Cancel Culture and The Chilling Effect - a thread to share your experiences

My workplace is vomiting rainbows from every orifice, and I think it's safe to say the Humanities are in serious trouble for various reasons aside this issue. If you don't announce pronouns everywhere and display a rainbow lanyard it can be enough to get you noticed as an insurgent. I've been challenged directly to state my pronouns and been put in the position of having to refuse. I'll call anyone by their chosen name, avoid 'pronouns' entirely for the most part, but my hill to die on is having this nonsense imposed on me.

Thankfully it isn't a lecturer's job to share our political views with students. I'd need my bumps felt if I did, or taught whole modules on 'gender' (no effin' WAY!) but on occasion it naturally comes up. Our role is to develop them as autonomous learners, explain what the different sides of the argument involve, tell them to do their reading, and to make their own minds up. A good many are not as in thrall to GI as you might expect, and some are able to have nuanced, intelligent discussions whatever their own view, as I would expect of UKHE. The key is to manage things beforehand by letting them know what you expect, and if things do step one tiny bit over that line, to nix the discussion and move on.

You'll be asked for your own opinion of course, but it's quite admissible to respond that it doesn't matter what you personally think. It's their education: by which definition it's what they think that counts. Same rules apply as ever - if you want to make an argument stand up, substantiate it. (ho, ho ho ...)

Sometimes a student will tell you 'I hate JK Rowling, she's a revolting person' whilst looking at you expectantly in the hope that you'll agree. That phrase is quite often the starting point for a censorious discussion on the need for female capitulation or the evils of dissent. My response to this is always an over-the-top-of-the-spectacles death stare. No one can discipline me for what I don't say, but it makes the point alright.

Aside from anything else, I'm suffering from serious GI fatigue. This shit's got old. The conversation is important - I'm in no doubt whatsoever as to how important - but I'm beyond weary of the incessant whining about Gender, and 'My Identity', and the self-absorption, boundary-stamping and downright tedium of the relentless identity politics currently blotting our landscape.

And breathe.

This is such a classic Cluster B personality disordered type of thing to think.

This is because people with Cluser B personality disorders and/or tenuous grips on social function, tend to assume that all attention is good attention, and that everyone desires attention.

I appreciate it might be difficult for you to understand this @MishyJDI so please take my word for it when I say that non-Cluster B folks don't view all attention as good attention. If Kathleen Stock is getting loads of attention, but 70% of that is men in dresses screaming at her and sending death threats, and her colleagues and bosses force her to leave her job, then that IS cancellation. Even though she's still getting lots of attention.

Ask Kathleen Stock.... supposedly cancelled and seems to be on every media outlet.

So no, don't see there being any chilling effect.

This is a very interesting topic of discussion @ArabeIIaScott

I freely espouse my GC views IRL. I make sure to keep my sentiments measured and simple (focussing on women's sports, medicalisation of children, women's prisons and refuges, rather than the more esoteric aspects of the issue). I've experienced no negative IRL effects.

It helps that I work in an industry which prizes empirical evidence and facts, and is fairly socially conservative. I think it also helps that I come from a WC immigrant background - we are less susceptible to upper middle class ultralib guilt-driven psychosis (I use the word 'psychosis' advisedly, because believing that one can change one's DNA to the opposite sex, merely by willing it, and getting other people to affirm the fiction, is nothing less than a disconnect from reality, and is therefore psychotic, in the clinical sense).

My partner, adult children (one of them gay), friends gay and straight, tend to agree with the broad brushes of my GC views and, if they don't, we keep it light and agree to disagree, or respectfully discuss it.

Online is a different story and I've been abused, suspended and permabanned from various allegedly feminist forums, as well as mainstream social media platforms and lighthearted gossip forums, for my GC views. I don't worry about that so much though because parasocial relationships are not real relationships.

The only area where I experience cognitive dissonance is voting. I think Starmer's Labour should get in next time as the Tories are exhausted and out of ideas (though I quite like Sunak). However I won't vote for a party which can't define my existence. It's an absolute binary issue for me. It comes before all other policies. Why would I vote for a party that doesn't think I exist in a material reality. No thanks. But that's the only bit I find difficult.

It's a woman doing it.
Let's hope her "kindness", never comes back to bite her...

Really very unnerving. Shocking how some people don’t like women speaking out.

I have nothing much to lose by being GC so am ok to speak up and attend meetings discussing these views. At home it is difficult around one adult child but the rest of the family are all GC. My friends are also fine with it but I don't have a vast social circle. I argue against any anti Trans sentiments wherever I hear them, I just don't think you have to be TWAW to be kind.
A small win today: At my husband's work a super woke current Trans Policy came up for discussion at a Senior Management meeting. I coached him all weekend and he's just texted saying the policy will be reviewed. Nobody argued strongly for the current version and several spoke up for single sex spaces. I was a bit worried but we agreed that his job probably wasn't in danger and if it was we can weather him losing it at his late stage of career. And he has the male advantage refered to earlier in the thread. I was anxious for him though and am now super relieved and proud of him.

