27 Dec 2019 | Index in the Press
An employee of a leading think tank was fired for publicly arguing that transgender women were not real women. Maya Forstater was a tax expert for The Centre for Global Development (CGD). In March 2019, Forstater posted a series of tweets in support of the statement that “men cannot change into women.”
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The Index on Censorship advocacy group stood in support of Forstater during the trial. Jodie Ginsberg, the group’s CEO, told the Guardian, “I cannot see that Maya has done anything wrong other than express an opinion that many feminists share – that there should be a public and open debate about the distinction between sex and gender.”
Read the full story here.
21 Dec 2019 | Index in the Press
People have long speculated that J.K. Rowling, creator of Harry Potter and nothing else of note since, is secretly a transphobe. Until today, the strongest evidence was that she had liked a Twitter post referring to trans women as “men in dresses,” which she later claimed had been an accidental slip of her finger.
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As a purely free speech issue, I believe people should be allowed to say all manner of horrible things without losing their jobs over it and the Index on Censorship sided with Forstater in her court case for a similar reason.
Read the full story here.
21 Dec 2019 | Index in the Press
Another explosion in the gender wars went off on December 18th, when an employment tribunal in London ruled that stating “gender-critical” beliefs—for instance, that the words “man” and “woman” properly refer to males and females rather than to anyone who identifies as such—are a legitimate reason to lose one’s job.
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Jodie Ginsberg of Index on Censorship, which campaigns for freedom of expression, said she was “deeply worried about what this judgment means …
Read the full story here.
20 Dec 2019 | In the News, Index in the Press
Scottish playwright Jo Clifford is no stranger to controversy. Her play, The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven, casts Jesus as a trans woman, and first aired at Glasgow’s Tron in 2009 to a reception of applause—and protest. But there is controversy, and then there is outright danger. The same play was on tour in Brazil until recently, when a smoke bomb was thrown into the performance space and armed police invaded the theatre…
Read the full story in Prospect, by Jemimah Steinfeld, Index on Censorship Deputy Magazine Editor
