Just as a point of information, Maya Forstater wasn't fired. Her fixed-term contract wasn't renewed. But the grounds were for her public expression of her opinions on trans people.

As far as science goes, transexuality is a genetic fact. IIRC (no doubt someone will Google it and correct me), whilst XX and XY chromosomes are the most common expression of chromosomal sex, there are as many as 21 other possible variations and thousands of people may be living with a chromosomal sex contrary to their expected one but simply never have any need to take a test to find out.

There are chromosomally conventionally female people who do not menstruate or cannot conceive. There are chromosomally conventionally male people without testicles. Consequently, it is unscientific to define gender on the basis of the physical expression of primary sexual characteristics.

As with so many things, there is a social compulsion to define certain characteristics and behaviours as "normal" and, consequently, to exclude behaviour that is "abnormal" from participation in society. But "normal" is an illusion - as anyone with any experience in HR must, surely, be aware - and for all that the process is occasionally painful and confusing, ours is a better, more honest, more healthy society for embracing that.

Regardless of anything else going on, wearing a t-shirt that says that, IS provocative and could definitely be seen as offensive.  As a member of an LGBT committee, you'd expect more inclusivity.

I think the problem lies in the assumption made by lots of people that sex is binary - you are either male or female as defined by your chromosomes and/or sexual organs. The science behind sex is much more complicated than that and shows that that simple assumption is actually wrong. blogs.scientificamerican.com/.../
When you remove that assumption then I can't see what is left other than transphobia.
My personal view is that on a day to day, straightforward interaction with other people basis, their sex is irrelevant. What is important is respecting other people whoever they are. I don't need to know what someone's sexual organs or chromosomes are in order to treat them with dignity and respect. The only thing I might need to know if I can't figure it out from context is what pronouns they prefer.
Whilst people are entitled to hold their views even if they are wrong (some people still believe the Earth is flat), what they aren't allowed to do is express those views in a way that hurts or intimidates another person. That's what's happening if someone insists on misgendering a person despite being aware of that person's stated and expressed gender.

I think it comes down to intent. To say sex (not gender) cannot be changed, whether it's XX, XY or any other variant is of course true, one cannot change their biological sex but how someone expresses themselves externally - gender - absolutely can. Two fellow doctors discussing this in the context of whether or not to give a male sexed person a blood transfusion from a female sexed person (as I believe this can be risky in some cases?), or how a trans woman's heart attack symptoms started and whether it should be recorded as a male or female sexed statistic (therefore potentially impacting on future studies, funding, research etc) would surely be absolutely fine and reasonable. I think Maya's issue was using it in the context of the whole transgender debate in general, and doing it on twitter which can be a bit of a pile on.

I'm going to take a different tack from other contributors here, whilst agreeing that everyone should have the right to identify with the gender of their choice.

IMHO there is often a confusion between the scientific notion of sex (M/F/N) and the sociological notion of gender. The World Health Organisation has written at great length on this subject - summarised in the following statement

'[s]ex' refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women," and "'gender' refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women."

Chromosomal differences exist and a word of scientific vocabulary is evidently necessary to describe them. The WHO takes the position that "sex" (in the biological/chomosomal sense) should serve one purpose, reserving "gender" for the notion of social perception of self or others

People are free to agree or disagree with the position taken with the WHO, but ultimately that is a debate of semantics where nobody can hold the absolute truth. What is important is that these distinctions in scientific description and social perception remain possible in the day to day language that we use. 

IMHO, the problems arise when people don't define their terms, mix them up, or use them indisciminately.

Appreciate this thread is rather old, but important and relevant update

www.theguardian.com/.../maya-forstater-was-discriminated-against-over-gender-critical-beliefs-tribunal-rules

In reply to Joe :

I find the summary of the finding bizarre and look forward to reading the details. To my mind, there was no question of her being discriminated on the basis of her views but, rather, that her expression of those views, publicly and in a way likely to cause offence, was incompatible with her position at GDD.

As ever, I don't feel like this is an issue of "freedom of speech" - as it is so often framed - but of the freedom of an institution to disassociate itself from people whose publicly-expressed views are antithetical to those of the institution.

Perhaps it is only because the debate of sex and gender in society is so far from settled that this makes opinions in this area worthy of what seems to me to amount to special protection, when similarly expressed opinions of racism, sexism or homophobia wouldn't be.

In reply to Robey:

I can't see it ever being settled when sex and gender are used interchangeably when they are two totally different things.

Seems to me that there are a few bad eggs in both 'camps' that seem to do a great job drowning out the voices of reason and have successfully turned the whole thing into a "pro-trans v anti-trans" argument when IMO the majority of
people would be happy with everyone's needs being fairly accommodated.

