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June 20, 2024 - 1:00pm
Last year I was threatened with arrest and called into Charing Cross Police Station to be questioned for the offence of “malicious communications”, a crime with a penalty of up to two years in prison. 10 months later, I remain under investigation.
The police questioned me about a tweet I had posted concerning a transgender GP, Dr Kamilla Kamaruddin, who I had claimed “enjoys intimately examining female patients without their consent”.
Did I mean to target a member of the transgender community, the police asked me. Did I understand that my tweet could be perceived as transphobic? Did I have any remorse? “Do you have any evidence that Dr Kamarudding examines her patient without consent?” the officer demanded.
The answer to this question was in the tweet itself, which linked to a blog post I wrote in 2020. The police did not appear to have read it. There, I set out the clear evidence from numerous media articles in which Dr Kamaruddin boasts of intimately examining female patients while not being clear and honest about his being male. He expresses happiness at now being able to perform “more intimate examinations that they did not let me do when I was a male GP”, and in the post I asked why the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the regulator that inspects GP clinics, said nothing about Dr Kamaruddin’s behaviour or the clinic’s policy of telling patients he was female.
Nothing I said came anywhere near the threshold required for “malicious communication”; more importantly, it was all true. But the Metropolitan Police is currently unequipped to treat women like me fairly. As with many police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service, it has been trained by Stonewall as part of the Diversity Champions Scheme, and so has been exposed to the doctrinal falsehood that anyone who refuses to pretend that men who identify as women are really female as bigots and transphobes.
Understanding that it is morally and legally wrong for a male doctor to examine female patients without their informed consent should not be hard, if one remembers that women and girls are human beings and not props for men’s ideas about themselves. It helps to use clear language, but the Met maintains a policy of allowing some male officers who identify as female to search women and girls. Fixing these policies in the police, not to mention the prison service and the NHS, requires leadership at the highest level. Unfortunately, it is a hot potato that has been passed on to the next government.
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SubscribeLet’s see the Met come back from that.
dystopian
I try to avoid hyperbole, but I would say that any nation that proscribes “malicious communication” is a police state.
It’s almost like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.
Except defamation has ever been protected speech even in the US which has actual free speech rights. Only what you can present as having some factual excuse for is protected from a defamation tort suit.
And on looking it up, the sort of lies Forstater is telling here may rise to the level of criminal libel.
Sorry I don’t understand what you mean by ‘the sort of lies Forstater is telling here”. Please would it be possible to explain in more detail what you know.
“enjoys intimately examining female patients without their consent”
That is a lie by Forstater. Forstater’s use of “He” is a lie as well. Forstater can not name any procedure or examination which was medically unnecessary, and has not even claimed so, have they?
Just stay away from children please.
No, after all, you are the child abuser here of the two of us.
Oh, we have a full-on reality denying trans activist amongst us! Dr Kamaruddin is male, as the law, science, common sense, and the vast majority of ordinary people recognise. Many women do not feel comfortable about being examined by a male doctor or officer. The claim is hardly alive since Dr Kamaruddin boasts that he examined female patients while not being honest about his being male. Or perhaps he himself is lying which is also utterly must irresponsible lies you could tell. (By the way “He, Him, His” – pertaining to male persons (usage recognised by 99% of people) “She, Her, Hers” – pertaining to female persons – usage recognised by 99% of people).
Lesson for you: there are two biological sexes in all mammals, including human beings, with the exception of a tiny minority of genetically intersex people who have nothing to do with this debate.
You do not “own” the facts about your sex, age, your age, your race or where you were born or live – they are objective facts about you. I am not a 25 year old hunk just because I feel I am. Nobody assigned your gender at birth: somebody observed that “it’s a boy” or “it’s a girl” from well known and almost universal sex characteristics. The fact that you deny hundreds of thousands of years of human history and prehistory is quite staggering. The level of cognitive dissonance must be enormous.
Gender is an almost if not entirely meaningless concept in this context. Trans activists, having insisted that there is a difference between sex and gender, then immediately junk the concept of gender and decide that trans women should have exactly the same “rights” as biological women and access in each and every circumstance, even where when there are extremely good reasons for biological women having in their own facilities and protected spaces. These recognise women’s preferences and the obvious fact that biological males (who include at the very least non transitioned trans women) are physically more powerful than biological (aka real) women.
Your only line is that everyone is lying. AGP paranoia.
Are you saying that defamation is protected speech in England and the United States? You are not very clear. Defamation in the United States is not protected speech. Trump has twice lost a defamation case and owes 88+ million. Bill Clinton was sued by Paula Jones for defamation and lost the case. So here in the U.S.A even presidents can be sued for what they say and it’s not free speech.
