To ask what policy your Uni has on women's spaces?

[SerfTerf]

Those of you who have recent work or study experience.

Would you mind listing institution names and their policies?

NC if you need to of course.

Modules not misuses!

I'm not convinced that it is fortunate to be in groups that all agree on everything. You learn to be critical and to formulate more robust arguments when you have to engage with other ideas. When everyone agrees, it can create an illusion of criticality but none of the ideas are really being interrogated.

I'm also not convinced that student activism around minority groups is effective for many people. It tends to be effective for whatever the currently fashionable issue is within student communities and little else.

To the point that it totally shocked me when I first noticed, because it's just not something that you regularly see in the real world

Nobody Very few people in the "real world" that I inhabit actually talk about transgenderism.

And on the very rare occasion it ever does get mentioned, nothing nice is said.

Loops: this blog makes really interesting reading - www.thegetrealmom.com/blog/womensrestroom

It's gaslighting women.
And it's also gaslighting women to tell them they are a subset of women by insisting they use a cis prefix. Women are women. Transwomen are men who are unhappy with society's gender expectations of them but they are still biologically men. And that's not transphobic, it's a simple statement of fact. When facts and science are considered hatespeak, we have a massive problem.

What I would like to know is how trans activists have been so successful in such a short space of time campaigning.

Because gender stereotypes uphold patriarchy. Many very misogynist societies have a traditional "third gender", so that males could escape the limits they have set each other, in order to have their cake and eat it, too.

And some societies have a third gender for women (though I only know about the sworn virgins of Albania) so that SOME FEW women can get jobs and support their female relatives, who would otherwise starve in the streets, which would make patriarchy look bad, but which is STRONGLY policed by males, and enables patriarchy to continue as is, without having to give ALL women those rights and liberties.

Patriarchy LOVES gender stereotypes, and also loves transgenderism.

Transactivism is not a social justice movement, it is a backlash. That's how it is so successful so fast.

And disabled people should be really pissed off about this self-identification proposal too.

Not only do disabled people have to accept the biology that they were born with or the physiological or mentla health issues thrust upon, them but also the DWP do not think self-identification is good enough when it comes to claiming entitlements - even if all you want is a blue badge rather than any monetary benefits.

No, PROOF is required, susbtantial medical proof AND assessment by someone who does not even know you or who maybe barely qualified to assess your condition.

It is generally accepted that the current process is quite inhumane and biased against claimants, but also accepted that some evidence is required to verify the conditions.

If there was no burden of proof required for anything, merely self identification - where does it all stop?

Can I identify as a cat and be looked after at a nice animal charity so I don't have to worry about bills and money? Not even humans with serious medical conditions get that kind of acceptance

Agree absolutely JigglyTuff
And loops I think your belief that you are fortunate to be in seminar groups where people broadly agree suggests a lack of liking for challenge or for critical thinking. You seem an intelligent, thoughtful person - it's a shame you are missing a big part of your intellectual life.

We had a class in foundation year where we debated a topic, and were randomly assigned to be either 'for' or 'against' the issue, then we researched arguments and debated. It was gun control, and the whole class actually thought it was a good thing, yet half of us had to pretend we didn't and argue against it. Didn't really learn anything doing that either.

Jiggly Once again, our university policy states that trans women are women and trans men are men. I would imagine many, if not all, universities have the same or similar policies. That policy, and the zero tolerance policy against transphobia allows trans people on campus to live and work in an environment that supports them.

very Really? What about the news, especially the news from America, we regularly talk about current events and LGBTA rights. We also talk about books and movies, and tv shows and fandoms lol

confoozed I totally agree with you that the process of applying for PIP, getting support (any kind of support) is hugely inhumane, although I don't know what gender self-ID laws have to do with that? Other than trans people who are disabled are at an even further disadvantage. There should absolutely be an overhaul of that system, because people are having to show increasingly unreasonable levels of evidence to qualify, and the help is far too easily stripped away. I say that as a disabled person who is fortunate not to need any extra support from the government (DSA at university is much easier to apply for, although it doesn't give you money if you can't work).

loops you didn't learn anything from trying to see something from a different viewpoint? Gun control is a bit obvious as a topic, granted, but surely the whole process of learning (as opposed to being taught) is looking at topics from different perspectives and trying out alternative ideas? I'm saddened about universities and students.

That kind of debating is a really useful learning tool. It's important to be able to look at an issue from a range of different positions. That way you can develop a critically informed position on a debate.

In my experience, however, some students are unwilling to reconsider their own positions so they self-limit the usefulness of the exercise. However, where the students have embraced the exercise, I have had several seminar groups where the groups who were given the position that all the students implicitly disagreed with won the debate. This was because they actually had to work at research and formulating convincing arguments. The other groups were far more complacent and, as a result, were unable to convince anyone when asked to judge who produced the best, and most well-evidenced, argument.

loops because there is a huge diffrence between having to show a reasonable amount of evidence and diagnosis, to having to show NONE and being taken simply at your word.

