The UK Equality and Human Rights Comission is arguing that anti trans views, and their targeted dehumanising use against trans people within a workplace, should be a "protected characteristic" under the 2010 Equality Act.

This is extremely concerning and we need cis allies help. https://twitter.com/LisaTMullin/status/1387258634833317892

This would basically rule that, like racism, sexism, homophobia etc, you can't be fired from a job for being transphobic.

Maya Forester, the person at the centre of this case, was not fired for being anti trans, but did have an employer not opt to extend a contract due to her repeated misgendering and derogatory comments to fellow trans employees. She was harassing fellow co-workers.

The Equality and Human Rights commission is arguing that it should have been illegal to decide not to extend that contract, because Maya should have had protected characteristic protection as a transphobe, and her misgendering of co-workers should have been protected by law.

This is a major step towards trans people losing anti harassment protections under the law, and is deeply concerning.

We are literally considering as a country making Bigotry a protected characteristic.

Allies, this is a big deal, and we need you to be vocal about your opposition to this, because right now it's quietly happening, without any fanfare.

In a case where a cis woman harassed a trans woman in the workplace, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is considering the stance that rather than the trans woman having a protected right to not be harassed at work, the transphobe should have had the right to harass.

If you want to personally hold transphobic beliefs, fine, but the second you try to argue you should be able to use those views to harass a trans coworker without consequence is where this becomes a problem.

To clarify a point on this, transphobia becoming a protected belief is like half the battle here, as after that you get into the separate "is misgendering based on my protected belief harassment" legal arguement, but this is still a very dangerous road to be heading down.

Basically, the steps here are "can you be fired for being transphobic" and "can you be fired for transphobic harassment" as two distinct legal questions.

Basically this is like the distinction of you can't fire someone for being Christian, but you should be able to fire them for all day at work repeatedly telling a gay coworker they're going to hell for their disgusting sins, even if that is a sincerely held protected belief.

If anti trans views became a protected belief, you open the door to arguements like "I wasn't harassing my trans coworker, I never said it with malice or in a derogatory way, but I think they're a man, and I refer to them as such due to my beliefs, in a non harassment manner"

The line between "acting in line with my personally held beliefs, which say I should address trans women as men" and "I didn't want to work with a trans woman, so I called her a man as much as possible so she would feel unsafe and quit her job, victory me" is very narrow.

For EHRC to step in and suggest that protected characteristic status would overturn the Forester ruling suggests they think "I think I should call trans women men" is a protected belief. That's the concern here, the specificity of what EHRC seems to be trying to protect.

If you want to email EHRC and explain to them your thoughts on this situation, their email is [email protected]

“I reserve the right to use he and him pronouns for male people,” - Maya said in court today, arguing she should be allowed to misgender her trans woman co-workers without that being considered transphobia. https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/04/27/maya-forstater-appeal-employment-tribunal-trans-transphobia-misgender-pronouns/

This is not a battle over the inherent right to hold transphobic beliefs. She is arguing in court she should be able to express them, in a way that treats trans identities as make believe to be disregarded, and do so free of consequences. She's explicitly trying to argue that.