Transphobia at Edinburgh University ‘driving out staff’

Funny how EDI is important until its the 'wrong kind' of protected characteristic isn't it?

wtaf? is that right? A women walks into the loo, sees a bloke in a frock, walks out-and that's a micro aggression? How do these people ever leave the house without a bodyguard?

I believe Edinburgh is the university that released guidance that explained leaving the room (for example, leaving the women's toilet because you'd walked in to see a male adult in there) was a transphobic micro-aggression.

So no, you're not missing anything.

Nope, that’s about the measure of it. I think we’re all waiting for the explanation as to why “hearing an opinion you don’t like” (when that opinion isn’t hate speech) translates to literal violence, threats to existences, genocide and so on.

is it just me, or am I missing something? In this case (and all the others to be frank) accusations of transphobia are thrown around like confetti without any proof or even a description of what this transphobia actually consists of? The suspicion its mostly being looked at funny remains strong.

Ooooooh! See you later, I'm going shopping!

I think KJK’s online shop sells lanyards in suffragette colours…

Is there an opposite kind of lanyard? The kind that says "I'm definitely unsafe to be around"
I mean, I'm completely lovely and all that, but it might act like kryptonite to some of the annoying people that I'd rather avoid.

Not in my opinion, and it's my money. There is such choice of Universities why would I choose one that pays academics who actively support a convicted paedophile and supports an ideology that wants to remove women's rights and child safeguarding?

And it's not just one article, it's a lot of evidence. The attempts to prevent women speaking and watching films.

Do you dislike women having opinions you can't control / don't approve of?

And by the way both my DDs are GC so they agree with me.

Not RTFT but just wanted to drop a couple of examples of Katie’s retweets.

She’s an EDI Vampire - not surprised she’s feeling a bit unwelcome at work. Businesses Institutions, charities and orgs all over the country are realising that EDI is a terrible waste of money that harms social cohesion in the workplace rather than enhances it.

HR departments need to work within U.K. equality law, not flout the law and then re post twee graphics about flouting the law on twitter.

Academics are not one homogeneous group! Not all of them go along with gender woo - Stock, Pheonix etc are academics - you just hear about the ones who very vocally do.

Plenty of people in academia are quietly standing up against gender woo, just look at the petition that was signed in support of Stock a couple of years ago.

@Ecstaticmotion except in her case she has unlearned something (i.e. basic biology) over time...

Ideally humans learn things over time.

Edinburgh is an enormous institution with tons of depts and academics and one newspaper article quoting one person is going to make you tell your kid not to come here? Absurd overreaction.

She's a geneticist??? Heaven help us.

And she's no feminist.

She sounds batshit.

The comments about Edinburgh remind me of this

m.youtube.com/watch?v=RGuoO-aOUJg

But they go along with the gender woo so they don’t get grief, such a pity that their virtues don’t include courage.

OMG, the gaslighting.

That photo......

The simple fact is that more bums on seats hasn't widened participation these days either. The proportion of bog standard state school successful applications to Oxbridge is relatively low (relative to rich foreigners, private school children etc). Yes, there is weighting applied if you go to the roughest comp and live in the most socioeconomically deprived area in the UK, but if you just live in a normal middle of the road place and go to a state school, the chances you'll achieve the grades someone at a 45k a year private school will achieve with their small class sizes and private tutoring is unlikely.

And even if you do beat the odds and get in, if you - for example - haven't been allowed to take further maths A-level at your state school then you're at a disadvantage relative to the rich kids who have if you're doing a maths related degree. Friend at Oxford says it can be unbelievably hard for state school students surrounded by private school students not to mention accommodation price inflation and general cost of living stress on children whose parents are of normal means.

No.

Its really not hard to judge her competence.

We did all this last week on the thread about the open letter from academic against Cass.

Something has to give, that's certain. The whole point of HE is that it builds on something.

This aggressive business model is harmful to the principles of what education actually does. There has also - as anticipated - been a conflation of what was meant by widening participation as opposed to mass participation. The former is ensuring HE is open to those who can derive benefit from it. The latter is a scramble to get bums on seats resulting in a lowering of standards across the board. Vocations like nursing and social work also don't need to be graduate only. That's snobbery talking: the idea that you're only of any value in the labour market if you hold a degree.

Numbers artificially inflated as a result of the drive to get 50% of people through the university system, now as a result of CoL - not least the current state of the sector on a variety of levels - they are dwindling back.

I'd hate to go back to a system when only 7% of the most privileged had access to higher education. We're now seeing the extreme opposite of that position.

What's needed is something in the middle enabling a return to rigorous standards.

I'm not optimistic.

Yes, this is absolutely essential as this where the future government and judiciary etc are being trained.

I just wanted to put in a word for academics in that NAAALT (Not All Academics Are Like That). I work with them and many, if not most, are perfectly normal(ish) people who do amazing stuff. Stuff that literally changes the world for the better. They're absolutely passionate about what they do and it's their life's work.

We hear about the mad ones because that's what hits the headlines/employment tribunals but the vast majority aren't like this at all.

Anyway, as you were.

This is exactly the reason. Every time I'm asked to wear a rainbow lanyard to show I'm 'safe' to be around I ask where I can get my lanyards for commuting students or those who can't access our buildings because they have mobility issues.