Transgender people who agree with using terms 'men' and 'women' too afraid to speak out, tribunal hears
Transgender people who agree with using the biological terms “male” and “female” are afraid to speak out because of the backlash they will receive on social media, a tribunal has heard.
Kristina Jayne Harrison, a 54-year-old transgender woman who was born a man, told an employment tribunal that attempts to characterise the traditional terms of men and women as “offensive” by lobby groups are not supported by all transgender people.
Ms Harrison was giving evidence in support of Maya Forstater, a 54-year-old tax expert who is suing her former employer, the US think tank Centre for Global Development (CGD), for dismissing her after she tweeted that “male people are not women”.
Her sacking has led to an unprecedented legal case, which could see the view that a person cannot biologically change their sex - known as ‘gender critical' - become a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010.
Lawyers representing CGD cited a “glossary of terms” by a pro-transgender charity, which defines the terms biologically male and female as “problematic phrases” because “a person's sex is determined by a number of factors - not simply genetics.”
Ms Harrison challenged the charity's definition of the terms, adding that numerous transgender people she knows do not feel able to vocalise their disagreement because they will be “ostracised and shunned” from social groups.
She said: “It is also fair to say that 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 because not only is there an extremely toxic debate on Twitter where they are being attacked from both sides. But also, within our community, the idea around gender identity is very intolerant of any dissent.”
Ms Harrison, who has lived as a transgender woman for two decades, said she shares Ms Forstater’s ‘gender critical’ beliefs and has been labelled a "Nazi facilitator" and "scum" for expressing them.
“The process of having surgery or hormone treatment cannot ultimately transform your sex,” Ms Harrison told the tribinal. “Every cell in my body has male chromosomes. I have a prostate. These things cannot be completely deconstructed. It is not possible to be biologically female. But that does not mean I can’t live a fulfilling life being treated as a woman.”
Writing in her witness statement, Ms Harrison said that attempts to “legally coerce society” into treating males as females in all circumstances is “inevitably doomed to fail”.
“As Churchill once said, ‘The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is’,” she added.
The tribunal also heard from Luke Easley, the director of human resources at CGD, who was involved in the decision to terminate Ms Forstater’s contract due to her “offensive” views which caused “widespread offence” in the company.
Three female employees had complained about her tweets in October 2018, two of them colleagues in the Washington DC office and another one in London, he told the tribunal.
Mr Easley, who had travelled over to the UK from the US to give evidence in the case, said: “The organisation’s position is that we make no distinction between sex and gender. If someone is in our space and they say that are a woman then they can have access to the single sex spaces. To deny them access means we would be infringing on their rights.”
The tribunal continues.