As far as I can see, no true statement is unprotected* in the US.
Unknowingly false statements can be a tort in the US but not a crime.
Knowingly false statements in the US can be criminal.
In the UK, or at least in England, known true statements can be potentially criminal defamation and are not protected. There is effectively no free speech in the UK.
*Certain contractual agreements, particularly with people paid to keep certain secrets, can if broken by otherwise protected speech be both criminal and a civil tort when the contracts are broken — in some cases ameliorated from suit or prosecution if illegalities are revealed. For example, the government can prosecute people for true statements about and mishandling of some classified information, but “whistleblower” protections are in place to permit actual crimes to be made known under certain narrow circumstances — which for example neither Chelsea Manning nor Edward Snowden attempted to satisfy. If I recall they should have first in a secure room with their counsel having a security clearance given their information to the leadership of the two parties in the Houses of Congress (so about 12 people), and seen how things then developed.
Welcome to 21C Britain.
What is more important is the way choose their priorities. They appear reluctant to arrest large physically strong violent criminals skilled in fighting who are capable of beating them to a pulp.
Yet another outrage against rights, safety, dignity and fairness for women and girls which has only been brought into the light by the refusal of a small group of – mainly – feminist women (along with the support of some men like Graham Linehan) to buckle under the bullying of trans activists and the simpering cowardice of the state, medical and media mainstream who would rather smugly turn a blind eye to children harmed by unevidenced medical procedures than risk their own positions by calling out this catalogue of abuses.
That this is done in the name of “kindness” and “inclusion” simply piles absurdity upon absurdity. There’s nothing kind about denying women the right to informed consent over who may intimately examine them. There’s nothing inclusive about telling women and girls that they must step aside in favour of men and boys allowed into their sporting category.
Ms Forstater and her colleagues have nothing but my admiration for how they continue to fight for the rights, safety and dignity of women and girls. In any sane world it would not be down to them to do the heavy lifting, it would be state and professional authorities stepping up to protect these hard won rights.
99% agree. Its right that the heavy lifting should be on individuals. People need to stand up for themselves and their neighbours. Doing what us right is always hard.
So, life imitates art and the concept of a thought police moves from dystopian books and films into reality.
To practice under false pretences in this way basically amounts to sexual assault and should be treated as such.
What false pretenses?
A male doctor wearing a costume to deceive women into thinking that a women is treating them. That is fraud, sexual abuse and down right creepy.
Sue them.
They will probably never do anything about this but of course, the process is the punishment. You are meant to be worn down til you just shut up.
“They will probably never do anything about this?” Omg is that the best we can manage? Somebody get a spine. “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.” – Thomas Jefferson
It’s not enough for only women like Maya to put their liberty at risk. Every father, brother or husband who cares about human dignity should follow Maya Forstater and J.K. Rowling to jail if necessary until this trans insanity is reversed in law.
A spine is a very expensive thing to have – I have been paying with my life for it since 2009. Look up my name to see what happens to those, who stand up against a dysfunctional law-enforcement entity, Victoria Police* (Australia). Australia’s police forces have no duty of care/accountability, while having a monopoly on what is a crime.
In Australia MIGHT = RIGHT, always was, will remain for a long time to come.
Victoria Police aren’t just corrupt, they have a long history of discrediting via bizarre crimes crime-witnesses & victims whom they cannot silence or simply murder.
As my story shows, Victoria Police:
– Block even a public servant trying to report crimes punishable by 10 years in jail. Repeatedly.
– Refuse evidence of crimes they are unable to block from being reported, then close crime cases punishable by 10 years in jail “due to insufficient evidence”.
– Force a crime witness turned victim to fight at court in an admitted silencing attempt, trying to entrap the witness/victim 2x in the process in my case.
– Flash their uniforms participating in the very crimes they are trying to silence a witness/victim about – while they are forcing the witness/victim to fight at court in an admitted silencing attempt.
– Gang up on, track, stalk, ambush, harass, mock, taunt and openly laugh at 60+ yo crime witnesses turned victims limping crime-to-crime in Melbourne, in Clare O’Neil’s electorate.
Clare O’Neil is Australia’s Minister for Cyber Security & Home Affairs (no less). She has been the MP for my electorate since 2013.
O’Neil ignored my pleas in 2015, when I realised that Victoria Police refuse evidence for crimes against me by a stalker ex-coworker whom I never even dated, let alone trying to stop the stalker.
I have owned my home in a million $ home suburb since 2001. I haven’t been safe on my own in my home since 2009.
Last violation of my human rights inside my own home at about 3:40am today, 22 June 2024.