In reply to Robey:

Hi Robey

Full details of the judgement can be found here. I would recommend you read the evidence before making further comments which are in contradiction to the Tribunal’s judgement

www.judiciary.uk/.../Forstater-JR-AG.pdf

I would also recommend reading the judgement of the EAT in 2021, where it was ruled that Forstater’s beliefs were worthy of respect in a democratic society, ruling that the first ET judgement in 2019 was wrong:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/.../Maya_Forstater_v_CGD_Europe_and_others_UKEAT0105_20_JOJ.pdf

It should be pointed out the EHRC have felt the need to intervene in the 2021 EAT:

www.equalityhumanrights.com/.../freedom-hold-belief-something-we-all-need-protect

Baroness Falkner of the EHRC said “This important legal case clarifies the law in a complex area. Some people will find Ms. Forstater’s views controversial or offensive, but the Employment Appeal Tribunal has made clear that only the most extreme beliefs, such as Nazism and Totalitarianism, are excluded from legal protection. Gender-critical beliefs do not fall into that category, and indeed are shared by many people.”

As the Tribunal found, clearly she was directly discriminated against. Once the EAT position that her beliefs were worthy of respect in a democratic society had been established, after reviewing the facts, the ET was right to find that CGD did directly discriminate – they withdrew an offer of employment they were going to make & decided not to renew her visiting fellowship based on her protected beliefs.

And this is a freedom of speech issue. It is inappropriate to compare Forstater’s beliefs to racism, sexism or homophobia, and I strongly disagree with your comment on the Extreme Political views thread that Forstater’s ‘ideology’ is in any way toxic (and refer you back to Baroness Falkner's words above).

I appreciate you have strong feelings on this issue, as many people on both sides do, but I would suggest you heed your own words from the other thread:

“As a profession, we talk a good game when it comes to diversity and its benefits to an organization, but diversity has its own spectrum and embracing diversity means embracing the whole spectrum, not just the part of it that aligns with our own views. So in some respects, we should welcome people whose opinions are difficult for us to rationalize.

Thanks

Joe

In reply to Joe :

You're putting words in my mouth, there, Joe. My point here was that I feel organizations should have a degree of freedom when it comes to disassociating themselves from people expressing views that are at odds with the culture to which the organization aspires. I didn't think that this was an issue of freedom of speech, because the protection of free speech under law protects the citizen from persecution by the government, not from social consequences such as being fired. And even that has limits (the right to shout "He's got a bomb!" in a crowded theatre being the classic example of unprotected speech).

In this other thread, I expressed concern that the Forstater finding made this much harder. And the detailed documents (thank you for the links, btw - very helpful) support that concern, and make the experience of managing employees expressing extremist views very difficult. *Not* because gender-critical thinking (or transphobia, depending on your side of the fence) is an extremist view, but because the finding explicitly pushes the limit back to only views that might be considered abhorrent. The examples of Nazism and Totalitarianism don't really help us, because neither of these is a belief system, but rather political systems built upon certain combinations of belief systems (also, tautological, as Nazism is, by definition, a totalitarian system, whilst totalitarianism need not be Nazi or fascist).

I think the point of law, here, is that by enabling organizations to dismiss employees on the grounds of political or social beliefs, the government would be penalizing free speech by proxy and I don't have any suggestions on how to remedy that issue (I'm an HR consultant, not a constitutional lawyer).

But with my HR hat on, and in the context of the other thread, it is my opinion that this finding provides fuel for people who hold toxic ideologies (in which camp I didn't, actually, include gender-critical thinking/transphobia and was careful not to) to be encouraged to express them in the workplace and in other public arenas where they may be construed as creating a hostile or oppressive environment with the confidence that, as long as they are sincerely-held and not totally abhorrent (and who decides that?) they enjoy the full protection of the law. How the Equality Act and other laws can be reasonably squared with this finding perplexes me and is why I thought the Forstater finding was bizarre.

I agree that we should work on the basis that we all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, as Jacqueline quite rightly points out, to be who we are in our workplaces and other spaces and to be and feel included.

I think the challenge that I've seen come about is making any conversations in this area binary, forgive the use of the term in this context, like it's an either/ or.

It seems that there's a danger that people who want to have a sensible, open, reasonable conversation, for example on why it's important to know one's birth sex in a medical or competitive sporting context, seem to be fair game on social media for a 'pile on' accusing them of transphobia. It heats up incredibly quickly.

For me discrimination is very different from differences of opinion. There are many things we can do to minimise the former without dehumanising and othering women, which at times these debates seem to push for. For a long while I stayed silent on conversations like this out of fear that any contribution I could make would be seen as transphobic or another pejorative word of the day 'woke'.

All that said, I remain hopeful that we will get to a place where this can be a discussion and area that is explored at work and in wider society and equality will achieved through less polarising, binary and divisive representation of a complex and nuanced lived experience.

In reply to Sharon:

Although the Forstater EAT judgement is precedent-setting, the latest ET isn't (because it's a court of first instance).
So essentially, what's been established is that someone holding a "gender critical" belief is protected from discrimination on the basis of their belief, but isn't entitled to express it in a way which harms, or advocates harms to others.
People interested in this case may also be interested in Mackereth v DWP.