Northumbria University - Sarah Phillimore and Harry Miller 'seen as a 'safety and wellbeing' risk to an entire university.'

<Stands up and applauds>

Hi @Spero ! So pleased to see that Northumbria Uni saw sense, apologised and says it "will take steps to ensure that this error does not occur again".

You have definitely earned these credentials! 😎

mobile.twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1534481109274312710

I went looking on the Fair Cop website for the "Fair Cop and The Women's Rights Network review of the reports by the ICSR and Craig McLean" mentioned by TheBiologyStupid and I could not find any mention of it anywhere.

I did find it eventually, linked from this page on the WRN site:

"The Defence Of Women’s Rights Is Not Terrorism"

The report, Transphobia As A Security Concern - The Dangers of Conflating Political Speech with Violent Insurrection, is produced by a collaboration between Fair Cop and The Women’s Rights Network.

www.womensrights.network/truth-is-not-terrorism

(The report itself is hosted on the Fair Cop website.
www.faircop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Transphobia-As-A-Security-Concern.pdf
I am sure that there must be a post about it and link to it somewhere on there but I couldn't find it.)

I agree with TheBiologyStupid that it is excellent.

There is also a handy form on the WRN page to email a copy to MPs which I had not spotted before.

👏 👏 👏

Soyou think universities should only invite speakers with views of which you approve?

I'd say that's the long and short of it Cailinn66, a process more akin to indoctrination than free thinking but not a surprise.

Soyou think universities should only invite speakers with views of which you approve?

Could people be influenced into believe they were trans, the opposite sex, by expression of views? Could they be influenced into badgering their parents for puberty blockers, breast binders, hormones?

Do you think universities should stifle debate? Do you not believe in freedom of expression?

Thank you. I don't see why this needs to be such a difficult issue.

I agree there are necessary limits to freedom of speech - I think they are clear.
No one has a right to incite violence, target an individual for harassment or defame them.
I accept that as I am subject to professional regulation, I must accept further fetters on my right to speak - I cannot be 'seriously' offensive, which I interpret to mean I cannot use abusive or profane language, make sexual or racial slurs etc. I don't do any of that.

Everything else I can say, and must be allowed to say. If people 'don't like it' or are offended by it, then that is their own emotional reaction, which they must consider and manage. It's not my business.

Rather more worrying than whether or not I support a hashtag that some people didn't like is how self identifying academics such as Craig/Anna McLean can publish such obvious drivel with no - as far as I can see - any push back whatsoever from academic colleagues. Neither McLean or the authors of the other report I criticised in the Fair Cop/WRN document had the courtesy to even acknowledge my email asking for clarification, let alone provide a substantive answer.

Those whose analysis of my contribution begins and ends with 'but I find her offensive!' might wish to ponder that awhile.

Thank you Spero for standing up and being counted.

Absolutely!

It's like all the flowers are hidden by bindweed and everyone thinks 'pretty' without realising it is strangling all the actual plants.

Thank you Spero for standing up and being counted.

The argument is "I don't like it". That is considered by some to be sufficient.

I was actually surprised you got such a quick response - I must admit I'd half expected a GCC sort of response of "we're investigating but we have always stood for the rights of everyone under the trans umbrella" kind of thing.

Perhaps people are beginning to understand the Steisand effect a bit more clearly.

The various "Love Music/Football, Hate Racism" campaigns have similarly been promoting hate, so it can't just be the word hate or the concept of it being a valid emotion that is key here.

I haven't looked into the hashtag as it is entirely irrelevant to whether it's lawful to redirect emails.

Thanks spero. I wondered if you were going to drop by as we haven’t seen you for a while.

I see I am able to post from my lap top so I will just make the following comments .

I am allowed to say yes to hate on any day of the year I wish. This is because it is political speech; it is part of Fair Cop's campaign to point out the absurdity of attempting to criminalise a universal human emotion on the basis of self perception. This is clearly open to abuse as Harry Miller's case made clear. The current Hate Crimes Guidance allows for no objective test or method of dealing with irrational and malicious complaints.

