The Times - smear campaign by trans lecturer at Goldsmiths

mentioned previously in thread,
this is the statement that The Depford People Project made prior to The House of Commons 'We Need to Talk' meeting:

www.facebook.com/lubelluledotcom/posts/10156110925077980
(extract)
"Statement from Working class community workers from Deptford.
We are attending the women’s meeting at the House of Commons today. We would like to offer an explanation as to why this is necessary.

After many years of working at grass roots within our community we have recently been made aware of an issue that directly effects the working class and women in our area. The changes to the Gender Recognition Act will allow birth certificate changes without transition. We are an LGBTQ supporting group and we have concerns about how these changes will impact women only safe spaces.
We have never and will never support hate...

The majority of our recent projects have been working with rough sleepers, the homeless and those that have been excluded from society. The issues they face include: unsupported/ mental health illness, sexual violence and prostitution, childhood trauma and abuse, domestic violence, poverty, ex care system issues, addiction, prison, rehab, homelessness and austerity.
The people in our community that we represent are the most likely to access/ be placed in sex segregated services. Some have and will access all sex segregated services mentioned.

Our local political and community organisations have been infiltrated by a group of well meaning white middle class Goldsmiths (uni) students. These people although well intentioned have rail roaded many vital projects by introducing identity policies and intersectional thinking without truly understanding or experiencing working class issues.

Meetings we have attended for the purpose of discussing community housing projects and women’s wellness etc have been used as a platform to re educate working class people on the new academic language expected within our organisations.
As anyone from a working class back ground will tell you, these theories and ideologies rarely translate into working class communities.

The extremely small number of transsexual (I use the old term as this has a very different meaning to the university umbrella term currently thrown about) member of the community are and have always been accepted and protected.
However we have now been informed that transgender people are being routinely abused (mis gendered) and should be protected above all other marginalised groups. We can see that all that has actually changed is privileged mainly white students have adopted a set of gender identities that allow them to be considered marginalised. The people we encountered were far from marginalised. In fact they were highly educated, openly classist and aggressive.

This new politics doesn’t equate in our community or for the people we support. We are dealing with working class issues with severely marginalised people and the trans lobby is a gentrification of working class social and political movements. Note the difference between trans lobby and trans people.

No one will discuss our concerns regarding self identification. Our local Labour Party has refused to comment or debate with the working class community. We are attending the meeting this evening as this is only place that is willing to discuss theses issues.
When we are being verbally abused and called fascists and phobic because we are concerned about the effects of policy change on marginalised people it is a direct attack on working class women and grass roots organisations.

So please when you share information about this eventand attempt to shut it down be aware that you are complicit in the silencing of not only women but working class people who have not afforded the privileged of a safe space or university education."

RE Goldsmiths,

June 2018 thread describing treatment of Jenni Harvey at the bookfair:
OP GeordieTerf wrote:
"
medium.com/@GappyTales/radical-feminism-banned-from-radical-bookfair-331f619ae0ce

I hope it's okay to post this here. I'm not sure if Harvey is on here or not?

Basically Harvey was asked to leave the book fair event on Sunday after handing out leaflets on women's rights. They told her she could instead distribute the leaflets outside the hall, which she did for a short while. During that time she was verbally-harassed by a group of people. After which, she was asked to leave!

You could not make this shit up!"

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3269765-Radical-Feminism-Banned-From-Radical-Bookfair

Jenni Harvey describes what happened as part of her WPUK Hastings speech:

I do remember when Natacha Kennedy used to write regularly for the Guardian and post frequently on CIF, but looking at their profile, they don't seem to have done so for about seven years. (For once, given Kennedy's dual identity, "they" seems the appropriate pronoun.)

‘A former primary school teacher’ how many red flags does this never ending bunting have?

Is anyone else unable to access gendertrender? Keep getting a message saying can't establish link to server.

Guardian profile of Natacha Kennedy:

"Natacha Kennedy has been transgender since she was very young. A former primary school teacher living in north London she now conducts research into transgender issues and campaigns for transgender human rights. She posts on Cif as Natacha"

(NB embedded link to cif posts is broken)

www.theguardian.com/profile/natacha-kennedy

OK, following that through, here is a list of staff and students at the IOE currently engaged in research. Neither NK nor MH appear on this list. www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/research/find-a-researcher If this list is up to date, that implies either the Ph.D. is completed (seems unlikely, or MH/NK would be using the title Dr.) or it's been abandoned or suspended.

