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

Suggestions - you continually respond to my posts without reading or engaging with them. You say: What I was really asking was why, in the US National Crime Victimisation Survey, where hundreds of thousands of individuals were interviewed across households in the US selected at random, are transgender individuals four times more likely than non-transgender individuals to experience violent victimisation?

As I have repeatedly pointed out, with citations, in the US transgender people disproportionately participate in the enormously risky activities around prostitution. All people who do that, regardless of sex or orientation, are massively at risk of the violent victimisation you keep bringing up.

I'm beginning to doubt that you are engaging in this discussion with the minimal level of good faith required to have a reasonable debate on the issues at hand.

The research points to social factors - discrimination on systemic, institutional, and interpersonal levels, which mean that it can appear to be their only viable option for work. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24313294/

For anyone who was unable to access that paywalled paper, what were the takeaway points for you?

Ok – I see the approach you were taking but I don’t think this is really a viable approach – we are not in a good position to compare stats on transgender victims of crime in the US with transgender victims of crime in the UK because, as we’ve already seen on this thread, the UK does not presently have large scale research studies with robust stats on this issue. This will likely be achieved over the next few years.

Even when this is achieved in the UK direct comparisons with US data will be difficult because of different definitions used – eg of crime, of transgender status, different methodologies etc. But we will be able to get some idea, certainly.

What I was really asking was why, in the US National Crime Victimisation Survey, where hundreds of thousands of individuals were interviewed across households in the US selected at random, are transgender individuals four times more likely than non-transgender individuals to experience violent victimisation?

We can make direct comparisons here between populations because it is the one methodology, all households were treated in the same way, and in fact the research had no initial remit to specifically consider crimes against trans people – it is just the general NCVS, which is administered twice a year by the US Census Bureau, not by researchers who have a special interest in this field.

What do people think are the factors at work that make transgender people so many more times more likely to be victims of crime compared to their non-trans counterparts in the US?

Some posters have suggested that overrepresentation in sex work might be partly behind the figures.

But why does this overrepresentation occur in the first place?

The research points to social factors - discrimination on systemic, institutional, and interpersonal levels, which mean that it can appear to be their only viable option for work. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24313294/

Where does the discrimination and prejudice start from?

It starts from a culture that allows or is actively supportive of hostility towards transgender people.

It starts from the low-level stuff; the shunning, the small aggressions, the lack of family support and social support, the verbal hostility, the street abuse, the #SayYesToHate tweets, the refusal of jobs that cumulatively gives rise to that bigger picture where transgender people are in social contexts where they are far more likely to be victims.

To try and summarise this thread:

Main topic:

1. Sarah Phillimore's email to a member of staff who had invited her to speak was intercepted because she and her Fair Cop co-invitee were regarded as posing a "safety and wellbeing issue".

2. She only learned that her email had not been received when attending the event and speaking to its organiser.

3. It took a FOIA request to uncover the truth.

4. Phillimore accused the university of unlawful interference with her Article 10 rights, her protected 'gender critical' beliefs pursuant to the Equality Act, her personal and sensitive data, and breaching section 43 of the Education (No 2) Act 1986.

5. The university unequivocally apologised and promised to take action to prevent a recurrence.

Side topic(s):

1. Fair Cop criticised Humberside Police for virtue signalling its inclusivity on the International Transgender Day of Remembrance using the hashtag #SayYesToHate.

2. No transgender people had been murdered in the UK in the past twelve months, and indeed longer.

3. Humberside Police had gone beyond the law in recording "non-crime hate incidents" against Phillimore's Fair Cop colleague Harry Miller, as established in the High Court.

4. Phillimore posted a blog in which she wrote: "It wasn’t my hashtag. But I wish it had been. I wish I had the ovaries not just to think it, but say it.

I accept that it upset and horrified many and gave too easy a target for those numerous anonymous accounts who like to mutter and jeer from the sidelines. So it was right to reflect and apologise.

But we do need to talk about hate — what it means and what we do about it."

4. The situations of transgender people in the UK are significantly different from those in the US, Brazil, and other countries where the deaths remembered on the International Transgender Day of Remembrance occur, very overwhelmingly amongst transgender prostitutes.

5. Women are killed at a much higher rate - 3 per week in the UK - but the victims don't have an equivalent to the International Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Not mentioned in the thread:

1. The threats of violence are one-way, whether online or in real life.

2. Many feminist meetings have been targeted by attempts to disrupt them, resulting in at least one criminal conviction.

3. It was TRAs manhandling (personhandling?) a peaceful participant at the recent feminist event in Manchester.

4. TRAs and Stonewall do not denounce the threats of, and actual occurrences of, violence against "TERFS".

5. Nevertheless, posters here are demanded to distance themselves from #SayYesToHate, despite a) its legality and b) no actual hate being threatened or taking place.

