I’m a secret millennial TERF in academia. AMA

[RealityNotEssentialism]

Well, I should preface by saying that I consider TERF to be a slur but I am gender-critical and believe that women are entitled to sex-based protections because it is sex that determines that women are treated differently to men. I of course support trans people having legal protections against discrimination but not at women’s expense.

I work in academia. Most of my colleagues are woker than woke. Many have pronouns in their email signature and bios. Because I’m fairly young, people tend to assume that I agree with the woke mob too when nothing could be further from the truth. I can’t come out though as my career would be over. It can be frustrating and lonely and I have to bite my lip when colleagues tell me that ‘TERFS should be fired’ and similar. I am tolerant of different views but it’s very clear that this doesn’t run both ways for those who disagree with me. It’s odd being told (albeit indirectly) constantly that I am hateful and a threat to people’s safety. I can’t abandon logic and truth though. I just can’t. To vent, I used to run a secret anon twitter account but I shut it down because I was worried about the lengths that TRA doxxers go to.

Feel free to AMA.

Thanks OP. My DD2 and most of her fellow academics are dedicated in their woke purity. I saw one of them making a twitter post to specifically warn others about a female owned small business. This individual had taken it upon herself to comb through their tweets and had found some that were "a bit terfy" She encouraged others to shun the business. She herself is an early years academic who also sells things on Etsy. I doubt she'll find GC women ganging up on her and her business, the smug little shit.

I will never use them TERF term if you do you help them. Ignore those terms they came up with to denigrate and insult people.

@blueangel19

I will never use them TERF term if you do you help them. Ignore those terms they came up with to denigrate and insult people.

Agree we should not use this language

Nor that hideous term cishet below

We should stop mangling language as it supports a cause which works against women

As a member of the editorial board could you influence its direction?

No because everyone else on the board is super woke so if I said anything, I’d be vilified

I will never use them TERF term if you do you help them. Ignore those terms they came up with to denigrate and insult people.

Yeah I agree. It’s used tongue in cheek here. I wouldn’t normally use it. I note that those who use this term never complain about the men who actually attack trans people. It’s always the women who are targeted.

Thanks OP. My DD2 and most of her fellow academics are dedicated in their woke purity. I saw one of them making a twitter post to specifically warn others about a female owned small business. This individual had taken it upon herself to comb through their tweets and had found some that were "a bit terfy" She encouraged others to shun the business. She herself is an early years academic who also sells things on Etsy. I doubt she'll find GC women ganging up on her and her business, the smug little shit.

Thanks. I hate all the witch hunting, often of people who have said nothing but are tainted by who they follow (not that it’s in any case acceptable to do it to people who have spoken out but it’s particularly scary where they’re attacking someone for what they think that person believes). It’s also horrific the way they try to put people’s livelihoods at risk. Nearly always women too.

@Notanotherusernamenow hello! Glad I’m not the only one

With pronouns nobody has said anything but more and more people at work are including them and I worry about the day that we receive instructions from management about it.

@RealityNotEssentialism

Do you work in a research area that is safely removed from these issues or do you have to tiptoe around them in your publications? I left academia for other reasons and though I miss it I thank my lucky stars I don’t have to deal with this.

No. Sadly it’s an area where these people have enormous amounts of influence and any dissent would leave me ostracised. A journal was advertising for editorial board members recently and I wanted to apply but then I looked at the journals twitter account and they liked a load of tweets calling for JK Rowling to be boycotted as well as tweets that said that GC feminists are far right white supremacists. Although it’s good to have editorial board membership on my CV, I just couldn’t face it.

I don't have any questions per se, but want to say that I am a registered counsellor and feel similarly.

I would and could never share my thoughts on social media (those thoughts being that children should be able to explore their feelings of gender dysphoria in a bias-free and non-judgemental setting and that sex-based discrimination requires sex-based legislation

Yes I saw someone comment on a friends fb post the other day that they had spent the day dealing with the 'anti trans brigade'. When I clicked on their profile their timeline was full of terf hate and laughing at females for not wanting to share toilet facilities with men (said females including the young and the very elderly not just the woke in betweeners).

I couldn't get over the contrast of us living in the same world and her being able to post freely in such a way without fear of losing her career.

While I have to stay silent about, well, my hideous and bigoted desires to safeguard the vulnerable.

Sorry said Terf hating crusader proudly announced that they were a psychoanalytic counsellor on their public profile. No shame or thought to who they might be disenfranchising as a client.

I think you should speak out. Human rights legislation guarantees you freedom of conscience. If your employer violates that then you take them to court. If you think things are ever going to change while most sane people stay silent and keep their heads down, history clearly isn't your subject area!!

Thank you for this!

