something so very unremarkable.