Neil, if I read you right, you’re saying 2022 was not a good year for “the Ailing UK Gender-Critical Movement”? And you coin a witty (or nonsense) term, Litigatitis, to prove this.
I disagree. Do you think any other year was better than 2022? If so, which?
Yes, so-called Litigatitis has been valuable. While the Gender Cultists can get away with falsehoods in the media, politics, academia and other areas of public discourse, their arguments don’t stand up in court, thank God.
That is the reason why, unfortunately, the GCs have to resort to law. And it has been one of the most successful tactics of the year (alongside the Let Women Speak tours, imo). Look at this list on www.crowdjustice.com/case/stand-with-maya End of year update. Of her Employment Tribunal win, which found that gender critical beliefs are “worthy of respect in a democratic society”, Maya writes:
“Since then I heard from hundreds of women and men who have been able to use “Forstater” to forestall complaints escalating at work, and who feel braver in speaking up. There are several cases ongoing which use the precedent including Allison Bailey’s (she won against Garden Court and is appealing against Stonewall), University lecturers Jo Phoenix and Cathy Boardman, the author Gillian Phillips, the Green Party cases (Shahrar Ali, Emma Bateman and Dawn Furness ) the social worker Rachel Meade, Sarah Surviving’s case against Brighton’s Rape Crisis Centre and the LGB Alliance case. In other incidents, organisations such as Nottingham Library have apologised for taking discriminatory actions.
Litigatitis is still one of the main ways forward and I fear that your negative blog may well discourage readers from crowd-funding and otherwise supporting these important legal actions.
2021 was a great year for gender critical discourse, because Kathleen Stock's and Helen Joyce's books were published. KS made a special impact because her book was first, but with hindsight it was a bit narrow and academic. Helen Joyce's book is wide-ranging and journalistic, in the best sense: it is still the best overall introduction to transgenderism.
2022 exposed the underlying problems that I outline in my piece. Of course the Forstater appeal win was important, but the unjust nature of the first judgement was always clear. In a further piece I will outline how fragile the Forstater case law is. It can easily be rolled back by a future transgenderist government, as currently appears likely. I am not a lawyer, but have some legal training and experience as a psychiatrist, and as a medical practitioner who has represented myself against bogus charges put forward by my regulator.
I support crowdfunding, as long as the merits of the case and the reasons for not using commercial litigation funders are properly explained to donors. I do not agree that residual funds should be reserved for further speculative litigation, which is currently the case for Forstater: https://twitter.com/NMacFa/status/1609671327333466113?s=20&t=TSZ2-TPnZdW6Fr7Su8M9Ug
You list several cases which would have succeeded with commercial litigation funding. In my view donors should be given the same opinion about the chances of success as the formal legal parties are given, by their lawyers.
Not to do so is dishonest and unethical.
One result of such dishonest and unethical practices is that transgenderist legislation has been passed, as in Scotland.
"several cases which would have succeeded with commercial litigation funding"?
Do you mean No win No fee? That's good for clear-cut cases (like med neg after a surgeon amputates the wrong leg, say) but I don't believe that it applies to unclear cases like these GC ones. What do you mean by commercial litigation funding? Pls post a link.
There are two links in the penultimate paragraph which should explain litigation funding. As I understand it, litigation funding is one mechanism by which no win no fee can operate. Your use of ‘clear’ and ‘unclear’ cases seems to correspond with my use of ‘well founded’ and ‘speculative’.
My piece seems to have attracted a good number of views, and comment both here and on Twitter. As yet, no lawyer has pointed out any weaknesses in my arguments.
Thanks, Neil, I have looked up the 2 links now, legal500 and the other one. It still looks to me like commercial litigation funding is for Big Bucks Corporate Lawyers or Class Actions (lots of people with small claims about, say, Cambridge Analytica, makes for big potential awards of damages). I wonder if any of the law firms who *do* act for the Mayas and Allisons in this rather niche legal area have approached you yet to tell you what a wonderful idea commercial litigation funding is for them?
I have long been extremely pessimistic about the likelihood of rolling back this insidious movement because of at least two factors: one is the amount of money involved in continuing this movement for all players and two is the related amorality and often downright malevolence of politicians and corporate heads and boards and institutions w/ respect to the rights of women and children. Same old, same old.
In addition, it has long been apparent that there are too many true believers in the movement who really believe in the promised utopia this movement they are told will usher in. And too many others who are willing to go along with those true believers who understand the disadvantage to women, children, and same-sex attracted individuals and that's OK by them. And finally so many others who just don't know and don't want to know not only about this movement but anything.
My piece did start off by agreeing that the Forstater litigation, and Allison Bailey's against her Chambers, were important gains. And we do have the Cass Review. But, yes, I agree that there has been a lot of Utopianism. I hope to publish more pieces which show the ways forward. I believe that Julian Vigo's interest in questioning Covid lockdowns and vaccines is one such way, but that needs to be done carefully because at one end of that spectrum of views there are extreme antivaxxers. So keep following us, and I hope we will be part of turning things around.
