Gender critical belief is a protected belief allowing pronoun refusal
Andrew Gold said:
“Either way, would go with he, because to me, that's my belief. And it's a belief, isn't it? Gender critical beliefs.”
Gender critical belief was ruled a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010 in the Forstater employment tribunal, and that ruling is widely known. The inference that this protection extends to misgendering people in practice sounds like a logical consequence of the legal finding.
The Forstater judgment did two things, and most people only hear about one of them. Yes, it ruled that gender critical belief qualifies for protection under the Equality Act 2010 as a philosophical belief. But the judge was equally explicit that this protection is not a licence to misgender trans people: the judgment states directly that acting on that belief in ways that violate someone's dignity can still constitute harassment under the same Act. Holding a view is protected; using it to demean a colleague or a stranger is not automatically shielded by that protection. Trans people in workplaces are the ones who pay when that distinction gets lost, because they are left facing deliberate misgendering from people who have convinced themselves the law is on their side.
What I said at the time:
“That's what my fault starter helps to to define. That's a protected belief in Well, work if we could if could if we pulled that up now, you'd see the judge at the bottom of that may have fault starter case saying, excuse me, this is not a license for you to go out and misgender people. And that is in that in that judgment. So no, that case did not for 1 minute say that it was okay to use the wrong pronouns for somebody.”
Trans people in workplaces and public life, who may face deliberate misgendering from people who incorrectly believe the law shields that behaviour.