My last forced warcrime experience in my own home on the 20th of June, 2024.
Last home break-in leaving me unmissable, sick psycho signs on the 12th of May 2024.
I lost my ability to earn a salary to the stalker’s crimes in 2017: no one can call me or email me/I cannot call or email anyone reliably, the stalker & his accomplices who joined in for the free fun to be had have been stealing my physical mail also, since 2009. All unpunished, none of the 1000s of crimes against me since 2009 show up in any statistics.
I exhausted all legal avenues to stop the stalker’s crimes by the end of 2018.
In 2019 while Victoria Police forced me to fight at court in an admitted silencing attempt, they showed off their uniforms participating in the stalker’s crimes. I won. Prosecutors bluff. Crimes increased in their impact, frequency, number of participants.
There is no authority in Australia to which it would be safe, let alone effective to try to report what I am forced to endure with no end in sight.
* https: // www .police.vic.gov.au/
The Met police are full of degenerate sex offenders just like this doctor. That is why they are defending him and going after MF.
Half of them are Wayne Couzens, painting their rainbow flags on their panda cars while they share child porn on their WhatsApp groups.
I notice that the Met is giving quotes to newspapers about this along the lines of “we are undertaking investigations”. What investigations are there to carry out?
Maya tweeted and wrote a blog. Someone complained. The Met interviewed her on suspicion of a malicious communications offence. She said, yep, that was me not someone else using my account, I meant what I said and I stand by it.
So y’know. Either what she said was an offence she admits to, or it wasn’t an offence. Send it to CPS for a charging decision and that’s that. There’s nothing to investigate.
(And if it was an offence and she’s convicted, then we can all get to campaigning for the repeal of such an illiberal law, along with repealing the GRA and ridding Big Gender from all other laws).
The process is the punishment.
It’s easier for the police to go after thought criminals rather than real criminals.
It is spectacularly ridiculous how UnHerd is protecting it’s Herd from thought of which it does not approve. This is a placeholder post for what they will not permit to appear.
UnHerd, your “moderation” policies are despicable, especially about a post complaining about a lack of free speech!
Well, they’ve left up your directly and openly defamatory post about me. But yet you moan about your “rights”.
I’ve said of you what is provably true. Get a soft helmet.
I see now what the ridiculous, self-damning place is this bigoted idiot Forstater is coming from.
Picture an African-American doctor or nurse in 1950’s America. She can pass for white, and is frequently taken to be so. Because she can do a better job of examining her patients if they let her examine them fully and she is not an uncaring psychopath, she is happy not to disabuse them of the idea she is white, when one of those patients is a bigot and takes the doctor to be white. She may express her satisfaction at that in a moment and place she feels is safe to do so.
A Kluxxer bigot discovers that expression and gets the doctor or nurse lynched with the lies and aspersions the bigot claims are justified, because of course everyone has a right to know who is and is not a negro! (Not that they’d use that word.)
I actually have a trace of pity welling up in me at how desperately, cluelessly, stupidly evil this Forstater creature is.
The Met are delaying making a decision because they know they’re in the wrong, and they’re hoping to avoid media attention by delaying as long as possible. It’s clearly not going to work.
Requiring women to attend for police interview for perfectly legal actions is happening more often than you might think, and to ordinary private citizens as well. One elderly lady was arrested for taking a photo of a feminist sticker!
Unbelievable
Pity some woman doesn’t file charges against the male sexual predator.
Forstater gives no evidence of predation by any male, sexual or otherwise.
“…the Met maintains a policy of allowing some male officers who identify as female to search women and girls..” It is obvious to anybody who has not lost their grip on reality that this is a perverts’ charter.
It is obvious you are brainless, factless bigot. There is no such thing as “male officers who identify as female”, only a few women born with the birth defect of a male sex between the legs.
https://taliaperkinssspace.quora.com/People-are-born-transgender-they-are-not-mentally-ill-it-is-no-paraphilia-it-is-a-physical-birth-defect-no-more-a-men
You will present no facts to the contrary, only your prejudice as it’s own further self justification.
Not just perverted. It’s bullying behaviour.
Perverts is what half of them are.
It’s becoming demoralizing watching officials persist in denying simple reality.
Have the guts to let your HERD see it.
I see now where the ridiculous, self-damning place this bigoted idiot Forstater is coming from. Picture an African-American doctor or nurse in 1950’s America. She can pass for white, and is frequently taken to be so. Because she can do a better job of examining her patients if they let her examine them fully and she is not an uncaring psychopath, she is happy not to disabuse them of the idea she is white, when one of patients is a bigot and takes the doctor to be white. She may express her satisfaction at that in a moment and place she feels is safe to do so.
