University lecturer accused of being transphobic for saying only women menstuate

When I was a humanities major there was always a group of students who thought being told what to read was not really valid, who thought they should be able to decide what was important based on how it seemed to fit in with their views on various issues. That sort of thing seems to have become much worse, and it also seems to now be applied to many disciplines.

A while back I got an email about a new reading group that has been set up by a student, who proceeded to give a bit of background about herself. It said that she had come to university to explore her identity. It was a horrifying lightbulb moment for me and explained so much about what I recognised in many (though not all, by any means) students. The narcissism, the inability to look at literature and the past through anything other than one’s own experience, the inability to empathise, the priority placed on one’s feelings rather than critical thinking. And the (frankly quite unjustifiable) privilege of having three years at university, not to make a contribution to society or a community or to expand one’s knowledge of the world or develop skills, but to naval gaze and centre the entire academic experience on oneself. It explains why some students can not accommodate any view, however factual, that lies outside their own belief system.

Wouldn't it be great if, instead of having to refer to people who menstruate, people with vaginas, people with a uterus, pregnant people, etc, there were some convenient term that designated those individuals?

Since perfectly good terms already exist ("woman", "female"), shouldn't people be allowed to use them? Why on earth should they be defined as being simply whichever "gender" someone "feels" like?

In fact shouldn't the terms for self-identified gender be "masculine" and "feminine", while "male"/"man" and "female"/"woman" designate sex?

This fucks me off massively

FWIW I don't think it's just about the consumerist thing. There is an element of needing to appeal to attract students but this was also true when universities were funded by government for their students. It probably does have some effect on how people think about it, but I think there are other factors.

I think some of this rot comes from the postmodern rejection of things like literary canons, and the general worship of the young as being somehow further ahead than older people. When I was a humanities major there was always a group of students who thought being told what to read was not really valid, who thought they should be able to decide what was important based on how it seemed to fit in with their views on various issues. That sort of thing seems to have become much worse, and it also seems to now be applied to many disciplines.

I do think another big factor is that a lot of these kids, especially the ones who seem likely to go on to university, have been pandered to since they were in primary school.

This is terrible news and solidarity to Eva.

I had a phone conversation quite recently where I had to book a series of medical appointments. It was a little complicated, as I said to her I needed to check work calendars, kids' diaries etc - from this she revealed she was a Uni student, working part-time and also had problems spinning too many plates. At the start of the conversation, knowing that my legal name is not the same as my preferred name (something along the lines of Elizabeth, but I've ALWAYS been called Liz (emails at work etc), but my medical history and health insurance policy is under the name of Elizabeth) - she asked me which name I preferred. I said Liz. All fine, for 10 mins we continued to book in the appts, she calling me Liz. But then she asked me if I had a preferred gender for the persons performing the medical diagnostics & treatment. I was quiet for a moment, and then said "Don't you mean sex? As opposed to gender?". Her tone changed completely, and she started calling me 'Elizabeth'.

This was only a few days ago - and it has really irked. Why and how have these kids become so indoctrinated?

• Unsafe is being a girlchild cornered by older boys and sexually assaulted.
• Unsafe is being born a girl in Somalia, with a near-certainty of having her clitoris and labia cut off and the resulting wound stitched up with string or wire, without anaesthesia.
• Unsafe is being a girlchild attending school anywhere that Isis or Boko Haram are active.
• Unsafe is being a female prisoner incarcerated alongside an intact male who claims to feel like a woman.
• Unsafe is being a woman with a life-threatening pregnancy complication in any of the four countries that have total bans on abortion.
• Unsafe is being a woman married to an abusive husband.
• Unsafe is being a woman under attack at Speaker's Corner by a man who wants to steal her camera because she wants to attend a meeting that he does not like.

People disagreeing with you does not make you unsafe. You may feel uncomfortable and even distressed, but you are not unsafe.

What’s this “unsafe” business? What insulting hyperbole

Ooh, Kuponut, that lecture sounds like a potential minefield for offence. I can imagine the lecturer waking up in a cold sweat at 3am on the day, and nerving themselves with black coffee before going through their lecture notes again with a marker pen...

Nah he's announced he's not teaching the rest of the module as he's off out on strike... but it's cold and wet out there so he's striking from home...

And while this is going on, female students are becoming less and less safe on campuses. Sexual assault and rape is rife.

But that is never what is meant by the term “unsafe”. That bloody word is becoming “triggering”. When you hear it now, from the mouths of students, you know they mean to make the world less safe for women, by banning our words.

I don't really know what to say about this shit show. I keep thinking, surely this is the moment of idiocy that brings the whole thing crashing down, but here we are still. Anyway thank you Dr Moody, Eva and Selina if you're reading.

Sorry should have included Eva as well 🤦‍♀️

Louise and selina

Thanks for standing up.