That must be extremely unnerving for you, Tastes, and what a loss of your privacy. I so hope you can ‘disappear’.

They know I know.
Anyway, weird as it is, it's small fry compared to what some women have had to put up with, and it won't stop me from speaking up against the gender bullshit.
We'll get there eventually.

That sounds very unpleasant. Will you say anything?

I know exactly who it is, no idea of their MN name though and why they'd want to spend time on FWR is beyond me, unless just to be an unhinged weirdo...
I can't see them getting any answers they like here with the realists!

That sounds sinister, Strawberries. Will you try and find out who is doing this?

I've recently found out I have a stalker on here.
She's been following my posts.
I've said Dd thinks I'm a TERF.
This is true, however she's not outwardly said that, and she certainly has not called me transphobic bigot, or anything similar.
My stalker has been repeating this in other groups, other places to discredit me where I'd not mentioned my views at all, as they weren't relevant.
I won't be scared off, but I will name change as it's weird, creepy, unhinged behaviour.
#BeKind though.

I'd avoid it at work and in schools but speak freely with friends and family (they think the same). I truly believe most people see it for what it is, but because the consequences can be life damaging (losing jobs, income etc...) they will either say nothing (like me) or they'll say the sky is pink when inside they know it's blue.

I heard Piers Morgan call is a moral cowardliness not to speak up, but I think he speaks from a position of great privilege. He is wealthy enough that if he lost his income, he'd survive just fine. Plus he's a man and they seem to be less likely to be cancelled over this topic. So I don't see it as moral cowardliness, I see it as self preservation.

He's just being naive. And it's basically an argument not to even have sex segregated changing rooms.

Are you comfortable to talk about gender/sex openly?

>> With friends yes. I'm card-carrying member of disadvantaged groups, so seems like I've got more leeway before I can be accused of privileged ignorance. They know me as curious straight-talker who won't be hypnotised by things I have no understanding of and asks a lot of questions. "What do you mean, gender identity and biology sex are completely separate? Like some cartesian duality? What is gender identity that isn't identifying with social stereotypes? What is wrong with bio-essentialism? Help me out here..."

Would you raise it at work?

>> Well, I don't work in university or any form of public service so the issue hasn't really come up, most of my colleagues are male. The close female colleague friend I have is vocal Muslim. No non-stealth trans at work.

Would you/do you raise it with your child's school?

>> hasn't come up

At home?

>> my DH is as sceptical as me. I don't talk about it in negative sense with kids, I don't want to make them feel like they need to hide from me. One of them had trans friend (FtM) in Y6 who had a lot of issues, complaining on Discord during lockdown with select friends incl him about her parents and her father being r*. Then family suddenly moved away and I myself found out about everything after the fact. Sigh. DS at 11 said thought he was non-binary and tried on my skirts and now he is 14 and said he can't believe he was even thinking this. Nothing has come up since then but I part of me is....well, I know how teenagers parents can be deluded thinking they know everything about their teenagers.

On social media?

>>> Hell no. I don't have social media accounts though, just IG to follow others.

Are women able to speak about these issues?

>> In public without serious consequences? Not to me and that's depressingy dystopian. I had a nightmare when I went to an organised event and there was a trans person on stage looking visibly upset, saying they had powers to access internet data record and had a list of attendees who were secret TERFs. My name was on their list. Blood curdled and I woke up.

Have you done so and experienced consequences?

>> No. I do need to muster social courage but only if I have strong charismatic English.

This seems to be something similar in intent https://womensliberationfront.org/letters-from-the-front-submissions/

I found out about Holly's site on here.

I think it is more about men in women's spaces than silencing.

Yes, I imagine that the administrative burden of sifting out the TRA crap would be enormous.

@DollyParkin "I have surreptitious conversations with other middle-aged women at social events & sometimes at work. There are codes or code words one can say to carefully test out the waters. I had one such conversation at a work event last night and we bonded over what's going on. We both laughed about how we circled around the subject till we knew we were "safe.""
I've also found the recent media coverage about sports has made some unaware people aware and asking more questions which has opened the door to discussions.

But it's very "1984" to have to test the waters when talking to other women for fear of repercussions

@LonginesPrime "Anyone who refuses to accept gender ideology (which they believe to be indisputable fact) as indisputable fact is unreasonable in their eyes and therefore not entitled to fair or reasonable treatment.

No gender ideologue is going to feel any sympathy towards anyone disagreeing that gender ideology is the truth as they believe it is a fact and that gender critical people are the ones denying "the truth". So they don't view the silencing as being inflicted on any "reasonable" people, as anyone who disagrees with gender ideology is unreasonable by definition in their eyes and deserving of any silencing they experience. "

This, to me, is the chilling thing and makes me think "will they win?"

I would also like to add that when it has come up I've found those friends who discuss it are the ones that think the same of me - I'd question my relationship with a friend who had the opposite view tbh but would likely not get into a debate with them about it