Times article - Professors bullied into silence as students cry transphobia

Goldsmiths just epitomises the huge hypocrisy of this whole movements. It is supposedly one of the most woke universities around and regularly decries any form of ‘hate’. Its academics are apparently progressive and working at the cutting edge of social justice. Yet, the university has an enormous problem with sexual harassment of women, including by male staff members. It’s endemic there.

Goldsmiths don't seem to have a problem inviting an antisemitist to speak. So I've suggested he be reported for transphobia. They'll deplatform him faster than you can Miss Gender!

Luckily, my university has a policy against no-platforming. Which means that the students have invited some awful racists to speak. But it does protect us all in terms of freedom of speech - although they're also very vigilant about hate speech.

For some reason - I wonder why? - the laws on hate speech don't cover women - the only category protected under the 2010 Equalities Act omitted from the legislation about hate speech. I wonder why ...

The biggest problem is that our union actively supports the harassment of academics it deems guilty of ‘wrongthink’. The union voted against any sort of protection of academics who hold gender critical views. It’s disgusting.

Perhaps part of the problem here is that universities may have rather weak codes of conduct for students, especially in terms of professional relations with teachers? Plus a very clear statement should be made by each university about its policy on free speech etc.

EHRC released this earlier this year:

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/our-work/news/free-speech-be-protected-university

It’s actually been a relief to speak about it. And I’ve had some very kind responses from colleagues and friends. I guess those who disagree are just keeping quiet.

But I know that there are many many more women academics being targeted or bullied.

Another academic in hiding. I am utterly frustrated by not being able to speak, but am working behind the scenes as much as I can. I am waiting impatiently for the day when I can stand up and be counted. So I applaud the academics who are brave enough to be visible. Thank you. 👏

I haven’t read the article yet so that was just responding to Louise and Mouthy on here- but I am super grateful to all academics who speak out publicly.
It is very scary the atmosphere that is being generated with a self evident view to undermining women academics’ freedom of association, thought, teaching, publication, grant applications, all of it.

Thanks for speaking out and sorry that you’ve had to deal with this vexatious shite.

Mmm, and I can see why you posted it and what you're saying. But I think it's an area that requires a lot of careful analysis and sensitivity (not least because it could get GC people accused of ableism).

Anything but autist bashing, I live with family members who struggle with these things daily which is why I recognise them. I hesitated to write that post, but being too polite to mention the patterns I see doesn't help to try and unpick further why this is happening and what would change it.

I am really glad I am not a student nowadays.

YesYesYes.

We never felt safe off the campus. Try not to wear your scarf like that over your shoulder or you'll get Uni-bashed.

In lectures meanwhile, no end of leather-jacketted Trot tutors urging us to read the Conservative historians they so admired. We were expected to know all sides of the argument, with an ability to critique them all and justify our arguments with facts and sources.

Do they do that now?

@Michelleoftheresistance, I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable about your chalking so much of the bad behaviour of TRAs up to hypothesised autistic traits. A lot of the traits you mention don't necessarily express in adults in such a clean easy way that you can tidily ascribe common behaviours of a movement to autism in its members, and the vast majority of the behaviours you mention are perfectly adequately displayed by non-autistic people every day. And there are many autistics on the GC side too, who you don't tend to see acting that way.

I do think that autism and similar disorders and difficulties are interesting and relevant issues to discuss WRT several aspects of trans ideology and activism, but I feel it's important to be careful and try not to let it turn into typical autist-bashing.

This whole thing disgusts me. I am really glad I am not a student nowadays. I was gratified to see some names I know from my own subject in the comments; all rational and many GC. Thanks for the share token, OP.

I Also think I have heard Lang saying that this nonsense about feeling unsafe on a campus at a university is very classist. Not sure if classist is the correct word

Ordinary women working in jobs really sometimes have to worry about their safety and their maternity right and pay gap and it’s a real thing not some made up shite by a privileged person

It’s like identity politics just made up stuff yet it seems they can use i5 to bully women and people who they don’t agree with

Bullies and idiots that seem to take greAt delight in being bullies

Thank you for speaking out but fuck knows how we have got to the stage where this has to happen

I am on twitter a fair bit (always very polite) and never heard of/interacted with Eleanor Janega. So I looked them up and I am blocked. How deeply unimpressive of them to make sweeping assumptions of bad faith about people based on their lawful opinions regarding gender identity theory. And how contrary to the spirit of academic freedom and enquiry

Well done @MouthyHarpy and Louise you guys are truly brave and appreciated for being prepared to put yourselves on the line.

You and others on the FWR board have been inspirations to me. I've been able to challenge (timidly, but with growing confidence) organisational policy where I work and other places because of your example.

Shout out to Fair Play for Women and Woman's Place too. You have made a difference and continue to do so... dances off singing 'Sister Suffragette' from Mary Poppins

"So, cast off the shackles of yesterday!
Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!
Our daughters' daughters will adore us
And they'll sign in grateful chorus
"Well done! Well done!
Well done Sister Suffragette!"

I think what happens is (or rather what happened in my case) was that my expression of ideas, theories, questions about things such as - the foundational definition of what it is to be a woman - were [mis]understood as attacks on individuals.

I think a lot of people find it difficult NOT to do this. You see it in discussions here all the time, someone says something about stay at home moms or something and then all of a sudden six people are upset because somehow it supposedly reflects on them as working moms or homemakers and start arguing as if you somehow deliberately attacking individual women, or attacking them personally. "So you think I am supposed to...."

It's annoying enough on a message board but you'd think academics would have been trained out of that well before they managed to get hired.

No, I don’t think she is. Just an ‘ally’.

Is dr. Janega trans themselves?

Good work, Alessandra. The thing is that despite their analogies of white supremacism, it is the pro-trans movement that is incredibly white and western-centric. In less prosperous countries, the notion of identifying out of oppression is not even capable of being entertained. These countries also demonstrate the huge inequality between the sexes that still persists- child marriage, lack of access to menstrual products, FGM, female infanticide. To claim that it has nothing to do with the female sexed body is plainly ludicrous. But queer theory is firmly centred on cultures where this sort of navel-gazing can be indulged because we now live in a society where women have equal access to education for instance. This gives us the ability to pretend that it has always been this way and that being born female is neither here nor there.

I think what happens is (or rather what happened in my case) was that my expression of ideas, theories, questions about things such as - the foundational definition of what it is to be a woman - were [mis]understood as attacks on individuals. Or rather, the complainant argued that
because I expressed ideas, opinions, questions about transactivism and the extremists of that movement,

therefore

I would necessarily treat individual students in a discriminatory way.

The complainant had no complaint about my actual treatment of actual students. They couldn't have because I'd never taught them. I would not recognise the complainant if I fell over them.

They'd done a very fuzzy, invalid sort of reasoning.

"She doesn't agree with theoretical statements by transactivists, therefore a) she's erasing me and b) she hates me."

If any of you saw Jonny Best's scan of his complaint on Twitter, you'll see the same [il]logic.

Exactly, theCountess. Women's rights and the definition of woman are especially important for women in developing world. I was happy to peak trans one of my students, who said something about the High Commissioner for Human Rights not doing the right thing because he did not provide bathrooms for women in the refugee camps for the Rohingya. When I asked her why that would be a problem, as sex segregated bathrooms are a bad thing, you could literally see the penny drop for her.

TheCountess I was going to say the same thing! I wondered if I was reading too much into it but it’s interesting that you thought the same. It’s definitely a pattern I have noticed.

Also bear in mind that the woman who has been told to get fucked is black, while the woman who said it bangs on self righteously about white feminism.