A Kluxxer bigot discovers this and gets the doctor or nurse lynched with the lies and aspersions the bigot claims are justified, because of course everyone has a right to know who is and is not “black” ! (Not that they’d use that word.)
I actually have a trace of pity welling up in me at how desperately, cluelessly, stupidly evil this Forstater creature is.
You need to get help Sir.
I am no Sir, and you should be able to find a counterargument. It is telling you can not.
It’s probably too late, or would appear so.
She’s not evil. She’s just standing up for the right of the female sex to say ‘no’ to intimate medical examinations by a male without their knowledge. The feelings of patient who is in a vulnerable position should have priority, not the satisfaction the GP feels at passing for a woman. You are basically saying that any woman who objects to being intimately examined by an unknown male is a bigot. And that if they don’t know it’s fine. It isn’t.
“She’s just standing up for the right of the female sex to say ‘no’ to intimate medical examinations by a male without their knowledge.” <- No she is not doing so she is expressing her misplaced misandry.
“You are basically saying that any woman who objects to being intimately examined by an unknown male is a bigot. <– Ultimately, a person so concerned about that deserves to die of the undetected condition. Plainly, in this case the “undetected male” is not male enough to generate any alarms, and, the presumption there should be alarm is only bigotry.
MASH did a good episode about that sort of bigotry, something about transfusions from “black” donors.
The question, “Why is the Met Police…etc.?” deserves an answer, but I’m not sure blaming the police per se is the correct response. The police are acting under orders from those in authority. It is the latter who bear responsibility for the injustices that have arisen. They have been too eager to please the activists who have lobbied them, and not careful enough to prevent ‘equality’ laws being used in an oppressive way. People should not have to live in fear of arrest for stating their opinions, nor for praying in public, nor defending those whom activists want to silence. Surely actual harm to others should be the determining factor of an offence, not having unapproved thoughts, or even saying exaggerated, foolish thoughts about something you dislike. The real villains in these matters are those who have enabled unjust uses of the law, in the hope of being ‘kind’ to possible offence takers. It is our politicians who need to be held to account, and we, the public, need to tell them so.
The problem with the police isn’t that they are too eager to phase please activists, it is that half of them are sex offenders, and they protect their own.
And for some activists it is free speech for me, cancellation for thee. It would be revealing if Unherd writers had to declare any anti free speech actions they had taken in the past.
Thank you Maya for your courage and tireless commitment to the truth. Male supremacists have been working up to this point for a long time where women would be so intimidated that they would give up any hope of protecting themselves in shelters, restrooms, etc or carving out a space for women to prove their mettle in sports or any other sphere. I well remember the rage SOME men exhibited when we set up shelters for women escaping male violence….
Give me a break. This has nothing to do with “male supremacists”, it’s about allowing mentally sick men who pretend they are women fulfill their perverted fantasies and government institutions being to cowardly to stop it. Do you really think a male supremacist would want to identify as a woman?
Paranoid, conspiracy theory nonsense. Our society has perhaps been moving in this direction for some time – but it has absolutely nothing to do with “male supremacy”. Quite the reverse.
Sometimes I am still happy to be an American. You get “called in to” a police station and you just go? Then you actually answer questions about your communications? Wow! That is problem numero uno, that your communications can be labeled malicious is only numero dos.
I’m glad though that the author had the balls to call a man who thinks he is a woman a man and refer to him as a he.
We need to return to the past when a single police officer, on their own, needs to be able to arrest a large violent criminal who can fight with nothing more than a truncheon and handcuffs. If they cannot do this why are they in the Police ?
The police need to the deterrent which prevents violent criminals attacking peaceful people.
I’ve actually seen policewomen deal very effectively with violent drunk men outside pubs – precisely because it doesn’t create the dominance dynamic that appears in such situations between men.
Generally there are policemen on hand too if needed, but I was impressed with the way female officers can diffuse the situation.
Does Dr Kamatuddin “boast” or simply “say”, with the author interpreting it as a boast?
Without taking sides on this one, I really think we need to tone down the rhetoric.
Also, are we going to apply the same standards to lesbians and gay men? After all, if we can’t trust trans people not to take a prurient interest in their patients, why should we trust lesbians and gay men. Should this also be a part of informed consent?
” … if one remembers that women and girls are human beings and not props for men’s ideas about themselves.” The progression of gender ideology to preference the desires of trans-identified males over the needs of females depends on precisely this forgetting.
Maya Forstater: You are a champion. Thank you.
We live in a very, very sick society in which the instruments of the state are turned against the citizens of the state at every level.
The Met Police treatment of Maya Forstater in this instance is appalling from every perspective.