Though why saying only women having periods was the most outrageous and dangerous thing ever ever sai£ in the history of the world

Jeez how do they wee elitist students think they came into being

I wonder what their mums would think of them bullying a woman for saying that

Between this, and the deplatforming of Selina Scott, I feel utterly depressed today. As some of you know, I was ultimately evicted from my discipline due to the PR headache I was creating for York (a situation that was not helped by some so-called GC allies citing their friendship with my HoD as a reason not to be officially supportive). It is a horribly isolating experience and I'm sure Eva will appreciate all messages of support

Hi Dr. Moody, it is lovely to see you here. I can understand why you are feeling depressed and what has happened to you is completely outrageous, yet sadly, as you say, a sign of the increasingly totalitarian times. I hope that the tide is turning as a consequence of more media coverage of the myriad injustices which are happening because of this lobby's relentless witch hunts. That is of scant comfort I know, but surely the current oppressive climate can't last indefinitely? The best of luck Louise with your case and it is great to see you here.

I know Eva and she's considerably more measured than me (!) in dealing with this insanity. We are now witnessing entitled students who think that their nine thousand pounds a year allow them to dictate the views of their lecturers. Eva teaches economics: unless she stands up and announces her reality-based beliefs in the middle of, say, a statistics lecture, then it's no-one else's concern what she thinks. And her account is not usually private - it is now, likely to avoid the gender inquisitors.

Between this, and the deplatforming of Selina Scott, I feel utterly depressed today. As some of you know, I was ultimately evicted from my discipline due to the PR headache I was creating for York (a situation that was not helped by some so-called GC allies citing their friendship with my HoD as a reason not to be officially supportive). It is a horribly isolating experience and I'm sure Eva will appreciate all messages of support ♥️

I was a politics and modern history student in the 80s in a hotbed of Militiant Tendancy. I met Dave Nellist. Nice, sincere guy.

On the fifth floor (politics) we were all polite mainstream left and one token tory who sat on his own. The headbangers were all in Engineering.

Kuponut thirty years ago I was avoiding the student union building and so was pretty much everyone else because it was run by mostly peculiar professional students and zealots who saw themselves as some kind of elite group above other students, mostly had large, dramatic fallings out with each other involving sides, much politics, and as big an audience as could be mustered. There were a few decent ones who genuinely cared about and supported others - mostly the LGB ones - but they avoided the elite group as much as everyone else did for the same reasons. Getting student union meetings to be quorate used to involve practically press ganging and kidnapping people from the bar next door, then blocking the door so they couldn't escape until after a vote.

Doesn't sound like much has changed really.

Ooh, Kuponut, that lecture sounds like a potential minefield for offence. I can imagine the lecturer waking up in a cold sweat at 3am on the day, and nerving themselves with black coffee before going through their lecture notes again with a marker pen...

I'm almost disappointed our lecturer for the module in question is striking at the moment as I kind of wanted to see them cover the "differences between the male and female larynx" in the timetabled lecture this week in a suitably inclusive and non-triggering manner! (It's actually on our lecture outline as such)

I avoid our student union building - tend to find it a threatening environment with my gender-critical tendencies.

Because you just can't have a period without a uterus whatever you identify as, can you? And nobody can make it happen for you. And if you're buying the kit and pretending to have periods, that's a game you're playing and it harms nobody, but medical professionals are not obliged to see you in a gynae clinic and nobody has to go along with your game if they don't feel like humouring you.

It doesn't mean anyone who disagrees wants to beat you up or see you beaten up or won't step in to protect you if anyone starts beating you up.

If it's transphobic to think I know that only females menstruate and go through menopause, I guess that's me and most of the earth's population. The ones who have been taught a bit of biology or sex ed, anyway. 🤷🏼‍♀️

What I truly don't get is, even if that contradicts someone else's magical thinking, how I am making them unsafe. If someone thinks every white feather they find is an angel message just for them, or believes that Father Christmas come down their chimney, and I disagree and say so, I can see they might ignore me or be cross with me, or even feel a bit sad, but I'm unable to see how it makes them unsafe. Unless it's a mental health issue, in which case it's not my help they need.

I’m not on Twitter (because i can’t work out what’s serious and what’s satire). What subject was this lecturer lecturing in?
Cause I’m really confused as to why they are picketing they medical schools because presumably there’s a lot of woman/man vagina/penis talk there, as well as much less specific differences between males and females (hormones and such, I dunno closest friends got to medical school was the bar over the road). I suspect it’s because the students inside the medical school are too bloody busy to have time to disappear into the void. And maybe just maybe that’s what the rest of the young people need. Whatever happened to youth clubs and illegals raves. Internet is making everything too easy.

That response is hilarious. It's interesting, isn't it? Because this ideology is enforced with puritanical zeal. Its heretics are denounced and careers are terminated. The imagery in that response is spot on.

If hearing things you don't like make you feel threatened to the point of suicide, what are you doing in higher education?

Get back to your family plot and pick turnips.

This is such a great response! Because that's all this is to most of the 'allies' and activists - a new religion. It certainly doesn't benefit in any way those distressed by their bodies.

How about a new word to describe the Woke? Acolytes.