In the past decade, all the major institutions of Western civil society have been quietly subverted by a wave of irrationalist, post-modernist rejection of the Enlightment, and its claim to rule via reason and evidence, rather than via belief and ideology. This shift has taken its most dramatic form in the apparently successful overthrow of medical science by gender ideology. This political movement has established its own counter culture, legitimating medication and surgery for adults and children who hope to transition from one sex into another. The resultant psychological and physiological damage to vulnerable health consumers is only now beginning to be appreciated. The adverse effects will clearly be felt for generations to come.
However, there has been a growing movement in the courts, in the UK at least, to reject the imposition of gender ideology across this wide range of institutions within civil society. This swathe currently includes universities, local state bodies, commercial, professional and regulatory bodies, and non-governmental organisations. This counter-revolution has been quietly gaining pace, winning case after case at the often overlooked level of Employment Tribunals. A recent analysis of the developing case law by Ruth Birchall and Jo Phoenix (2024), the latter herself a key participant in a landmark case against the Open university, shows a remarkably high level of success for cases brought against the imposition of gender ideology in the workplace. The success rate for cases brought by employees experiencing unlawful harassment or discrimination in the workplace usually hovers at around 12%. However, it soars to an exceptional 83% in the cases brought to defend the right to hold and express gender critical beliefs, as a mainstream part of free speech within a democratic society.
This success rate points to a number of key factors. Firstly, the supposed gains of gender ideology in taking over civil society are being most strongly resisted by those who have most to lose, namely women. Of the 12 successful cases listed in this report, the vast majority have been won by female claimants, and a quarter have been won by lesbian claimants. The hard-won rights of both groups are placed at immediate risk by the growth of gender ideology, in terms of resisting the intrusion of males into spaces designed solely for women.
Secondly, the striking success of these cases at Employment Tribunal, together with others at County Court level, highlights a fatal strategic flaw within the project to insert gender ideology into every facet of civil society. Gender ideology famously seeks to erase binaries wherever they can be found. However, the system of civil law crucially rests on interlocking sets of binary distinctions, whether concerning the quality of evidence, the standard of proof, or the final decision of the court. Apart from its original success in winning at the Court of Appeal in the judicial review of the Tavistock Clinic in 2021, the gender ideology movement has struggled to maintain its early momentum in the civil courts. Gender ideology has now hit a massive reef, in the mundane form taken by the civil justice system within the UK. However, this positive outcome is perhaps less certain within the more highly politicised legal system to be found in the US.
Thirdly, the ripple effects of these cumulative victories in court will be significant. UK Case law is very closely monitored by indemnity insurers, in order to protect their assets against the known costs of litigation in the courts. Rising insurance rates influenced the decision of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy to leave a key gender identity lobby group, the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy. While the overall thrust of the cases is heartening, the key case is that brought and won by Maya Forstater, as cases decided at Appeal Court level establish a binding precedent for deciding similar disputes in the future.
The analysis of cases provided by Ruth Birchall and Jo Phoenix points to workplace cultures where employers and managers have, in many cases, prioritised gender ideology, in a mistaken application of the Equality Act 2010. Managers have failed to understand and protect the valid claims of gender critical staff to hold and express their legitimate views. The roots of this managerial culture can be traced back to a wider post-modernist delusional stance, exemplified by this quotation from a leading personnel body in the UK.
“…an effective EDI strategy should go beyond legal compliance [PJ: with the Equality Act 2010] and take an intersectional (that a person’s different intersecting identities can advantage or disadvantage them) approach to EDI, which will add value to an organisation, contribute to the wellbeing and equality of outcomes and impact on all employees. Things to consider include: accent, age, caring responsibilities, colour, culture, visible and invisible disability, gender identity and expression, mental health, neurodiversity, physical appearance, political opinion, pregnancy and maternity/paternity and family status and socio-economic circumstances, amongst other personal characteristics and experiences” (CIPD, 2024).
Here in the UK, it seems, equality law is merely a springboard to justify social engineering on a grand scale, as a bizarre social experiment in fostering social diversity amongst the workforce, but only in ways consistent with the overall long-term project of gender ideology. This is likely to prove a costly and ultimately failed experiment in the long run, unless managers and workers start reading and applying the lessons of this report.
References
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) (2024) Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the workplace. https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/factsheets/diversity-factsheet/#:~:text=Things%20to%20consider%20include%3A%20accent,socio%2Deconomic%20circumstances%2C%20amongst%20other
Birchall, R. and Phoenix, J. (2024) Don’t Get Caught Out: A Summary of Gender Critical Belief Discrimination Employment Tribunal Judgments. Occasional Paper. Employment and Justice Series. School of Law, University of Reading. https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/118472/8/Dont%20Get%20Caught%20Out%20final%20%28002%29.pdf
Commentary by Peter Jenkins, a member of Thoughtful Therapists, whose scoping survey for the UK government consultation on conversion therapy can be found here: https://thoughtfultherapists.org/scoping-survey-pdf/
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