Composer cancelled by his own company after tweeting support for JK Rowling in transgender debate
[This piece was written in my capacity as the Free Speech Union’s Communications Officer. It’s a great organisation, by the way - helping to protect those who’ve been cancelled, harassed, sacked or penalised for exercising their legal right to free speech whether in the workplace or the public square. You should take a look - I’ve left some links at the end of this piece.]
Spitfire Audio, a company that provides music to the film industry, suspended its co-founder, BAFTA-nominated composer Christian Henson, after he tweeted his support for J.K. Rowling and television writer Graham Linehan, both of whom have previously spoken out against transgender ideology (Mail, Times, GB News).
In his since deleted tweet, Mr Henson wrote: “As a parent I can no longer keep my mouth shut about this. I’m in full support of Glinner [Graham Linehan’s online name] and J.K. Rowling. Please look into this. If you have young children it’s in the post, if you have autistic children it’s probably already on your doormat.”
The tweet was specifically about the controversial Tavistock Clinic, a centre providing gender-identity health services for children and young people. The Tavistock has long been accused of putting transgender ideology above the health and wellbeing of children. According to whistleblowers, vulnerable children were being put on irreversible medical pathways to changing their gender, involving puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones and, in some cases, surgery (Times).
In particular, children exhibiting autistic traits were hugely over-represented among those seeking treatment at the Tavistock – almost certainly because their issues were routinely getting misdiagnosed as gender dysphoria. For years, these criticisms were dismissed as ‘transphobic’ and those speaking out were censored, although the centre is now set to close after facing mass legal action from the parents of children given puberty blockers (Spiked).
Twitter being Twitter, the composer’s tweet prompted a spittle flecked backlash from pro-trans activists. As the furore intensified, the company’s CEO, Will Evans, took the remarkable decision to suspend Mr Henson and issue an apology on behalf of Spitfire Audio. “Christian’s tweet has caused hurt among our community,” he wrote. “This hurt is understandably being extended as a reflection on Spitfire Audio, its collaborators and its employees. I’m deeply sorry for that; we’ve worked hard to be a beacon for the industry and have a responsibility to do better.” He then added: “Christian’s going to take a break” and implored people to “accept my apologies on behalf of Spitfire Audio”.
Note, by the way, the eruption into this statement of the passive-aggressive slouch language of the millennial hipster. Christian hasn’t been, say, ‘told’ to stay at home ‘while HR launches an investigation’ – he’s simply “taking a break”. As George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language reminds us, the defence of the indefensible is rarely attempted without recourse to euphemism and cloudy vagueness.
Mr Evans’s statement ended by reassuring readers that while Christian was taking his break, the company would “reflect on how to move forward”.
As J.K. Rowling pointed out when she re-tweeted the FSU’s initial Tweet about the incident, now might be a good time for Mr Evans and his colleagues in Spitfire Audio’s HR team to “reflect” on the legal implications of the ruling recently handed down in Maya Forstater’s Employment Tribunal victory.
Ms Forstater lost her job after posting a series of tweets in which she set out her ‘gender critical’ beliefs – as in Mr Henson’s case, the basic gist was that someone’s sex is biological and immutable and should not be conflated with their gender identity.
It was in a test case at the Employment Tribunal back in 2019 that Maya first attempted to establish that her tweets should be protected under the 2010 Equality Act. Employment judge James Tayler ruled against Maya, saying that such views – that sex is binary and immutable – were not “worthy of respect in a democratic society” (Critic).
Undeterred, Forstater appealed this judgement in the Employment Appeal Tribunal, where High Court judge Mr Justice Choudhury ruled that the judgment handed down by the original tribunal had “erred in law” and promptly sent the case back to the Employment Tribunal to decide whether the claim had been proved on the facts.
The significance of that ruling was wide-ranging because Mr Justice Choudhury carefully enunciated the proper parameters for the exercise of free speech in a democratic society, making clear that even if a belief has the potential to “offend, shock, or disturb” that is not enough for it to be deprived of protection under the Equality Act, which designates “religion or belief” as a protected characteristic.
Maya’s original case then went back to the Employment Tribunal so it could be reconsidered in light of the fact that gender critical beliefs are protected. Then, earlier this year, the Tribunal ruled that Maya’s employer had breached employment law by discriminating against Forstater in virtue of her possession of certain protected characteristic, i.e., her gender critical beliefs.
Importantly, the Tribunal ruled that Forstater was entitled to criticise those holding an opposite view to her – i.e., trans rights activists – and that she had done so legitimately, adding that “mocking or satirising the opposing view is part of the common currency of debate” (Times, UnHerd).
In a statement published after the judgment, Ms Forstater pointed out that her case “matters for everyone who believes in the importance of truth and free speech”. We are all “free to believe whatever we wish”, she added. “What we are not free to do is compel others to believe the same thing, to silence those who disagree with us or to force others to deny reality.”
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