All very odd, given this is MH's staff page at Goldsmith's: www.gold.ac.uk/educational-studies/staff/hellen/

Sorry to be flippant but I wonder if he got paid twice as a co-author?

You don't get paid to publish in a peer reviewed journal.

Something I saw through following various links here suggested that NK/MH is doing a Ph.D. at the Institute of Education which is now part of UCL. Would any ethical approval be through UCL? I'm no expert on this but surely an academic/student go off and invite children in for interview with no ethical scrutiny at all?

The picture in the transkids graphic is disturbing

Christ that's inappropriate for a children's org. Absolutely zero self awareness and quite chilling.

Oh and the Guardian and BBC barely reporting this is looking glaringly bad now.

Sorry to be flippant but I wonder if he got paid twice as a co-author?

Goldsmiths’ page on research ethics sets out their approvals process for all research by their academics involving human subjects:
www.gold.ac.uk/research/ethics/

I couldn’t see a page where you can read a lay summary of every Goldsmiths’ project which has had the university’s research ethical approval, which many ethics committees provide, but they do provide contact details on the page.

Goldsmiths could be asked to demonstrate the details of any relevant approval and details of how it was arrived at. They’d also have to respond to an FOI asking about any research approvals they gave for the relevant research with children and for how they reached the decision- REC meetings are always minuted.

Goldsmiths define children as a vulnerable group of research subjects (which is normal and is the correct definition in research terms so that is good):

Goldsmiths are also a signatory to the Universities UK Concordat to Support Research Integrity. Again, that is a good sign.

See my UK Research integrity office (UKRIO) post above in relation to guidance on authorship: the Goldsmiths page says:

Applicants should, in the first instance, consider the UKRIO Code of Good Practice that we have adopted as our institutional code of practice.

That UKRIO Code of Practice would not appear to be adhered to by co-authoring a paper with yourself -so if this is what has happened- then that would be definitely something for Goldsmiths to think about.

Finally I don’t know who the funder of the relevant research was, but funders often will have their own requirements about ethical research review.

Eg (i don’t know if this is the relevant funder in this case)- but just as an example, a substantial funder of social research is the ESRC, who in their guidance says:

The ethics principles set out in this framework provide the basis for reviewing research proposals. These principles should be considered in relation to the nature of the research outlined, the context in which it is undertaken and the accepted norms and standards set by professional societies, disciplinary bodies and research organisations (ROs). Researchers, ROs and research ethics committees (RECs) must ensure all proposals that have been recommended for funding by the ESRC are appropriately reviewed before the actual research commences.

esrc.ukri.org/funding/guidance-for-applicants/research-ethics/criteria-for-research-ethics-committee-review/

Another godo one from the Sunday Times today

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/why-was-convicted-paedophile-allowed-to-move-to-a-female-jail-nmpbfm272

It starts as follows and is very well written. Well done to The Sunday Times.

"Like most other women’s jails, HMP New Hall, near Wakefield, reflects the fact that women behave better towards each other than men. There are no Victorian wings with rows of cells. Instead the prisoners, even the high-security ones, mix freely together in what inspectors called a “fundamentally safe and respectful” place, with “very few” locked up during the core prison day.

Showers and some “rooms,” as New Hall calls cells, are also shared. There are even children: a mother-and-baby unit accommodates up to 10 infants aged under two.

Into this safe and respectful environment was placed a convicted paedophile who was on remand for multiple rapes, with a long record of other sexual and violent offences committed, as a man, against women.

Yet Karen White, formerly known as Stephen Wood, then as David Thompson, told the authorities she now identified as a transgender woman and wanted to be sent to a women’s prison. Remarkably, even though her full offending record was available to them, her male body was fully intact and she had undergone no physical transition or legal change of gender, they agreed.

Within days of arrival at New Hall, White sexually attacked female inmates, committing four such assaults before being moved to a men’s jail. The whole saga finally became public last week, when White pleaded guilty to the last of the rape charges.

Today a friend of one of Wood’s rape victims tells The Sunday Times she is “furious and absolutely flabbergasted” at the failures of the Prison Service."

partystress
The NSPCC proposed live talk still exists and, I believe at some point, will have to be considered.

