THE American conservative commentator Ben Shapiro is known for his catchphrase ‘Facts don’t care about your feelings’. Unfortunately, in the upside-down world of UK employment tribunals, biological facts are trumped by the sensitivities and delusions of radical trans activists – certainly when the ruling comes from employment judge James Tayler.
Judge Tayler last month found against Maya Forstater, a business consultant who claimed that her work in London for an international research organisation, the Center for Global Development, ‘came to an end . . . because she expressed “gender critical” opinions; in outline, that sex is immutable’. That summation of Forstater’s argument comes from Section 3 of Tayler’s written judgment, the full text of which can be read here.
Ruling against Maya Forstater, Judge Tayler elevated ‘the enormous pain that can be caused by misgendering’ (Section 85) over ‘the claimant’s [Forstater’s] belief is that sex is biologically immutable’ (Section 77). The incredulity expressed at the time by our own Laura Perrins was distilled into TCW’s headline ‘Judge backs trans madness’; more recently Laura condemned this Orwellian judgment as ‘more evidence of the dystopia made real’.
In addition to sitting at employment tribunals, James Tayler is one of more than 100 Diversity and Community Relations Judges (DCRJs), a voluntary arm of the judiciary of which most people will be unaware. Part of this sinister-sounding role involves ‘assisting other members of the judiciary with diversity and community relations issues and to act as diversity role models’.
In other words, Judge James Tayler will dutifully impose state-sanctioned doctrines. It therefore is unsurprising that his written judgment was trans-empathetic, such as in Section 87: ‘It is obvious how important being accorded their preferred pronouns and being able to describe their gender is to many trans people. Calling a trans woman a man is likely to be profoundly distressing.’ Even so, truly shocking was the chilling phrase twice used, in Sections 85 and 90, where Judge Tayler editorialised that the ‘absolutist’ approach and beliefs of Maya Forstater – undoubtedly shared by a large proportion of the population – are ‘not worthy of respect in a democratic society’.
In the eyes of Judge Tayler, presumably Kristina Jayne Harrison, who appeared as witness for Maya Forstater, also holds views which are ‘not worthy of respect’. A trans woman who transitioned two decades ago, Harrison had courageously agreed with Forstater: ‘The process of having surgery or hormone treatment cannot ultimately transform your sex . . . It is not possible [for a trans woman] to be biologically female.’
Harrison also helpfully reminded the tribunal, albeit to no avail: ‘There are another minority of trans people who agree with me that the terms biological male and biological female are accurate terms but are afraid to speak out . . . within our community, the idea around gender identity is very intolerant of any dissent.’
‘Intolerant of dissent’ understates the tyranny of trans extremists and their state enforcers, whose agenda Laura rightly identifies as ‘power, plain and simple’. Coincidentally, around the time of the judgment against Maya Forstater, Triggernometry released an interview with trans woman Rose of Dawn, whose YouTube channel regularly documents Trans-Stupidity, and who is refreshingly critical of the more maniacal activists. During the first few minutes of discussion, RoD categorically states: ‘A trans woman, by definition, can’t be a biological female.’
Recorded several weeks in advance, the interview does not refer to the Forstater case but does discuss many of the same issues. It also alludes to the earlier appearance on Triggernometry by Posie Parker, who shares the ‘gender critical’ views of Maya Forstater.
Posie Parker’s appearance was deleted by YouTube, albeit briefly, on suspicion of inciting either hatred or violence. The broadcast with Rose of Dawn was not similarly removed; nonetheless, YouTube did demonetise the interview, placing the video off-limits for advertising presumably because it contains more inadmissible opinions.
In the preview clip below, RoD makes the factual – but seemingly now controversial – statement ‘you don’t change biology when you transition’, and concurs with host Konstantin Kisin that ‘the [alternative] opinion of a tiny minority is the one that is allowed to be heard and spoken, and the opinion of the overwhelming majority is the one that is not allowed to be spoken and not allowed to be heard’.
During the full interview, which you can see here, Rose of Dawn laments the injurious impact of ‘science deniers with a lot of controlling ideas on what it is to be trans’. Indeed, such has been the baleful influence exerted by this fanatical faction, in the preview clip above RoD astounds the hosts by reporting: ‘I’ve seen trans women banned from Twitter for saying that they are biological males . . . not calling other people biological males, simply saying “I see myself as a woman but I am biologically male”.’
RoD begins the interview with the arresting introduction: ‘As is blatantly obvious, I’m a transsexual woman’ – ‘transsexual’ being a term that during recent years seemed to have been outlawed from the lexicon, which therefore makes for a startling opening line. Being someone who has ‘had to take hormones, had various surgeries, had to do various legal documents, everything to show that I am very serious about the way I live’, she laments: ‘The current trans lobby is really lowering the gate for those who can actually be trans.’
The previous sentence refers to Rose of Dawn using a female pronoun; personally, I am broadly in agreement with her own criterion (from 11:00): ‘My line is always that if someone puts effort into their transition, I will refer to them in that particular way.’ However, RoD dismisses the non-medicalised and no-effort claims of ‘poorly dressed, massive blokes with weird wigs’ and hirsute males who continue to cultivate facial hair yet insist (05:30): ‘This is a woman’s beard, because I am a woman.’
Unlike the imposters who nevertheless ‘want to be able to control what people say and think and feel about a trans person’, the acquiescent Rose of Dawn recognises the need to conform (from 08:00): ‘As much as I want to be happy with myself, if I want to be treated in a certain way I have to understand what it is society expects of me; and if society is not going to see me in that way, I cannot command it to do so. To do otherwise is authoritarian and that’s the way a lot of these activists are going . . . I don’t want to be lumped in with these extremists, these people who seem to completely deny reality and are pushing an authoritarian and very extreme agenda.’
From 41:30 RoD further excoriates the ‘small group of extremists who have successfully infiltrated and effectively kicked me out of what should be my own community . . . everyone’s bending the knee to them and acting as if they are some weird authority’.
RoD damns the ‘hardline communists’ who fallaciously push ‘Marxist ideology . . . in the name of people like me’. By contrast, the Tory-voting, ‘classic liberal, not in any way a collectivist’ Rose of Dawn, fiercely ‘pro-free speech’ and ‘anti-identity politics’, provides a transgender voice of sanity and reason – although employment judge James Tayler would no doubt disagree.
Be your own judge.
