The curious case of Maya Forstater

There was a time not so long ago when the name Maya Forstater was only known to her, her parents, and whatever close circle of friends inhabited her gender critical chat groups. In those enlightened days the world was a sunnier place, where calling transphobia out did not run the risk of someone shouting that their personal beliefs were being infringed. Indeed, it was a halcion time just after the trans tipping point where to be trans was at last seeming like a newly discovered country. Then Maya’s contract was not renewed, she lost her initial tribunal hearing, appealed with the backing of J K Rowling’s money and now we live with the consequences. So, let me tell you about the curious case of Maya Forstater and her merry band of gender critical believers.

Just to be clear, this is an urban legend wherein all may be whimsy, or may in fact be grounded in lived reality. I will let you decide. Like a vixen in the henhouse Maya snuck up alongside regular feminists, suggesting that the ills in their lives were caused by trans women infesting women’s spaces. Like all good zealots Maya proclaimed that if only we banned these men from women’s spaces the world would be a safe place and women would be free to be women. In other words, Maya decided to do what all true believes do and co-opt her personal world view as the world view that all others should share. Like all good vixens she promised the hens that their precious eggs would be safe with her, promptly attempting to raise the next brood in her own image.

When Maya was caught red handed stating her views, she cried “sex matters!” And the appeal tribunal paid for with JK’s money decided that her personal beliefs were valid in a democratic society, providing that she does not use them to harass anyone in a workplace situation. So sayeth the lesser spotted section 118 of her appeal decision. The one all her gender critical acolytes conveniently ignored as they trumpeted her success. Like Paul on the road to Rome Maya had weathered the storm, coming out ahead as the zealous evangelical she is. No more would she have to work for anyone else, have to worry about falling foul of anyone else’s rights, for she set up her own organisation, just without the blackjack and hookers.

With the wind of seeming vindication in her sail she set about recruiting other disenfranchised middle aged, middle class, white women to trumpet the cause. Every right wing new organisation in the land flocked to give her air time, with the luminaries on GBBies allowing her to exhort the masses to wail on those despicable men in fronts. Woe to the unbelievers was her cry, sex matters because all we are is sex. Sex! Bodies! She smirked gaily into the camera, knowing deep down that nothing could touch her and her merry band of gender critical acolytes. Oh the delicious joy she took in reminding the world that her’s was the dignity, the joy, and the right to call trans women men.

In the mirror each morning she saw victory, two thumbs furiously brandishing her phone as she led another tweet fly, evangelising and radicalising folk who cared not for actual science. All Maya was really concerned about was handing a half empty box of names into Downing Street, having tea with the extreme right of the Conservative Party, and not giving one fig about Maggie two streets over about to be cut off from the electric. All that mattered was sex, and kicking those mean old men out of women’s spaces. That, and crafting the next screed to push out to the press.

Maya pause, for a moment, checking her hair. She briefly wondered what Kemi and Rosie would think of her latest missive, that self-id was false and unacceptable. They would surely cheer her on, despite the lack of evidence. Indeed, she had been busy the night before cutting and pasting data from those nasty Stonewall types just to make her point, whatever that might be. For she was Maya Forstater and the appeal decision clearly stated she was a gender critical believer. Sex matters in a democratic society, or something like that, and she was damn sure the world would know about it. Curious indeed.