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

I work in the private sector in London. My employer (US liberal culture) has always been very positive about LGBTQ and most people were happy about that. But since trans became a big thing, we have industrial levels of self-censorship, in part due to fear of young people… I (male) and most of my male colleagues are horrified at the extremes of the TWAW brigade but too scared to say anything in public. We were recently encouraged to identify our sexuality and pronouns on the HR system which I chose not to. (We have a few trans women in the company and as far as I can tell it’s a positive environment for them.)

Personally I feel the marketisation of HE is across the board in the UK, and I’m not convinced it’s a good thing.

Are you comfortable to talk about gender/sex openly?

Nope. Only with DH. When I was wet behind the ears with this stuff maybe early 2019 I spoke about it with friends but now I know not to given some of the reactions I've had.

Would you raise it at work?

Nope, and this is really sad because I'm a children's counsellor and - above all things - should be able to take this sort of thing to Clinical Supervision. I tried that once when I was a trainee and got roundly judged by my then supervisor.

My current Supervisor is excellent but I just cannot talk about it there. I think she probably thinks the same as me but we are both are scared of each other in case we don't, actually.

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

I'm a governor at one of my DC school and a staff member at the other's so a big nopeity nope from me. The governing body is very interesting as I very early on spotted the TRAs and there are only about 3 of them but unfortunately that includes the chair and his wife. I will push back e.g. not happy with Mermaids due to charity commission investigation but not be openly GC.

At home?

Yup, DH is as TERFy as I am. But nope with my teens. They both call Dylan Mulvaney 'she'.

On social media?

Never in a million years although I do have a burner twitter account for following GC heroines.

I wouldn’t dare express my GC views at work. Work in the charity sector which is wholly captured - pronouns everywhere. I keep waiting for the day when we’re ordered to put pronouns in our signature (atm it’s just a ‘suggestion’)

DH & my family are all GC so can discuss with them but other than that I don’t raise it. Already lost one friend and would definitely lose others. I just change the subject if it hoves into view.

my best friend is generally GC but is a teacher & has a be kind streak too especially around trans teenage boys being allowed to use the girls loos because they’re “scared in the boys”. I just say that surely the school should focus on dealing with the male bullying rather than expecting the girls to give up their space

the only social media I discuss it on is here.

I think there is a huge backlash, not just in teaching but with adults in authority over kids generally, where there is a huge rejection of some of the really thoughtless practices that made some kids very neglected or mistreated. I think it has turned into a huge fear of saying no because of the strong memories some adults have of being bullied, shamed, or abused as kids. I don't agree with the intense fear of saying no to kids -that it will ruin their lives - but I am one of the adults who feel that that mainstream traditional teaching and parenting styles let many or most of us down, pretty badly.

In my experience it seems to be more prevalent in the state sector at secondary level. Lots of private schools are still broadly associated with religion/ the church and e.g. in the DS's independent school some of the PHSE lessons were led by a church-related youth organisation (which is less aligned with the Stonewall et al agenda).
Also, I think since parents are 'paying the bill' directly they tend to be more vocal and listened to by the head teacher/ senior staff. There's an expectation of much more involvement and communication between staff and parents.

There were still NB and trans students, but they were just quietly accommodated without much fuss or drama. Strict uniform rules meant that there were limited opportunities to dress very differently, although girls could opt to wear trousers.

Also is this happening in both state & private equally? Or is private more woke?

Thanks, I have teacher friends late 30s & early 40s who are surprisingly very woke.. One I vividly remember made her daughter choose a batman costume when she wanted to Elsa because she didn't want her daughter conforming to girl stereotypes... This happened at my house, I witnessed it, so bizarre.. She was always posting photos on Facebook of the girl playing with cars & "boys toys" as she was raising a "strong female".. Never dressed her in pink or girly dresses it was as if she would be judged unfavorably if she raised her little girl conventionally.. I'm very surprised at teachers stance & this & you explained it very well @TinyTopknot

We do talk about it at home and DH and DS1 are GC like me.
DS1 went to a captured uni and had trans friends. Was quite vocal and angry with me a few years ago, but he seems to have become more open-minded about it all and we can discuss it, although he is still of the just #BeKind mentality.

