UK High Court rules in favor of employee fired for saying men cannot become women

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The UK’s High Court of Justice ruled Thursday in favor of Maya Forstater, a British woman who was fired from her job at the Center for Global Development after she posted on social media her belief that men cannot become women, the Christian Post reports. Intervening in the case on behalf of Forstater, the Equality and Human Rights Commission asserted that religious and philosophical beliefs should be protected.

The case concerned a decision by the Center for Global Development not to renew Forstater’s employment contract after she posted on Twitter her opposition to a government proposal that would allow people to identify as the opposite sex, the Christian Post reports.

Giving its ruling, the High Court of Justice said a lower tribunal had “erred in law” when it had found against Forstater, the Christian Post reports. Justice Akhlaq Ur-Rahman Choudhury explained in the HCJ’s written ruling that Forstater’s views were protected under the Equality Act because they “did not seek to destroy the rights of trans persons.”

“Just as the legal recognition of civil partnerships does not negate the right of a person to believe that marriage should only apply to heterosexual couples, becoming the acquired gender ‘for all purposes’ within the meaning of GRA does not negate a said person’s right to believe, like the claimant, that as a matter of biology a trans person is still their natal sex,” Choudury said in the ruing.

Emphasizing that the HCJ was in no way seeking to downplay the difficulties faced by trans people trying to live peacefully in society according to the gender with which they identify, Choudury stated: “This case, however, is not about whether greater protection ought to be afforded to trans persons … the potential for offense (sic) cannot be a reason to exclude a belief from protection altogether.” Choudhury added that, while some people may find Forstater’s beliefs to be “offensive and even distressing,” her views must nevertheless “be tolerated in a pluralist society,” the Christian Post reports.

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