Academics' letter in Guardian

I should actually be thanking you guys. Because this place has provided a sounding board for my thinking and concerns at a time when my university has failed spectacularly to facilitate discussion, choosing instead to institutionalise transgender ideology. Many of the women on here have a more sophisticated and intellectually rigorous feminist analysis than most academics. So thank to all of you, and also to @JustineMumsnet for allowing the kind of discussion that can't seem to happen on university campuses these days.

Thank you. Every time I hear about women being much braver than me it lifts me to be more courageous!! I have spoken to several people in real life this week, and it is because of reading about women who really are risking so much by speaking out. Thank you.

This is really fantastic, feels like the tide is really starting to turn. Thank you to all the academics who put their name to this

Thank you GC

One of my old lecturers is on that list, I am so bloody proud of her!

I agree, the more people speak out the more others are enabled.

Amazing work GC

Well done GC and your wider colleagues.

Brilliant!

Been picked up by an Indian satirical magazine.

Well done GC. Glad to hear you have institutional support. I do think that you are right about most students being able to see through this.

GC well done. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see that letter. And my favourite tutor is on it, too. That makes me very happy.

Many of our universities have close links with trans advocacy organisations who provide “training” of academics and management, and who, it is reasonable to suppose, influence university policy through these links.

This bit. This is what Stonewall is now for. This is its purpose. Nothing to do with representing the vast majority of its constituency. This is the shambles of vast swathes of our third sector. Bullshit jobs. Our third sector has become completely blind to its service users and the demographics it is supposed to represent.

I am really glad to see this letter because I have come to a point at which I despaired of the academy. I hope it's the beginning of a real and sustained fight back.

GC - thank you for signing.

Thank you GC.

GCAcademic, is there a way to join this network? I am just about ready to come out at work as gender critical, I think.

Well done and thank you. Academia needs to fight for the right to think critically.

The point is we are many. There seems to be a cascade effect where one person speaking up encourages five more, and each of these encourages five more. Like some sort of chain letter, giving voice to the silenced. Based on my DC I think you are right about students. Many are mainly worried about loans, debts and uncertain job prospects. They find SU politics irrelevant, and are genuinely unhappy about some aspects of self ID, like the impact on female Muslim students if women’s spaces are not respected, but don’t have the vocabulary nor experience to challenge it. Fantastic that academics are taking a lead.

Thank you GC and well done. I understand the fear and the relief.

Thank you so very much GC. I so appreciate you and everyone else who signed that letter.

Well done to you GCAAcademic.

I am a junior academic - mature student so not young just junior, and I am looking to more senior people to speak out. I am coauthor on a project with people from one of the named universities, but I looked in vain for my mentor on your list.

Thanks GC. You are a star.

Well done GC. You're in good - illustrious - company, and should be proud. Thank you.

Thank you GC.

I am immensely grateful to you and the other signatories.

Thank you for signing x
The secrecy with which GC women have to find each other is just absurd. It's like the Resistance.

God well done GC. You are doing something great for women. And for freedom of speech and thought.

Have name changed for this. Am one of the signatories and this is the first time I’ve gone public. I’ve been on FWR for a long time talking to all of you. I started a thread many months ago about feeling alienated and unable to speak up at work. Through that, I was contacted by a member of this new academic network. I wasn’t ready to speak out back then, but biting my tongue has been more and more difficult in recent weeks.

One of the things that prompted me to raise my head above the parapet was the recent realisation that an awful lot of students don’t believe TWAW, and that many of them are quite angry about this ideology but don’t feel able to speak out. But the main thing has been the bravery of women like Kathleen Stock, Rosa Freedman and Selina Todd. They are more senior than me, and I hope they realise what strong role models they are for more junior female academics. They have been horribly targeted by some students and colleagues.

I am fully expecting some crap at work, but my head of department is supportive, and I actually feel relieved to have spoken out. I only wish I had managed to find my voice earlier.