Neil, if I read you right, you’re saying 2022 was not a good year for “the Ailing UK Gender-Critical Movement”? And you coin a witty (or nonsense) term, Litigatitis, to prove this.
I disagree. Do you think any other year was better than 2022? If so, which?
Yes, so-called Litigatitis has been valuable. While the Gender Cultists can get away with falsehoods in the media, politics, academia and other areas of public discourse, their arguments don’t stand up in court, thank God.
That is the reason why, unfortunately, the GCs have to resort to law. And it has been one of the most successful tactics of the year (alongside the Let Women Speak tours, imo). Look at this list on www.crowdjustice.com/case/stand-with-maya End of year update. Of her Employment Tribunal win, which found that gender critical beliefs are “worthy of respect in a democratic society”, Maya writes:
“Since then I heard from hundreds of women and men who have been able to use “Forstater” to forestall complaints escalating at work, and who feel braver in speaking up. There are several cases ongoing which use the precedent including Allison Bailey’s (she won against Garden Court and is appealing against Stonewall), University lecturers Jo Phoenix and Cathy Boardman, the author Gillian Phillips, the Green Party cases (Shahrar Ali, Emma Bateman and Dawn Furness ) the social worker Rachel Meade, Sarah Surviving’s case against Brighton’s Rape Crisis Centre and the LGB Alliance case. In other incidents, organisations such as Nottingham Library have apologised for taking discriminatory actions.
Litigatitis is still one of the main ways forward and I fear that your negative blog may well discourage readers from crowd-funding and otherwise supporting these important legal actions.
Thanks for your comments, and questions, Robbie.
2021 was a great year for gender critical discourse, because Kathleen Stock's and Helen Joyce's books were published. KS made a special impact because her book was first, but with hindsight it was a bit narrow and academic. Helen Joyce's book is wide-ranging and journalistic, in the best sense: it is still the best overall introduction to transgenderism.
2022 exposed the underlying problems that I outline in my piece. Of course the Forstater appeal win was important, but the unjust nature of the first judgement was always clear. In a further piece I will outline how fragile the Forstater case law is. It can easily be rolled back by a future transgenderist government, as currently appears likely. I am not a lawyer, but have some legal training and experience as a psychiatrist, and as a medical practitioner who has represented myself against bogus charges put forward by my regulator.
I support crowdfunding, as long as the merits of the case and the reasons for not using commercial litigation funders are properly explained to donors. I do not agree that residual funds should be reserved for further speculative litigation, which is currently the case for Forstater: https://twitter.com/NMacFa/status/1609671327333466113?s=20&t=TSZ2-TPnZdW6Fr7Su8M9Ug
You list several cases which would have succeeded with commercial litigation funding. In my view donors should be given the same opinion about the chances of success as the formal legal parties are given, by their lawyers.
Not to do so is dishonest and unethical.
One result of such dishonest and unethical practices is that transgenderist legislation has been passed, as in Scotland.
"several cases which would have succeeded with commercial litigation funding"?
Do you mean No win No fee? That's good for clear-cut cases (like med neg after a surgeon amputates the wrong leg, say) but I don't believe that it applies to unclear cases like these GC ones. What do you mean by commercial litigation funding? Pls post a link.
There are two links in the penultimate paragraph which should explain litigation funding. As I understand it, litigation funding is one mechanism by which no win no fee can operate. Your use of ‘clear’ and ‘unclear’ cases seems to correspond with my use of ‘well founded’ and ‘speculative’.
My piece seems to have attracted a good number of views, and comment both here and on Twitter. As yet, no lawyer has pointed out any weaknesses in my arguments.
Thanks, Neil, I have looked up the 2 links now, legal500 and the other one. It still looks to me like commercial litigation funding is for Big Bucks Corporate Lawyers or Class Actions (lots of people with small claims about, say, Cambridge Analytica, makes for big potential awards of damages). I wonder if any of the law firms who *do* act for the Mayas and Allisons in this rather niche legal area have approached you yet to tell you what a wonderful idea commercial litigation funding is for them?
I have long been extremely pessimistic about the likelihood of rolling back this insidious movement because of at least two factors: one is the amount of money involved in continuing this movement for all players and two is the related amorality and often downright malevolence of politicians and corporate heads and boards and institutions w/ respect to the rights of women and children. Same old, same old.
In addition, it has long been apparent that there are too many true believers in the movement who really believe in the promised utopia this movement they are told will usher in. And too many others who are willing to go along with those true believers who understand the disadvantage to women, children, and same-sex attracted individuals and that's OK by them. And finally so many others who just don't know and don't want to know not only about this movement but anything.
Dear Telos 29
My piece did start off by agreeing that the Forstater litigation, and Allison Bailey's against her Chambers, were important gains. And we do have the Cass Review. But, yes, I agree that there has been a lot of Utopianism. I hope to publish more pieces which show the ways forward. I believe that Julian Vigo's interest in questioning Covid lockdowns and vaccines is one such way, but that needs to be done carefully because at one end of that spectrum of views there are extreme antivaxxers. So keep following us, and I hope we will be part of turning things around.