The risk is with gender self-identification is that is can be mis-used by unscrupulous people and for entitlements that are gender linked inclduing bursaries and awards currently aimed at biological women, and that the ethos that is being carried along with it is that self-identification is more important than any other issue - but wierdly only if you a trans person, not any other kind of person.

The way things stand now is that a reasonable amount of evidence is required and I would have thought that that validates someone's trans/ gender issues.

In particular, my complacent students arguing for what they already thought tend to be much, much poorer at rebutting arguments against their own point of view. Many of them seem to think that they are just 'right' so there's no need to rebut 'wrong' arguments.

confoozed Ok yeh, I see what you mean. But what about awards or scholarships for LGBT people, you don't have to 'prove' you're really gay to access them, you just apply if you're eligible. If a transwoman competes for an award or scholarship against other women and wins, I don't see it as taking that away from a woman because that transwoman is a woman. A woman who wrote the best essay or had the best argument, was the most deserving.

These kinds of awards are also often hugely subjective (Glamour woman of the year that went to Caitlyn Jenner) and I don't always agree with the people they choose to win, but not because they're trans.

cardi I learnt that people against gun control are even worse people than I already thought. But then I already knew most of the arguments against gun control so it was probably just the topic rather than the exercise, if I had to debate something I knew less about then I'd probably learn more, not that 'learning' means agreeing or thinking that a viewpoint is good or valuable, it can also just strengthen your already held beliefs.

Absolutely Milady
I'm a secondary English teacher and I also coach the school debating team. They have to be able to come up with for and against arguments for topics in 15 minutes without research for BP style debates. It makes them mentally very agile and tough. I don't see this in the trans 'debate'. There's a lot of 'because it is the policy' and 'because I feel it' and not much objective argument.

At this point, I'd like to just mention and apologise that my posts are a bir random and disjointed and don't always reply to others properly because I have medical issues that make it hard for me to read and formulate replies without taking hours to note who has said what and when and remember it all! Sorry :)

It really annoys me, but if I didn't just go for it, I would never say anything at all.

loops - bad people or people with bad arguments? That's quite an emotional thing to take away from academic debate. Maybe that approach is what fuels the judgemental approach of the gender in-critical: I don't agree with your views so you are a bad person for holding them. (And some of the gender critical with emotive language too). Perhaps that's the problem. Take the emotion out of the debate and look at the actual facts and the arguments presented in favour/against them.

milady that's actually what happened in our debate, we (the anti) side won, but what does 'winning' a debate matter if the argument is terrible. It just feels so meaningless because you're not arguing against or for something you actually believe in, it's just an exercise in being fake.

Making an argument is not being fake! Having presented the anti arguments so successfully, could you not see better ways to argue against them? Or see why the old ways weren't working?

Confoozed, your posts make perfect sense, don't worry.

Those threads move so fast it is hard to reply to everyone, even without having medical issues.

cardi people who view their own personal right to have a mini-gun shop in their houses above the right of primary school children to go to school without the risk of being murdered are bad people. They additionally also have bad arguments.

Those things are not mutually exclusive. It is ok to think that some beliefs are wrong, actively contribute to the negative experiences of a group in society, and to not give those beliefs equal 'space' in your discussions. Not every opinion deserves the same treatment, some opinions are just bad.

Saying that, I think it is possible to 'critique' gender, without saying that it doesn't exist and trans people are a product of the patriarchy. Most people will agree that gender stereotypes harm everyone, but that doesn't mean that gender identity doesn't and can't exist.

confoozed don't worry, I am the same, it takes me ages and then people have said like 6 other things and I've missed posts. Disjointed is fine.

loops but with LGB awards, anyone who knew differently could expose the applicant as ineligible eg a man who claimed he was gay but actually in a fully heterosexual marriage with a woman could be exposed as a fraud.

If a man wants to say he is a woman despite not dressing as a woman and choosing to keep his penis and not taking HRT, and having relationships with women, then that just makes a mockery of everything, including the experience of genuine trans people's who want to pass as the opposite sex, as no one could say actually this man is a fraud and taking the piss. It actually makes gender redundant, but becaise of the blurring of gender and sex this will mean women can't be protected eg with choosing a femal nurse or at rape crisis etc.

And sport. No one is ever going ot be able to convince me that a transwoman should be allowed to compete against biological women in sex-segregated sports because of the actual factual and scientific advantages they have. Where there is no biological advantage eg horse riding, then there is no sex segregation.

Why is it that a white person (white privilege) self identifying as a black person, or a native American, would quite rightly be condemned for cultural appropriation, but a man (male privilege) self identifying as a woman, even if only temporarily, and with no hormonal or surgical changes, is applauded?

Both involve someone from the dominant class/group encroaching upon hard won rights, and experiences, of the oppressed group. Both involve denial of biology.

This gives me enormous cognitive dissonance.

cardi Ok!! Yes! Now I see where you're coming from, sorry for being slow. It is a helpful exercise in debate skills, but I don't think you need to disagree to do that, you can just discuss the other side's POV without actually being 'for' those views.