In Forstater v CGD, F claimed she had been subjected to direct discrimination when CGD allegedly refused to continue with her consultancy agreement because of her “gender critical” opinions which she argued constituted a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010. F became concerned about proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004 which would permit people to self-identify their gender and she posted critical comments on social media. F told the ET that in her view, the words man and woman describe a person’s sex and are immutable [absolute]; a person is either one or the other, there is nothing in between, it is impossible to change from one sex to the other and she will not accept that a trans woman is in reality a woman or that a trans man is a man. The ET found that F’s view was not a protected philosophical belief. The fact that F would refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate, even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment, is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.

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