Discuss it to varying degrees with friends and most are of a similar POV. Those that aren't tend to have LGBT+ children/ family members and a sense of 'loyalty' to the cause (although some have opened up about concerns after a few drinks!). When faced with trans allies I tend to just ask lots of questions, as if I don't really understand, then enjoy watching them tie themselves in knots with the answers!

I'm not working, so no issues there, but generally in social groups I keep my head down and mouth shut! I decided not to continue with a continuing education course as a mature student because I couldn't bear the uni environment and all the trigger warnings and pronouns etc.

On social media, as me, I never voice an opinion, however I have a separate social media profile and email address which I use exclusively for GC support and comments etc.

Re my comments about The Moral Maze, it was covered in the last gasp of the show! I’m glad it was in, but the chilling effect of attacks on GC thinkers should have been a central them rather than said in the dying seconds.

I wouldn't dream of saying anything at work.
I wouldn't online, on social media either.
However I did approach my children's school with some questions - not that I stated a position myself, but that I wanted to understand their single sex provision for residential trips. (They used to have a Stonewall logo on their website that seems to have disappeared. )The response from the school was incredibly guarded until I asked very simply and plainly "no I am not asking about these things because I have a trans child, I want to know whether my daughter will ever be sharing with a male without my knowledge, even in theory" and the answer was pretty much "good heavens, no, no matter what the party line is we fully understand that reality is that that can't happen". I found that pretty heartening.
Their school has got a very ambitious trendy dynamic head teacher who likes all things new and expensive and branded and silly and techy, many of which initiatives often fizzle out. I suspect that some expensive Stonewall affiliation was bought at a time when it seemed to be a way of positioning oneself as forward thinking, and since then has been quietly retired, while no one ever really bought into their extremes of thinking, where they blatantly undercut safeguarding.

God @TinyTopknot that post is all the more terrifying for sounding so plausible 😱

Just a very personal view but I think it has a lot to do with the marketisation of HE.

Students are now ‘consumers’ of education and in economics ‘the customer is king’.

Teaching staff have to appeal to the consumers. So not allowed to say anything that would detract from market appeal.

I have a sort of theory. Many older more experienced teachers have either left or are keeping their heads down until retirement. This leaves the field open for the wildly indoctrinated, just out of uni, very vocal younger teachers to push this ideology.
Many of these people are female sadly and love the weird power that this horrible ideology wields at the moment. In state schools especially, many senior managers are over promoted, too young and very inadequate so they go along with this shit because they have been told it's the thing to do and they would sell their soul for a promotion.
Add in to the mix a group of fragile and often mentally unstable teens who are fed this ideology online and pernicious external PHSE 'providers' who are as dodgy as fuck and obsessed with 'queering' schoolchildren and you have the perfect toxic mix.

Of course he does - he has the XY credentials!

My adult DCs are all GC but they have to be careful at work. Accordingly I am somewhat constrained online - apart from here.

I left Reddit and never argue on Twitter. Sometimes give a like to eg JKR or Glinner. On FB I'm on a GC page or two. But don't post stuff on my timeline. Was booted from a couple of chat groups - gives you pause for thought.

In person I can speak freely being an OAP. My generation think its all bonkers but generally it doesn't concern or affect them?

I was listening to The Moral Maze about freedom of speech and there was a lot of “if you’re still getting coverage, you’re not cancelled”. I haven’t finished the programme yet, but so far, no one seems to have made the connection that for every one person who speaks (Stock, JKR for example), thousands won’t because of what they see are the consequences- being hounded out of your job, vilified, defamed, crazed TRAs stalking your every appearance and needing bodyguards. Hardly likely to encourage “freedom of speech” if you know your Wrongthink means you’ll end up on the ducking stool.

Why are teachers & educators buying into this so much?

Yes but people need to work and feed their families. I simply cannot afford to lose my job and my mental health would not take the hassle and ostracism that would come with being openly GC in a school setting.

I left a well paid job because of the insistence of buying in to the organisational values which were heavily focused on D and I and the encouragement to add pronouns. Went self employed for a while but really discovered that one can't survive, unless very wealthy, and not be concerned for one's living, for speaking up.

• Biological sex