Two years ago, Maya Forstater, a tax researcher working in the U.K., was fired for expressing her supposedly “offensive and exclusionary” views on the transgender policy debate on Twitter.
In fact, Forstater had merely expressed an acknowledgment of the material reality of sex in the clearest and most courteous of ways. And her dismissal was so egregious that it prompted J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, to tweet in her defense:
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— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 19, 2019
This week, Forstater has taken her case to an appeal tribunal after her original appeal was rejected by a judge who said she should have considered the “enormous pain that can be caused by misgendering a person.” This time around, Forstater’s legal team reiterated her view that biological sex is “real, important, immutable, and not to be conflated with gender identity.” They also argued that the original tribunal resembled the “Ministry of Truth” from Orwell’s 1984, in which “words themselves are to have their ‘undesirable meanings purged out of them’ along with the associated ideas.”
Let’s hope sanity will prevail and Forstater will win.