Her opinions were deemed to be “absolutist”
Even The Guardian doesn’t seem entirely convinced by the judge’s ruling in Maya Forstater’s case.
A researcher who lost her job at a thinktank after tweeting that transgender women cannot change their biological sex has lost a test case because her opinions were deemed to be “absolutist”.
You can read that as straight-up reporting, but you can also think there may be a hint of skepticism that it’s really “absolutist” to think that people can’t literally change sex any more than they can change age or species.
In a keenly anticipated judgment that will stir up fresh debate over transgender issues, Judge James Tayler, an employment judge, ruled that Maya Forstater’s views did “not have the protected characteristic of philosophical belief”.
Is that because it’s too obvious to be a philosophical belief? Or is it because it’s (in the judge’s view) too wrong to be a philosophical belief?
[I]n a 26-page judgment released late on Wednesday, Tayler dismissed her claim. “I conclude from … the totality of the evidence, that [Forstater] is absolutist in her view of sex and it is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. The approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.”
But how do we know that referring to people by their actual physical sex (not, as the judge tendentiously puts it, “by the sex she considered appropriate”) violates anyone’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment?
Also, is there any possibility that it violates people’s dignity and creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment when bosses force employees to call other employees something they are not?
There certainly are ways of referring to other people that violate their dignity and create a hostile degrading environment – I could sum them up with the single word “trump.” Sexist epithets, racist epithets, generalized epithets like “ugly,” “fat,” “stupid,” “old,” “worthless,” – you can see there’s a large supply. Some of them can refer to true or plausible facts, and still be hostile and degrading – the aforementioned “trump” gives many examples.
But does pronoun use fit in that category? I’m not convinced.
Louise Rea, a solicitor at the law firm Bates Wells which advised the CGD in the case, said: “Judge Tayler held that ‘the claimant’s view, in its absolutist nature, is incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others’. He 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 the ‘enormous pain that can be caused by misgendering a person’.
But what fundamental right is that, exactly? How fundamental can it really be when no one had ever heard of it fifteen years ago? How was it overlooked so long if it’s really fundamental?
I don’t think there is such a thing as a fundamental right to be called the sex you are not. It may be a courtesy, a kindness, an agreement among friends, a generosity – but not a fundamental right.
And yet Ms. Forstater writes:
She wasn’t fired because she “misgendered” people at work and they found it hard to work with her. It wasn’t about the work environment per se. She was fired because of what she tweeted. On, I believe, her own time.
That’s chilling.
If I step off the top of a tall building , I shall plunge to my death. If I try to breathe underwater, I will drown. I am a mammal. Men are not women. Men cannot become women. Women don’t have penises. These are all just statements of fact. What I think or feel about these things has doesn’t matter or make them less factual, real or true. Does that make them “absolutist” in the dogmatic sense this judge seems to be using? Is reality “absolutist” then?
The charge of “absolutism” reminded me of something, and I just now realized what it is.
It’s one of the most common criticisms of atheists — that we’re “absolutists.” We say there’s no God. Not that maybe there’s no God, but there could be, who knows, not for us to say — but that there just isn’t. That’s irrational. That’s rude. The believers insist that’s not “philosophical” or scientific or anything. It’s extreme, an absolute statement when we ought to be falling all over ourselves assuring people we’re no more than agnostic, we are, so really — believe whatever you want.
Now, of course, the atheist position isn’t this caricature of absolutism. Atheism is also agnosticism, with the latter measuring level of absolute certainty (not) and the former advancing the conclusion concerning the existence of God (not.) But the idea that yes, atheism is absolutist is not only a popular belief in that it’s common, but a popular belief in that it’s dearly loved. It frames the opposition as dogmatic and extreme, closed-minded and with its hands over its ears. The charge of “absolutism” is a weapon.
And now it’s being leveled at feminists.
But, I guess, it’s not at all absolutist to say “Trans women ARE women”? Even to say it six times in a row, with face-smacking emoticons?
Seems fair.
This is how the “activists” at Freethought blogs ended up caused me to give up trying to say the right things about the ideology – because it was never enough. I was never absolutist enough, I made distinctions between the political and the ontological on which they poured scorn and rage, so…I decided I didn’t want to be anywhere near them any more.
“Absolutist”? What is this crime? Yesterday I might have thought it was being so alcoholic that one only drank absolute alcohol, so ignorant was I. But no, according to the Cambridge Dictionary it’s “a political system in which a single ruler, group, or political party has complete power over a country”
Britannica goes further, and includes Hitler, so the lengthy judgement seems to indirectly satisfy Godwin’s Law.
What a tyrant that woman must be. And I, by extension, for insisting that 2+2=4. Or does that merely make me a decimalist, perhaps a lesser crime?
Absolutist – I would call someone an absolutist as eg a Brexiteer, a Trumpist, a Scottish Nationalist, a Unionist, a Communist, a Free Marketeer, a Christian, an Atheist, a Free Speecher. All of those can be absolute positions, and it really depends on what the belief is whether that is reprehensible. You could be absolute that anyone accused of a crime should have a trial. That’s an absolute belief of mine, and of many people in liberal democracies, yet holding and speaking about that belief shouldn’t get you to in any trouble.
If she had added a cavil or two to her remarks (an “I think”) would she have been okay?
I think the worrying thing is (as alluded to in comment 4) the one-sided nature of things.
I’ve not seen that anybody involved is saying that you can change sex a bit, or in some ways but not others – No there are two “absolutist” positions; you can (merely by affirmation), and you can’t.
However taking the former position makes you a fearless champion of the oppressed, while taking the latter makes you a human rights transgressor who should be shunned for thinking such a vile heresy.
But are you talking about changing sex, or gender?
It’s just a boring obvious fact that you can’t change sex any more than you can change species. Saying that is entirely compatible with saying you can do pretty much whatever you like with your gender. Stating boring obvious facts isn’t “absolutist,” and it’s not always the case that there’s a more A little of this and a little of that answer to boring obvious questions. Can a rabbit be a little bit a tiger? Nah.