Doubtless I've missed something, but this is meant to be a summary and not exhaustive.

That phrase regularly jumps into my head, on this subject.

Very interesting NancyDrawed
I recall the trans extremists who were let loose in the CPS told children that if they failed to welcome a child confused about their sex into a friendship group, they would be guilty of a hate crime. Needless to say (as with this university) the CPS withdrew them rather than subject them to judicial scrutiny.
Imagine the hate crime statistics if the CPS had their way and children's ever changing friendships were included😮

That fits in with my understanding of #sayyestohate NancyDrawed, that when "hate" is defined so broadly as to emcompass things that are actually helpful to a democratic society, such as there are situations when sex is more relevant than gender identity, then it's simply true that one can support certain kinds of (mis-defined) "hate" being exercised.

Now, as far as the wisdom of starting such a hashtag allowing twitter dwellers to misrepresent the intended message for evermore, that was definitely lacking.

What the TRAs say is that it is illegal by law to state the sex of someone. So anyone who wants to tell truths in a university for example talk about male on female violence would not be able to because we can't define male or female any more so any hint or suggestion that anyone that is trans committing male on female violence is outing them and as such, is illegal.

So we cannot talk about male violence ever again and anyone that does gets the death threats, which scares the living daylights out of them. So they don't talk about it.

Exactly this. How can anyone learn to debate and think critically if they are never exposed to viewpoints with which they disagree?

When I was at uni, they invited some truly appalling people (by my standards) to speak. Some of the things they said made sense, and some of them just reinforced my view that they were utter bastards. But thats sort of the whole point of uni - you listen to opposing views, you think critically, you develop your own thoughts and conclusions.

Why do some people now think this is such a terrible idea?

I haven't checked the true vision website to see if those are still the definitions used by the police

It would seem some form of those are still in play although it's difficult to know what is meant by "dislike."

suggestionsplease1

Just FYI really, to save you the job of digging deeper should you have wanted to (but obviously don't just take my word for it 😉)

I have just had a bit of a search regarding #SayYesToHate as I remember feeling a bit surprised and somewhat uncomfortable about this from Fair Cop at the time, despite knowing that they are firmly against the police taking a political stance.

Glinner had Harry Miller on and said he didn't like it and Harry explained in a bit more depth how it came about.

Harry said (and I confess I haven't fact checked) that in 2018 there were approx 2500 hate crimes against trangender individuals posted on the government website. He also said that as far as anyone is aware, there are between 200k and 500k transpeople in the UK. The police then said a recent survey found that 40% of transgender people had suffered a hate crime. Harry pointed out that those figures did not add up - 2500 is not 40% of 200,000. Harry then said the police had blatantly lied by saying 40% of transpeople have been victims of hate crime, then on the back of that fake percentage they put up a big thing saying 'Say No to Hate'.

(At this point can I just say that I don't mean to minimise the experiences of anyone who has been a victim of actual hate crime and I sincerely hope the perpetrators were caught and punished).

Harry then goes on to say he looked at what the police considered 'hate' in terms of what they encouraged people to report and their definition of hate included:

Unfriendliness
Dislike
Antagonism
Ill will - if you aren't going to act on it, is it really a police matter?
Ill feeling
Spite

So in the opinion of Harry, if the police are saying dislike = reportable as hate, unfriendliness = reportable as hate etc which really aren't police matters, the only sensible response is 'screw you, we say yes to hate' until you (the police) change your definition of what constitutes hate to something we can all get on board with.

Having said all that, I haven't checked the true vision website to see if those are still the definitions used by the police, but I have no reason to doubt what Harry said about the reason behind that tweet and hashtag at the time it was posted. Dislike is not a police matter. Nor is unfriendliness ffs, or I'm in trouble because I can be a right grumpy mare on occasion! I do think that without context, that tweet comes across badly, but luckily I have access to the internet, so was able to do my own research.

Well, despite the very many and generally irrelevant posts, which to tell the truth I was soon scrolling by as being reality-averse, it turns out that our prolific spammer was wrong and Northumbria University realised that their staff had opened them up to a litigation and PR nightmare and did the decent thing with their apology and admission of wrongdoing.

It shouldn't need saying, suggestions, but any speech allowed within the law should be welcome on campus. Anyone unable to listen and participate in polite and respectful debate doesn't have to attend, obviously. Although it will be their loss, because one's ideas can only be tested and strengthened by being challenged.

So out of interest, is there a line anywhere, or is there just no line with alternative viewpoints?

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?

@suggestionsplease1 in reply to your question I 100% think that SP should have a platform to speak at my university. Universities are in the business of inviting people in to speak. In my faculty alone we will have 30 -50 or so seminars, events, sessions every month during term time - and that isn't counting all the guest lectures within modules. This is what happens in universities all the time. Have some of these speakers got views others would disagree with? Of course. Is it possible that some may have sent a tweet I don't like? Also of course. Would I deplatform them as a result? Don't be ridiculous.