I'm a new GTA in a department where the other PGRs seem very woke, but I can't tell how far up it goes. I've been doing tiny feminist things like asking for 'sex' to be put on diversity and inclusion documents, alongside all the gender woo if necessary. I haven't had much response but I'm aware that everyone is incredibly busy so I'm not taking that as a sign of anything in particular.

My question is how far you think it's safe to go in advocating a GC point of view without risking my future academic career? I hate that I'm asking this question over things like stating biological facts and recognising that women aren't oppressed because of their identification with sex-role stereotypes. It feels dystopian. I should be able to speak the truth - but do you think it's safe?

@heybabyitsawildworld thank you, those are pretty much my views too but this is now viewed as extreme and in the same vein as white supremacy. I have great sympathy for people with gender dysphoria and I want the law to protect them from discrimination. I think that can be done without undermining women's rights or pretending biological sex doesn't exist or isn't relevant. It's so frustrating and, like you, I have seen people who are supposed to be objective and neutral talk about how TERFs should be exterminated.

I think you should speak out. Human rights legislation guarantees you freedom of conscience. If your employer violates that then you take them to court. If you think things are ever going to change while most sane people stay silent and keep their heads down, history clearly isn't your subject area!!

The thing is, I have seen others speak out and I have seen what has happened to them. It's not just about being fired (and I probably don't have the money to take anyone to court anyway). Even if you keep your job, you're tainted. Look at someone like Prof Selina Todd. She has been very measured, reasonable and moderate in what she has said but she is labelled as an evil transphobe. She required security in her lectures before Covid hit because she received death threats from students. If she as much as sneezes, people swarm on her, accusing her of being hateful and making people 'unsafe'. People who invite her to give talks (a bit part of being an academic) face open letters and petitions for the talk (even if nothing to do with this issue) to be cancelled. She was listed as teaching a new course at Oxford recently and there was a protest to have the course removed and a letter saying she should not do student facing work. Same with Kathleen Stock. These are professors. I'm at lecturer level, so much more junior and I don't have the track record in my career that these women do. My career would be over. Nobody would invite me to anything, want to publish stuff I wrote, or collaborate with me.

There is also the psychological side of things. I suffer from anxiety and depression. I don't think I am robust enough to handle the sort of thing that others have had to handle. I was bullied at school and that still makes me feel sick thinking about it and this seems a million times worse.

So even if it is legal for me to speak up (although see Maya Forstater case), I don't see it as an option. Also, I have not been at my current institution for long enough to qualify for protection against unfair dismissal.

My question is how far you think it's safe to go in advocating a GC point of view without risking my future academic career? I hate that I'm asking this question over things like stating biological facts and recognising that women aren't oppressed because of their identification with sex-role stereotypes. It feels dystopian. I should be able to speak the truth - but do you think it's safe?

Hi @AradiaGC. I am pleased there are other junior staff who feel the same! In honest answer to your question, no, I don't think it's safe. As a GTA, you're at the beginning of your career and at the mercy of much more powerful people who could ruin things for you if they wanted (and what I have realised is that there are many in academia who love nothing more than ruining other people). I would absolutely hate for that to happen to you. I think you can continue doing stuff like putting sex on the equal opp forms (after all, that's what the law states) but I'd avoid getting involved directly in the debate. What is your PhD supervisor like? Do you know his/her views on the matter? One thing that really hurt me was my former PhD supervisor's stance (I finished in 2017). We never talked about this issue but I respected her a lot and thought that she would always be logical and fair. However, about a year ago, she went super-woke, retweeted misogynistic stuff about GC women and signed the open letter calling for Selina Todd to be banned from speaking to the English dept at Kent (on literature, not trans issues). My ex-supervisor neither works at Kent, nor works in the field of English literature. I've also seen her 'like' a post about the stuff at Bristol where Raquel Rosario-Sanchez was victimised and abused by a fellow PhD student for being GC. My ex-supervisor thought that was cool though and was supportive of the bully. As a result, my respect for her has totally evaporated, as it has for so many other people that I thought would respect free speech, even if they didn't agree with particular views.

You can PM me if you want to vent (totally anonymously of course) but be really careful before speaking out because I have seen so many horror-shows when people do.

Any ideas on why seemingly the majority of our generations minds are so open their brains are falling out? I’ve been thinking about the education system, I don’t think we were really taught to consider both sides of an argument, it was more being told what was wrong/ right.

I have no idea. I do think the generational thing is seized upon, especially with women. People characterise gender critical women as unattractive, dried up killjoys (just like they used to describe feminists). Younger people don't want to associate with that and want to be seen as progressive, so many feel pressure to agree with the woke mob. But this nonsense only really took off in the past 5 years or so, so I have no idea why so many of our generation have suddenly lost all ability for logical and critical thought. It's astounding.

