‘Our hard-fought rights are now being turned against us’
THE woman who was “cancelled” for saying there is a biological difference between men and women has spoken for the first time about the toll her fight has taken.
Maya Forstater, 48, lost her job in March 2019 as a tax expert at the thinktank Centre for Global Development and was targeted for abuse by transactivists after tweeting her belief that transgender people cannot change their biological sex.
The mum of two sons, from St Albans, Herts, claimed she was discriminated against because she believes “that sex is immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity”. Today she is launching the group Sex Matters to protect the biological definition of a woman which, she says, represents the most significant women’s movement since the suffragettes.
Maya said: “I would not want anyone to go through what I’ve experienced.
“I lost my job, I had to crowdfund to go to court – where I won my discrimination case on appeal – and am still waiting on the judgement of an employment tribunal expected in May.
“It’s been very draining. It’s taken my attention away from my family. My husband and sons have stood by me, but this isn’t their fight. All I wanted to do was defend the law as it is.
“What cheered me up was the support of ordinary people who told me I was doing the right thing.”
Maya’s case gained public attention, including some high-profile supporters such as Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
Dodged
Last year a High Court judge ruled her “gender-critical” beliefs fell under the Equalities Act 2010.
Now Sex Matters is teaming up with the Women’s Rights Network and Women Uniting to launch the campaign: “Respect my Sex if you want my X.”
And the topic continues to make headlines. Just last week Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer would not answer an interviewer who asked him: “Can a woman have a penis?”
Other politicians to have dodged the question include Anneliese Dodds, the shadow minister for women and equalities, and Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
Maya said: “How worrying it is that politicians are too cowardly to answer this most basic of questions, that they are unable to define what is, after all, half the population.
“And what do we know of the views of all the other MPs and councillors who represent women in this country? Hardly anything, because so few have the courage to stick their heads above the parapet.”
She added: “Just over 100 years ago, women got the vote. Our hard-fought rights are now being turned against us.
“Every rule and policy that says something is for women, is being changed, so that it’s now for people who ‘self-identify’ as women, whatever their sex.The time has come for women to fight back.”