As an aside, given what suggestionsplease does on sooooo many MN threads, am I the only person to think their choice of username is singularly inappropriate?

So lets get this straight.

Women are routinely raped, assaulted and murdered with us losing 3 ish a week. Yesterday it was reported that what was it 870 paedophiles and grooming gangs were being let off, with no criminal record, if they 'apologise' to the victims. Women who are raped face their whole lives being shred to pieces, for a 2% chance of a charge against their rapist.

But trans people are the most oppressed and biggest victims in the UK because they upped the anti a few years ago and reported every little transgression and so invented their own niche hate crime stats?

Trans people are the safest population in the UK. They have the government, NHS, police, schools, universities, HR departments, large corporations all looking out to protect them from whatever it is they face.

I think this needs unpacking a bit.
So you seem to be saying that you expect transgender individuals are less likely to benefit from medical and social security safety nets relative to the rest of the US population?
Why do you think this might be?

No - less likely to benefit from those safety nets compared to the UK! As I've explained, with a lengthy quote and citation, the proportion of transgender individuals involved in prostitution in the US is very large. Prostitution entails enormously higher risks of rape, sexual assault, etc than the general population faces. So the figures are not reflective of the situation for transgender people here in the UK. Plus, as I have also outlined above, the legal protections enjoyed by transgender individuals in the UK are also very different.

“And levels of violent crime are much higher in the US more generally.”

Well this is kind of a redundant point, I’m sure the figures generally are higher than they would be for the UK, but whatever the original figures are, this database indicates the ratio of crime victimisation and shows that trans people in the US are 4 times more likely than non trans people to experience violent victimisation.

“A lack of medical and social security safety nets and the concomitant higher level of transgender individuals active as prostitutes is likely to be a bigger factor than free speech protections, I suspect.”

I think this needs unpacking a bit.
So you seem to be saying that you expect transgender individuals are less likely to benefit from medical and social security safety nets relative to the rest of the US population?
Why do you think this might be?

Do you think there could be an educational, employment and wealth attainment gap for transgender individuals, making them more likely to be in this bracket where they can not so readily access medical and social security safety nets and more likely to enter dangerous work?

Why do you think there might be an educational, employment and wealth gap for transgender individuals?
Do you think it could be anything to do with navigating a culture that is hostile and unsupportive to them, that uses freedom of speech to malign and vilify them?
Where they experience routine prejudice and discrimination, making it harder for them to achieve in education and in employment?

The university have stated there is no legal basis for the diversion of Sarah's emails.
Perhaps anyone asserting that this happens with their employer and that it does have a legal basis should check with both their employer and the law.

(Maybe before they post about it, in future, as it makes them look like they're either not very informed, or dishonest).

Yes, and the levels are driven by the huge proportion of transwomen working as prostitutes in the US:

The six-month prevalence of sex work was 37.4% in our study of transwomen from the New York metropolitan area (Nutbrock et al., 2013). Lifetime histories of sex work in this population have been estimated at 80% in San Francisco (Clements-Nolle et al., 2001); 25% - 75% in a meta-analysis across geographic areas mostly in the United States (Operario, Soma, & Underhill, 2008); 54%-80% in Asia and the Pacific region (Winter, 2012). Even in some cultural settings that recognize sexes other than male and female, such as the hijras in India, reports of sex work exceed 50% (Nanda, 1999).

Transgender Sex Work and Society, Larry Nuttbrock, Columbia University Press.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=sqyLDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT51&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

I will bite as I am actually interested in this data. Every year a female MP (her name escapes me right now) lists the women who have lost their lives due to male violence. Can you list the transwomen who have lost their lives in the uk in the past 5 years, due to violence for me? Or link? Or anything?

Otherwise its a meaningless statement really, bit like saying all unicorns are purple.

You do not understand the purpose of the university. In the most basic way.

That's fine for you to say for yourself, but have you no understanding or appreciation of how others may be influenced by expression of views?

Sure, people can be persuaded.

If I were inclined to think we needed to shut down people with dangerous views, I'd probably be shitting down yours before those of SP or HM. Good thing for you that no one put me in charge. The question of who is in charge of deciding which views to shut down might be one you should think about carefully, you will need to be very convincing if you want people to take up your viewpoint because most people immediatly see the danger ingerent in that question.

I am slightly surprised you don't, you may be over-confident that you own views would be on the "allowed" list.

Part of the reason we send people to university is so they can learn how to think through arguments and subject them to critical analysis, to weigh them against evidence, and to understand their historical development and context. That is how we protect against bad ideas becoming socially dominant. It's not possible to do that in an environment with the controlled speech you are advocating.

For the analysis of the NCVS : Violent victimization is defined as rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, or simple assault.

Hope that clarifies for you.