- A woman who was fired for saying that people cannot change their biological sex won a tribunal appeal.
- Maya Forstater lost her job in 2019 after she tweeted that trans women are "not really women."
- Forstater won the support of
JK Rowling who has previously said she opposes transgender activism.
A British woman who got fired for saying that transgender women are "not really women" got her job back after winning an appeal against an employment tribunal.
Maya Forstater's contract with her employer, Centre for Global Development (CGD), was not renewed in 2019 after posting several tweets expressing her beliefs about how transgender people cannot change their biological sex and are male or "honorary female," reported The Times.
In the tweets, she also questioned government plans (which were later scrapped) that would have allowed trans people to legally transition from the gender assigned to them at birth without a medical diagnosis.
Her social media posts prompted several employees in the company to complain, resulting in an employment tribunal, which she initially lost.
However, on Thursday, a High Court judge, Justice Chowdhury, ruled that the first tribunal had "erred in Law" and that her views "must be tolerated in a pluralist society," according to Sky News.
"This judgment does not mean that those with gender-critical beliefs can 'mis-gender' trans persons with impunity," Chowdhury said, according to the BBC."The claimant, like everyone else, will continue to be subject to the prohibitions on discrimination and harassment that apply to everyone else."
Amanda Glassman, the think tank's chief executive that sacked Forstater, described the ruling as "disappointing and surprising."
Rowling, who backed Forstater, a tax expert, in 2019, sent her a message of congratulations, according to the Times.
The Harry Potter author has said on several occasions that she opposes transgender activism. Last year, she came under fire for suggesting that transgender people erase "the lived reality of women globally."