One thing that made me laugh was one very prominent woke younger academic on twitter who said that she wanted there to be a uterus-emoji on twitter (to complain about period pain) but was angry/conflicted because it made her sound 'a bit TERF-y' and that 'it's the TERFs' fault for doing this to me'. I mean you'd think she'd twig, but no. She's also the same person who did a podcast where she was complaining about 'Karens' and saying they should shut up. She's white, middle-class and in her mid-30s, so she's sailing perilously close to being a Karen herself but she totally failed to see the irony (actually, maybe for millennials, this is all driven by a panic about no longer being seen as young, hip, and relevant).

OP I'm not sure this is a safe environment for you or your mental health.

My question is - why the vitriol? Why the hatred? Is it social media driven? I guess it's related to the points made upthread about a lack of professionalism and civility generally. But why the pure vitriol on this issue in particular? Is it to do with the misogyny?

The other point I would make is that in an increasingly fascist society (and that's what this is, fascism) people DO need to resist it. I don't mean to criticize or judge you here because I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to either. But someone's got to.

I'm reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the earliest critics of Nazism in Germany, and one or the few to speak out, when most people were keeping their head down.
He wrote - 'Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.'

@GCAcademic I totally understand why you're frustrated with those who are silent on the issue. I would be too if I were brave enough to speak out. For me, I just don't think I could handle the fallout. I sound really melodramatic but I don't think my mental health is strong enough. I feel awful about it though and as if I am a hypocrite. I worked so hard to get to where I am but I feel empty and hollow about it now, which is devastating because I left a job I hated to become an academic and thought I had found something I loved. Now it all feels false.

I’m in the same position op. I’m GC and in education and keep expecting to be unmasked scooby doo style by any number of simpering twats ......

It’s interesting about the woman upthread who’s starting a mob against a fellow businesswoman... I’ve long suspected that bullies use this ideology to attack people they’re jealous of for other reasons...
I believe it’s the same in education, the more people taken down and cancelled, the better opportunities their are for them who take them down.

@Wildswim thank you for your support. I agree with everything you say. I don't know why there is such vitriol on this issue either. It is extreme and totally unmatched by concerns over any other form of discrimination. A lot of it is on social media but it's also in real life, e.g. petitions, open letters, complaints. Social media gives it fuel though.

The TERF-blocker (set up by a man convicted of child-rape) is used by many of my colleagues. It automatically blocks e.g. anyone who follows Kathleen Stock, regardless of whether they have uttered a word about this debate. But there is no equivalent for racists or misogynists or xenophobes. It sounds really pathetic to get upset about being blocked on social media but I remember getting to a conference a few years ago, excited to speak on a panel, going on twitter to tweet about it and tag the chair and other members in and one of them had blocked me (presumably because she used TERF-blocker and I was tainted by association). It just felt like a punch in the stomach because I had never met this woman before or done anything to upset her.

And you're right that it's not a good environment for my mental health!

so I have no idea why so many of our generation have suddenly lost all ability for logical and critical thought. It's astounding.

I agree, I actually really worry about our generation and the damage they will do. I am a millennial TERF too but not in the same field. I don’t really have a question I just wanted to wish you well - it must be a tough environment to be in everyday.

It’s interesting about the woman upthread who’s starting a mob against a fellow businesswoman... I’ve long suspected that bullies use this ideology to attack people they’re jealous of for other reasons...

Oh, absolutely. I've seen so many of these "take downs" that conveniently involve people trying to destroy the businesses of their competitors. The knitting wars was a prime example of that. In academia it's less commercial, admittedly, but when you see ECRs targeting established academics in their field (and the particular rhetoric they use) it's pretty obvious what part of the motivation is.

@RealityNotEssentialism - please don't think I'm frustrated with ECRs who keep silent. I understand why they do so. My disgust is firmly with those trying to destroy other people's careers and those who chant mantras that they clearly don't believe because they want to maintain their telly don status, etc. But you should know that there are many people in academia who are silently gender critical.

I just want to say hang in there.
Be extremely careful at work and with social media.
All the best

I get what you're saying OP, but I think what academics need is for openly GC numbers to reach critical mass (pun intended). At that point the Genderists begin to look as ridiculous as they sound. It's already happening in other areas: even the BBC has dramatically changed its tone in recent weeks. Academia should surely be way ahead of the beeb when it comes to rationality! Keep up, ivory-tower dwellers!

Yes @RuffleCrow has a point. Academia is starting to look totally out of touch with reality. It is becoming known as a place where free speech, and increasingly rational or intellectual thought, do not exist. It is sowing the seeds of its own destruction.