Maya Forstater v Centre for Global Development (2019)

Forstater began working at Centre for Global Development in January 2015 as a visiting fellow.[3] In September 2018 Forstater shared a series of messages on her personal Twitter account and the organisations Slack channels describing transgender women as men. These messages caused staff members at CGD to file a complaint to management which lead to an investigation. In December 2018 her contract expired and CGD decided not to renew it due to her views. In March 2019 Forstater sued CDG at the Central London Employment Tribunal.[5][3]

On 15 March 2019 Fostater challenged her contract not being renewed at the Central London Employment Tribunal.[3] The respondents in the case were CGD Europe, Centre for Global Development and Masood Ahmed.[3] Fostater payed for the tribunal through a crowdsourced fundraiser, raising over £120,000.[6][7] She claimed her "gender critical views are a philosophical belief" protected by section 10 of the 2010 Equality Act.[8][9][10] As part of her complaint she stated:[11]

No change of clothes or hairstyle, no plastic surgery, no accident or illness, no course of hormones, no force of will or social conditioning, no declaration can turn a female person into a male, or a male person into a female.

Forstaters tweets, Slack messages and other writings including a letter to Anne Main MP were later were presented as evidence and in the findings of the tribunal as examples of her 'gender critical' opinion that trans women (including those with a Gender Recognition Certificate) are not women.[7]

On 2 September 2018 Forstater shared a series of messages on her personal Twitter account where she shared her opposition to proposed changes to the U.K.'s Gender Recognition Act. In the tweets she described transgender women as 'males' which the judge in the case later found not to be protected speech under the Equality Act 2010.[1]

1. I share the concerns of @fairplaywomen that radically expanding the legal definition of 'women' so that it can include both males and females makes it a meaningless concept, and will undermine women’s rights & protections for vulnerable women & girls.
2. Some transgender people have cosmetic surgery. But most retain their birth genitals. Everyone's equality and safety should be protected, but women and girls lose out on privacy, safety and fairness if males are allowed into changing rooms, dormitories, prisons, sports teams.

Another tweet involved in her firing and the court case described Pippa Bunce, who identifies as a man and as a woman and won an award for Executive Businesswoman of the Year, as 'a man in a dress'.[12]

On the 19 December 2019 Judge James Tayler published a 26-page judgement which found that the non renewal of her contract was fair and that her view was “incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others”.[1][2]

Judge Tayler found that she was not entitled to ignore the trangender people's legal rights and the “enormous pain that can be caused by misgendering a person”.[13] He concluded "Ms Forstater’s position is that even if a trans woman has a GRC (Gender Recognition Certificate), she cannot honestly describe herself as a woman. That belief is not worthy of respect in a democratic society." and that "people cannot expect to be protected if their core belief involves violating others’ dignity and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment for them."[1][13]

Judge Tayler found that Forstater 'absolutist' beliefs satisfied the first four limbs of Grainger v Nicholson (2009) with some reservations about its 'cogency and coherence’. He found it failed the fifth limb, that it was 'worthy of respect in a democratic society'.[8]

Upon losing the case Forstater stated that the judgment ‘removes women’s rights and the right to freedom of belief and speech'.[1]

Louise Rea, a solicitor with Bates Wells which advised CGD stated that Judge Talyer had "observed that the claimant was not entitled to ignore the legal rights of ,a person who has transitioned from male to female or vice versa" and that "it is the fact that her belief necessarily involves violating the dignity of others which means it is not protected under the Equality Act 2010."[2]

After the ruling author J. K. Rowling shared a message on Twitter supporting Forstater, incorrectly summarising the question the tribunal asked as 'sex is real'. The tweet received widespread criticism from trans people and trans allies, while trans-exclusionary people described her as a “defender of women.”:[8][14][15][16][17]

Dress however you please... call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill

• Maya Forstater v Centre for Global Development (2019) ruling