An FSU member explains how the organisation helped them after they were fired for expressing gender-critical concerns in the workplace.
A chance encounter with a stranger led to one of the best decisions of my life: joining the Free Speech Union (FSU).
This person had experienced some difficulty in their professional life and been enormously supported by the FSU; their simple imperative to me – “Join The Free Speech Union” – was something I acted on that same day.
I don’t know where I would be had I not taken that advice. As someone who could be broadly defined as gender critical, I was concerned that my company was embracing and promoting gender ideology and I would end up in trouble for refusing to toe the line.
That instinct proved to be correct. I was unable and unwilling to maintain my silence at work, and after I urged my employer to show caution and balance – my words chosen as carefully as the ones I use now – a course of events was set in motion that ended with me losing my job.
Being fired is a profoundly isolating and destabilising experience. Once the initial shock subsides, numerous secondary impacts emerge. Some hit with solid wallop, some sidle up with insidious creep. The removal of income is clearly important, but the effect termination has on one’s psyche and relationships is no less profound.
“What do you do for a living?” is, after all, one of small-talk’s more common titbits, and unless you find new work immediately or are happy to respond with the truth, you’ll need to mislead or obfuscate. Sometimes you end up lying to those closer to home, not least because friends and family members might not have grasped just how dogmatic gender ideology can be.
This compounds your sense of isolation: not only have you been given the ultimate rejection by people who once rated your work well enough to pay you for it, now you find yourself misleading those closest to you, unable to talk to them about one of the more dramatic things that can happen in a person’s life. Be prepared to feel no small amount of resentment towards your employer for placing you in these binds.
If you do decide to tell the truth, don’t rule out the possibility that some friends may drop you when they learn of your position, bearing in mind that contact with once-close colleagues will already have ceased.
Such things are rather emotionally and psychologically challenging, not least given how long a day without work can seem.
It is here that the first of the benefits of my Free Speech Union membership came into play: while I had come adrift from some of life’s moorings, the FSU said, in effect: “You have been treated appallingly. Let’s see what we can do to help.”
This immediately provided much needed grounding, helping cement in my mind that this was not a question of why I acted as I did, but why my employer acted as it did – a reminder, in essence, that companies are not always renowned for their moral compasses, nor do they often tend to be the good guys in such scenarios.
Next came the FSU’s legal eagles, who flew into action, helping set in motion a tribunal claim that would make my employers realise just how badly they’d treated me. This represented a complete reversal of the power dynamics: no longer was a company punishing an individual for perceived transgressions against the ideology it had chosen to embrace: now it was my employer’s turn to squirm.
Had my employer not made a settlement offer, I was prepared to go to court to fight my case, but while I wish I were strong enough to have followed in the footsteps of Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey, Jo Phoenix and others, my family circumstances and the toll the experience had already taken, meant I was willing to accept the offer and avoid a further year of stress.
On the plus side, the confidentiality agreement is binding on both sides. In my more idle moments I imagine dinner-party conversations that would once have seen execs boast to their chums of how a bigot was ousted from their midst, but are now more likely to witness them mutter “I can’t talk about that anymore”.
I’m still angry about what happened. But while I was mistreated in a professional and psychological sense I can move on and heal; any comparison with the plight of gender ideology’s true victims would be odious. I will say, though, that now that the final Cass Review has been published, many scales have fallen from many eyes and this topic is receiving the coverage and analysis it should have had years ago, I hope all those who contributed to my dismissal and who upheld unlawful discrimination feel ashamed.
So if you haven’t yet, I would urge you to Join the Free Speech Union. It takes strength and patience – not to mention cash – to contest a workplace dismissal, yet the long, grinding nature of this process sees these assets being diminished at every turn. With the help of the FSU, I was able to stand my ground while maintaining some sense of equilibrium, and now find myself in a position to rebuild my life and career.
Who knows what might get you in to trouble. Perhaps it won’t be speaking out against men in dresses invading single-sex spaces, or the harm being caused to thousands of vulnerable children, that gets you into trouble. Maybe you’re concerned about something else entirely. Once corporations get it into their collective minds that they should endorse polarising and dangerous ideologies as fact, it’s only a matter of time before those employees who take a different view get into difficulty. Most people go to work to work, not to be told by muddleheaded management wonks how they should think, but that’s no longer the world we live in.
One thing I know for sure: if you have a problem like this, if it feels like no one else will help and if you’re already a member, you won’t be able to sing the FSU’s praises highly enough. Just knowing they have my back has given me tremendous peace of mind as I plan my next career move.
