Truly awful TRA guidance from the University of Leicester for the heritage sector

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

https://le.ac.uk/rcmg/research-archive/trans-inclusive-culture

In the context of growing uncertainty and anxiety surrounding trans-inclusive practice in the cultural sector, the University of Leicester’s Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) – working with a team of legal scholars and experts in inclusion, equality and ethics – has developed comprehensive guidance on advancing trans inclusion for museums, galleries, archives and heritage organisations. The guidance is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Endorsed by the Heritage Lottery Fund

x.com/heritagefunduk/status/1699838523376038176?s=46&t=SPorwN-mokktL467rcZ57g

They claim that "trans" is a useful umbrella term for all gender non conforming people.

Click into and read the document, but this is an example of the calibre:

x.com/katarinahill2/status/1699845269179773026?s=46&t=SPorwN-mokktL467rcZ57g

Do...they know that trans people have never been excluded from museums and galleries?

Right. Where exactly is this "growing uncertainty and anxiety" coming from?
They really need to fuck off.

Gut response is increasingly 'oh fuck off'.

What a depressing read.

This is at the v&a Dundee.
I think there is a tiny class of people who curate museums and are obsessed by this.

"Why didn't you do anything with your two archaeology degrees? You liked archaeology! I'm not really sure what feminist archaeology is but you were doing well with all your grades! You could have worked at a museum! Why has your entire career been in a totally unrelated field?"

"Well there's too many white middle class men shouting everyone else down aggressively, they hold all the funding, make all the hiring/firing decisions, are served by very obedient handmaidens in middle-of-the-road jobs who expect everyone to toe the line, and oh look they've now found the motherlode of things to latch onto to drown out everyone else with their self-serving manpotism."

Yes I made up "manpotism". I don't know what the actual word for it is. I am very angry that these people control the narrative of our past and are allowed to do so completely unchallenged and unelected. And I'm especially angry at all the student debt I got into before I knew the truth.

They can give back the bloody Elgin marbles while they're at it.

Patronising tossers.

x.com/katarinahill2/status/1699840639255609767?s=46&t=SPorwN-mokktL467rcZ57g

Good thread summarising the issues

There is a lot of anxiety about but I have not heard about it being centred in this particular group of people.

This is at the v&a Dundee.
I think there is a tiny class of people who curate museums and are obsessed by this.

Definitely. I think V&A Dundee was mentioned in the recent "queer nitcomb" thread.

I have given this sort of thing some thought after the Mary Rose comedy show. It sort of combines other things we notice too, like people going to Uni on shit A Level results. I mean cleverer people know all this shit is just theory. You pick a topic, write about it using Marxist Theory or Feminist Theory, or Critical Race Theory or fucking Queer Theory, and you leave it at Uni when you leave. Except these excuses for students, who think they are super clever cos they got a Desmond, have decided to critiqueify everything! And Feminist Studies became Gender Studies, fuck off! They are too stupid to realise this shit stays in the lecture hall. We do not need it in the real world thank you very much. Just a thought running through my Feminist Theory brain.

I've got a Desmond was just pleased I managed to actually graduate as I came close to not being able to finish my finals. I am of course Super Clever.

I agree with your point that airy fairy academic theoretical concepts are often taken as literal truth by these people.

You are super clever. I bet you have not taken the subject of your dissertation out to the real world? I mean I sort of have, but I realise my dissertation was a load of theoretical bollocks 😏

Mine was a mix of practical and theoretical so I both have and I haven't.

I think that's the issue, they're not being centred enough so it makes them anxious they're not getting all the attention?

Bingo.

V&A Dundee: “queer is a word with a complicated history and many still find it offensive”.

Also V&A Dundee: “it is also an inclusive umbrella term that can also incorporate lots of identities”.

But not inclusive of people who find it offensive, presumably.

And then this absolute corker. “This can be useful in looking back in history when specific gender and sexual identities were not understood or expressed in the way they are today” How does applying a modern term - which V&A acknowledges to be “complicated” and “offensive to many”, and which is so vague that they can’t even specify precisely what it covers - to very different situations and viewpoints in the past in any way help accurate representation and understanding of that past? Utter nonsense.

Going back to the “guidance”, it required some sort of sign up procedure so I couldn’t read it. What does it say.

The list of organisations signed up to it didn’t strike me as particularly impressive and a number of them were non-UK.

And I note the use of “legal scholars”. So do they mean academics rather than people who would represent you in court? Does scholar have some significance or are they just trying to sound fancy?

It actually just says dysphoria on the label.

Going back to the “guidance”, it required some sort of sign up procedure so I couldn’t read it. What does it say.

You don't need to do that, just click "skip".

And I note the use of “legal scholars”. So do they mean academics rather than people who would represent you in court? Does scholar have some significance or are they just trying to sound fancy?

One of them, Sharon Cowan seems to think in other writing that Forstater will be overturned in a higher court.

It actually just says dysphoria on the label.

It's entirely about trans people. They clearly mean "gender dysphoria".

Someone else took my dissertation out into the real world in a way I am quite proud of but am not allowed to talk about in public!