The University have accepted what they did to my emails was unlawful and they have apologised. If any public institution does anything similar to me again, I will not be forgiving and they will face legal action.

If you don't like what I say, either offer me arguments as to why I shouldn't say it, or ignore me. Attempts to silence me are unlawful. I hope the message is getting across.

Thanks for an interesting thread. I tried to post yesterday, but I couldn't from my phone.

@TheBiologyStupid I have given myself a comprehensive telling off for failing to provide a trigger warning and giving those of a delicate nature time to access their safe space.😁

Also just testing the MN Notification system - do the special hand signal if you receive one!

Yikes, VestofAbsurdity - where was the trigger warning before your (excellent) comment?! Still no reply from @suggestionsplease1, I see. The MN notification system must REALLY be glitching.

Quite. When I was in Sixth Form many years ago speakers were invited to speak on all manner of topics, most of which would cause suggestionsplease1 to combust, the point of the exercise was:

1. To listen to what the speaker said
2. To think about what the speaker said
3. To question what the speaker said
4. To make our own minds up on what the speaker said

Anybody who thinks ideas and beliefs make people "unsafe" has no business working at a university.

and neither does any student have any business attending university with that attitude.

I'd love to know the analogous case for race - which race(s) are the ones who are at risk from pregnancy if they have unprotected sex and which aren't? Which races commit 98% of sexual assaults?

It's an incredibly poor analogy because it doesn't address any of the actual issues around biological sex being redefined.

Anybody who thinks ideas and beliefs make people "unsafe" has no business working at a university.

Especially when the belief in question is essentially that humans can't change sex.

FFS.

So say in my previous example of the individual who believed they had research and statistics for increased inherent criminality of a particular ethnicity and had proposals that they wanted to share for safeguarding the rest of the population, would you be happy to ask them to speak at your university?

(Quote from Suggestionsplease BTW). Not my area but it's my understanding that plenty of research does show this and then, when you take more than a superficial look at the data, it emerges that this is an issue of poverty, the way laws and crimes are defined and a structurally racist society.

I say again, we are universities and this is what we do. We discuss ideas and evidence and challenge it. Research improves as a result. Snapshots of society get more accurate. Ideas get hammered out and developed or discarded. THIS is why TRAs don't like discussion and don't like intelligent people getting together and talking this evidence and these ideas through in respectful and professional ways. It is because their argument can only be sustained by bullying and de-platforming. That isn't what universities are for.

Yes I would be happy for a university to invite this speaker. I would expect the Q&A session to be full of robust questioning of their data and methodology. How else do you effectively counter claims that "research and statistics" prove stuff?

suggestionsplease; I'm not sure if you're old enough to remember the BNP. Their leader, Nick Griffin, cleverly played the "the establishment are trying to ban me, but I'm just saying what ordinary people think about race" line. He was invited onto Question Time to answer questions like any other politician; controversially as some thought it was giving him a free platform for potentially divisive views. As it turned out, he was thoroughly exposed as a total political lightweight. Exposed through legitimate questioning in a calm neutral environment. The BNP lost all its momentum and is now just a footnote in modern British history.

@TheBiologyStupid I take my hat off to your patience and clarity.

@TheBiologyStupid …… silence is golden, and it reflects the sunlight so well!

Let's break this down into easy chunks, @suggestionsplease1. Please answer YES, NO, or DON'T KNOW:

1) Did Northumbria University apologise for restricting and diverting Sarah Phillimore's email correspondence?

2) Are prostitutes more susceptible to rape, sexual assault, and other forms of physical violence?

3) Are transgender individuals in the US disproportionately represented in the sex trade?

4) Has any transgender person been murdered in the UK in the past two years?

5) Can you name any trans rights event that gender critical feminists have attempted to disrupt in the UK?I

6) Can you name any gender critical feminist who has ever been found guilty of assaulting a transgender person at an event?

I meant to add that the social, demographic, and legal factors behind US transgender participation in prostitution have already been alluded to above. The US is NOT the UK - there are numerous reasons, pointed out ad nauseam, why the US data is inapplicable.