JK Rowling weighs in behind Maya Forstater

Judgement over Maya Forstater case causes a storm, in large part because JK Rowling tweeted "IStandwithMaya" over the judge deciding there's no protection for someone holding a reasonable and sincere belief (not relevant to the job) as protected under the Equality Act. JKR's tweet has 34 000 'comments' and getting on for 200 000 'likes'.

There are reports in the national media, mainly taking off from JK Rowling as in the Telegraph. 
   Judge Tayler characterized Forstater’s comments as proving that “she considers there are two sexes, male and female, there is no spectrum in sex and there are no circumstances whatsoever in which a person can change from one sex to another, or to being of neither sex.” Is this not a reasonable belief? One that’s commonly held and worthy of protection? The judge also noted that “she would generally seek to be polite to trans persons and would usually seek to respect their choice of pronoun but would not feel bound to.” Again, is this not a reasonable position?


The judge himself notes that Forstater’s approach “is largely that currently adopted by the law, which still treats sex as binary as defined on a birth certificate.” And yet he decides that the answer to whether one should be protected from being fired, simply for politely expressing a belief in biological sex, is no.


The judge  dressed it up :

“Even paying due regard to the qualified right to freedom of expression, 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”. 

  In context, he thinks a belief in biological sex violates the dignity of Trans-people, yet does not consider the problem that trans-belief in an internal male/female identity violates the dignity of believers in biological sex.     Nor did he consider the reality that trans-activists have created an intimidating and offensive social media environment for those adhering to a belief in biology.  Thus JK Rowling was subjected to flurry of abusive responses to her tweet.

Thus, the judgement gives reign to extremist religious groups to object to the hostile environment of poking fun at believers in Christ or Allah. Creationists can object to the hostile environment generated by teaching Darwin and science-based biological evolution.  

 J. K. Rowling is right. The judgement must be supported to Appeal and overturned.