It would be worthwhile asking a question there about the degree to which Mark Hellen and Paris Lees shaped NSPCC policy given your post above and this current thread.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_facebook_live/3343961-Facebook-Live-about-talking-to-kids-about-staying-safe-from-abuse-with-NSPCC

From the Gendertrender article. Mark Hellen / Natacha Kennedy establishes their credentials for the recruitment of young people to interview including:
Guardian
Well known to Trans Media Watch.
Friends with Christine Burns & Stephen Whittle (both key members of Press For Change) & Paris Lees

2013 article in Guardian discusses formation of Press for Change, also interviews Whittle, Burns and Lees (as well as Sarah Brown (LibDem prominant TRA, Stonewall Trans Advisory group)

(extracts)
"Much of their campaigning remained on the quiet. The passage of the 2004 law to give trans people legal status was "remarkable," says Burns, because "the government was able to pass an entire act in parliament without anyone throwing a fit in the press" (continues)

"In 25 years, [James] Barrett has seen trans people become "a networked bunch" – more so than other people, he thinks – thanks to the internet. Lees, who also works for Trans Media Action, says social media is the "essential catalyst" for the transformation of trans people in society. "Society is in transition and we've woken up from the operation and there's no going back. We can't pretend that trans people don't exist any more," she says. "People have been taking the piss out of trans people for 60 years. The narrative on trans issues has been controlled by people who have no understanding of them. Social media is about us grabbing the narrative back and telling our own stories – this is our reality, this is what we go through and this is what matters to us. We're here, we're in your face, we definitely exist. That's the most important thing – realising we exist." (continues)

www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/22/voices-from-trans-community-prejudice

The story is also in the Daily Mail. How strange- no Guardian or Observer report this weekend?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6145781/University-researcher-asked-Facebook-group-circulate-list-academics-disagreed-her.html

The Mail notes ‘The University also did not clarify why one academic paper appeared to cite Mark Hellen and Natacha Kennedy as co-authors on a paper, when they appeared to be the same person’.

The UK Research integrity office - which is applicable to all research- provide guidance:

ukrio.org/publications/code-of-practice-for-research/3-0-standards-for-organisations-and-researchers/3-15-publication-and-authorship/
3.15 Publication and authorship

3.15.5 Authorship should be restricted to those contributors and collaborators who have made a significant intellectual or practical contribution to the work. No person who fulfils the criteria for authorship should be excluded from the submitted work. Authorship should not be allocated to honorary or “guest” authors (i.e. those that do not fulfil criteria of authorship).
Researchers should be aware that anyone listed as an author of any work should be prepared to take public responsibility for that work and ensure its accuracy, and be able to identify their contribution to it.

So even if some wanted to thank or acknowledge themselves for their contribution under another name, It should not be done as an author:

3.15.6 Researchers should list the work of all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship in an acknowledgements section. All funders and sponsors of research should be clearly acknowledged and any competing interests listed.

Here’s the recommendation on the same page relevant if researchers that are facing harassment from publishing their own gender critical work freely- their organisation need to step up, essentially:

’3.15.11 Researchers who are discouraged from publishing and disseminating their research or its findings, or subjected to attempts to influence the presentation or interpretation of findings inappropriately, should discuss this with the appropriate person(s) in their organisation so that the matter can be resolved.’

Apart from anything else, this person has two identities and two jobs at Goldsmiths. Hopefully not two salaries on the public purse...

Indeed IamLurkacus. And yet it was the questions we were posing that was the problem according to a lot of people. I have had such an education in the last few months. I have gone from being alerted to the impact of self-id, to realising I am 'GC', to worrying about 'transkids' and just not being able to work out who benefits. I thought maybe Big Pharma. In the last couple of weeks I have winced a bit as the Aimee story has been linked to the GRA campaign and thought it was an unfair conflation. But actually, looking at the 2010 NK/MH article, the Meg-John BACP guidelines, the Children in Need funding and all those bodies that have adopted policies informed by Mermaids and the like, and the City of London consultation and the fact the 5 years ago the NSPCC was being, yes, I do now think groomed, I do start to feel a bit sick.

That is quite a smoking gun, partystress.

Fuck! That does explain how badly groomed NSPCC is though and their piss poor behaviour on that shitshow of a thread.

Feel so stupid that this has been going on so long and I was completely unaware.

The regulator of research on human subjects, the health Research Authority offers a handy guide to telling if a project is research or not.
Then it sets out what approvals are needed.
www.hra.nhs.uk/approvals-amendments/what-approvals-do-i-need/

@Datun any research involving human participants should go through university ethics procedures. I wonder whether it did though?

The picture in the transkids graphic is disturbing.

Isn’t it just!

I daresay we’re all thinking the same things about this person, tbh.