An Israeli woman is being taken to court by a trans-identified male who claims she violated his privacy when she made social media posts condemning him for suing a pharmacy after he was “misgendered.” Naama Amit had commented on the case through her social media accounts using publicly available information, and is now facing a lawsuit from the same man.
The incident began on June 12 last year, when Zohar Katan, a man who self-identifies as a woman, filed a civil suit against Super Pharm – an Israeli pharmacy chain. Katan claimed he had been the victim of a “transphobic incident” at the chain’s Haifa branch when an employee addressed him using the masculine form of words in Hebrew. Hebrew has a high degree of grammatical gender, and almost every word is masculine or feminine.
Katan claimed he had been addressed by the masculine form of “you,” indicating that the employee viewed him as a man.
The following week, on June 19, Katan withdrew his legal claim against Super Pharm. In documents seen by Reduxx, the two parties agreed to an out-of-court settlement, the terms of which remain undisclosed. But court records indicate that Katan had sought both financial compensation and for Super Pharm employees to be forced to undergo gender sensitivity training.
As news of the case began to spread, Naama Amit shared publicly-available information about the dispute to her social media accounts on both Facebook and X, where she commented that Zatan “disguised himself as a woman.”
In her social media post, Amit stated: “A lawsuit was filed against Super Pharm because a pharmacist said ‘you’ [masculine form] to someone who disguised himself as a woman. We have officially started… good luck here.”
On June 20, Katan contacted Amit and demanded she remove her posts about the court case as the posts included his name and personal information. Amit the swiftly redacted identifying information, but Katan pursued legal action anyway.
Katan’s suit against Amit is seeking compensation from Amit in the form of ₪36,400 (approx. $9,600 USD). He also alleges harassment and a violation of laws related to privacy protection despite the fact that all of Amit’s comments utilized publicly-available information.
Regarding the claims of harassment, a 1998 Law on the Prevention of Sexual Harassment includes the concept of “gender” within its definition, stating that such offenses include “derogatory or humiliating treatment directed at a person in relation to gender or sexuality.” As a result, Katan is accusing Amit of sexually harassing him by way of misgendering.
“In the current case, we are dealing with sexual harassment … there is no doubt that addressing a transgender person in a manner not in accordance with their gender identity is a form of humiliation that amounts to sexual harassment,” the complaint alleges.
However, during the first court session to hear the case against Amit, which took place today, the court agreed to allow Amit to use masculine pronouns when referring to Katan.
The claim also alleges that Amit’s social media posts about Katan constituted a violation of his privacy despite the fact that Amit simply commented on publicly-available records.
To support this allegation, the suit cites a portion of the Privacy and Protection Law of 1981, which reads, “A person shall not violate the privacy of another without their consent. Section 2 (9) of the law defines invasion of privacy as the use of information about a person’s private affairs … other than the purpose for which it was disclosed.”
As the matter is being addressed in a small claims court, neither Katan nor Amit are being officially represented by legal experts. Instead, Amit is being advised on how to defend herself in court by Michael Foa, Chairman of Choosing a Family, a conservative organization which promotes “discourse on the issue of the family” as it relates to “values in the Israeli tradition.”
Speaking to Reduxx, Foa expressed that he felt the lawsuit was simply another way of silencing people from speaking out against transgender ideology.
“This is probably another silencing lawsuit designed to intimidate the public and make people afraid to say what they think: that a man is a man and a woman is a woman and that cannot be changed,” Foa told Reduxx. “It is the right of every person to feel as they do; a man can feel like a woman, but he cannot impose his subjective feeling on others.”
Additionally, Foa explained that Katan had attempted to have Amit’s statement of defense stricken from the record, but this was denied by the court. The reason: the letter of defense itself was, according to Katan, “offensive, insulting and shameful.”
“We went out of our way to explain … that no one can impose their subjective feelings on others. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. In response, the plaintiff, in wording that appears to have been written by the attorneys’ office, requested that the statement of defense be deleted.”
In her defense statement, Amit had remarked that the litigation against her constituted a “spiteful lawsuit designed to intimidate and silence those who do not align with an extreme opinion that has no basis in reality.”
She also noted that there is “no legal provision that prohibits the publication of a legal document.” She further added the definition of biological sex, as based on human chromosomes, to her statement.
