FSU member and former government scientist Peter Wilkins has won his employment tribunal case after being forced out of Porton Down for holding gender-critical views. The Times has the story:
As a scientist at Porton Down developing technology to secure Britain’s defences, Peter Wilkins never imagined he would be considered a threat because of a belief in biology.
But when he stated his gender-critical views and support for the concept of immutable sex, Wilkins was reported for his “ideology” and labelled by colleagues as transphobic, “sad and pathetic” and “a rubbish employee”.
An employment tribunal has found there was a “clear hostile animus” towards gender-critical beliefs at the top-secret Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL). It found that an intimidating atmosphere resulted in the harassment and discrimination of Wilkins, 43, who was forced to leave as a result.
Senior officials failed to address the behaviour because of an “unblinking desire” to support the pro-trans lobby.
Speaking after he won a two-year legal battle with DTSL, Wilkins still appears slightly bemused that he had to have the argument. “It’s a scientific organisation,” he said, “so it shouldn’t be unacceptable to use the phrase biological sex. I was never looking for DSTL to endorse my beliefs, or for anything to be said against people on the other side of the debate. But it just felt very one-sided.
“And it was pretty hurtful, really, having spent 15 years working for DSTL on some things which were high-security, to be told that we think you’re a security risk because you have these fairly normal, run-of-the-mill, factual beliefs about sex and genders.”
A panel led by the employment judge Gary Self, sitting at Southampton, warned that senior officials had lost sight of their obligation to be impartial despite high-profile legal rulings that gender-critical views are a protected right under the Equality Act.
The case underlines how parts of the civil service have been affected by the debate, with abuse of gender-critical philosophy waged on an internal blog that DSTL employees would use to discuss the issue, often during work time. At least one other person has left the organisation over “spats” on the blog.
Bryn Harris, chief legal counsel at the Free Speech Union, which supported Wilkins, said: “They’re meant to be fighting world wars not culture wars.”
DSTL is expected to have to pay substantial damages. The tribunal dismissed claims of victimisation.
Wilkins had worked for DSTL for 15 years, including secondments to support operations in Afghanistan and a role attracting innovative technology into defence. In August 2021, when the neuroscientist Sophie Scott was awarded the Royal Society’s Michael Faraday prize, a DSTL employee wrote on the internal blog that it was “pretty disheartening” given that Scott was “well known for her non-inclusive views on trans and non-binary people”. Another wrote that it emboldened transphobes.
Wilkins complained to moderators that this was “deeply unfair” to Scott, who had simply applied her scientific expertise to her views. It left the implication, he warned, that anyone with gender-critical beliefs should not receive public recognition for their work.
His concerns were not properly acted upon. In the following months a string of blog posts demeaned people with such views. One DSTL employee wrote that explicitly stating gender-critical beliefs was “abusive”. Another described gender criticism as bigotry and one said those who supported gender-critical views led “sad pathetic little lives”.
After Wilkins liked a post on LinkedIn by the gender-critical charity Sex Matters, a colleague suggested that “GC beliefs were an ideology” and that the matter should be referred to security and HR. They took no further action, but Wilkins said it was astonishing that he was flagged “in the same way as if I was expressing support for the provisional IRA or al-Qaeda”.
The judgment details how Wilkins, a Christian, repeatedly and calmly asked for management intervention, explaining to HR officials and other colleagues that his beliefs were protected after the Maya Forstater ruling. He did not believe that such posts would be tolerated if they were focused on any other protected belief or religion.
Senior staff did not stop the harassment, the tribunal found. Management viewed Prism, the DSTL sexual orientation and gender identity network, “as a powerful force within the organisation and were loath to do anything to go against [or] upset that body”.
Dr Harris added that Wilkins has been resoundingly vindicated: “Peter was exquisitely patient in pointing out, again and again, that DSTL cannot demean employees for holding the ‘wrong’ view about sex and gender. DSTL’s response that it is ‘not OK’ to express gender-critical views in the workplace was a flagrantly unlawful suppression of our member’s freedom of speech. We expect DSTL now to put its house in order, and to respond accordingly to the tribunal’s finding of serious breach of the Civil Service Code by senior employees.”
DSTL is expected to have to pay substantial damages.
Worth reading in full.
