The Times - smear campaign by trans lecturer at Goldsmiths

[tiredandweary]

The Times reporting on the smear campaign against academics run by 'Natacha Kennedy' of Goldsmiths. Given how movingly women academics have written here about the fear and intimidation they experience working in universities, how good to see the source of the bullying exposed. share token:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-goldsmiths-lecturer-natacha-kennedy-behind-smear-campaign-against-academics-f2zqbl222?shareToken=c2e850050d0c9913ecbcbbb9b0e9ccfb

And a brilliant article by Janice Turner about dangerous trans rapists in women's jails:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-rapists-are-a-danger-in-women-s-jails-5vhgh57pt?shareToken=a5c5b379f8c0f6ccd446176a676344e6

So pleased that I took out a subscription to the Times.

Gendercritter

For people confused about he/him lesbians - my little brother is one. He identifies as a trans girl but he’s only 11 and isn’t comfortable switching his pronouns over yet. He likes girls. Therefore, he’s a he/him lesbian. Thank you for your time.

Huh?

It was a post in among the twitter threads that caught my eye. Made me think about the confused younger sibs of these people.

Bob and Roberta Smith studied at Goldsmiths College. Sort of works when you’re an artist, not sure it’s a good look on an academic, tbh.

I posted this in AIBU about an hour ago but had no response yet. Anyone wanna bump it up?

Hipsterfun

That’s PoMo all over - works for art, not so good for appropriate medical care or law making!

PoMo: Enjoy as part of a balanced diet.

GenderTrender have been digging.

They say Kennedy tried to establish a trans children community called transkids. And when that didn't take off, advertised for children research subjects.

Can you just do this willy-nilly? Kennedy was promising confidentiality across the board.

The picture in the transkids graphic is disturbing.

gendertrender.wordpress.com/2018/09/08/all-the-named-academics-were-women-the-curious-campaign-of-goldsmith-universitys-mark-hellen/#comments

GenderTrender have been digging

I see that one of the TIMs in Natacha's Facebook Conspirators Group was none other than Sahra Rae Taylor. She was on the Executive of the Green Party, holding some sort of portfolio until this year's elections. Young Greens. LBGTQWERTY. Challenor's chum.

www.city.ac.uk/arts-social-sciences/international-politics/research/phd-students/sahra-taylor

The picture in the transkids graphic is disturbing.

Isn’t it just!

I daresay we’re all thinking the same things about this person, tbh.

@Datun any research involving human participants should go through university ethics procedures. I wonder whether it did though?

The regulator of research on human subjects, the health Research Authority offers a handy guide to telling if a project is research or not.
Then it sets out what approvals are needed.
www.hra.nhs.uk/approvals-amendments/what-approvals-do-i-need/

Feel so stupid that this has been going on so long and I was completely unaware.

Fuck! That does explain how badly groomed NSPCC is though and their piss poor behaviour on that shitshow of a thread.

That is quite a smoking gun, partystress.

Indeed IamLurkacus. And yet it was the questions we were posing that was the problem according to a lot of people. I have had such an education in the last few months. I have gone from being alerted to the impact of self-id, to realising I am 'GC', to worrying about 'transkids' and just not being able to work out who benefits. I thought maybe Big Pharma. In the last couple of weeks I have winced a bit as the Aimee story has been linked to the GRA campaign and thought it was an unfair conflation. But actually, looking at the 2010 NK/MH article, the Meg-John BACP guidelines, the Children in Need funding and all those bodies that have adopted policies informed by Mermaids and the like, and the City of London consultation and the fact the 5 years ago the NSPCC was being, yes, I do now think groomed, I do start to feel a bit sick.

Apart from anything else, this person has two identities and two jobs at Goldsmiths. Hopefully not two salaries on the public purse...

The story is also in the Daily Mail. How strange- no Guardian or Observer report this weekend?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6145781/University-researcher-asked-Facebook-group-circulate-list-academics-disagreed-her.html

The Mail notes ‘The University also did not clarify why one academic paper appeared to cite Mark Hellen and Natacha Kennedy as co-authors on a paper, when they appeared to be the same person’.

The UK Research integrity office - which is applicable to all research- provide guidance:

ukrio.org/publications/code-of-practice-for-research/3-0-standards-for-organisations-and-researchers/3-15-publication-and-authorship/
3.15 Publication and authorship

3.15.5 Authorship should be restricted to those contributors and collaborators who have made a significant intellectual or practical contribution to the work. No person who fulfils the criteria for authorship should be excluded from the submitted work. Authorship should not be allocated to honorary or “guest” authors (i.e. those that do not fulfil criteria of authorship).
Researchers should be aware that anyone listed as an author of any work should be prepared to take public responsibility for that work and ensure its accuracy, and be able to identify their contribution to it.

So even if some wanted to thank or acknowledge themselves for their contribution under another name, It should not be done as an author:

3.15.6 Researchers should list the work of all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship in an acknowledgements section. All funders and sponsors of research should be clearly acknowledged and any competing interests listed.

Here’s the recommendation on the same page relevant if researchers that are facing harassment from publishing their own gender critical work freely- their organisation need to step up, essentially:

’3.15.11 Researchers who are discouraged from publishing and disseminating their research or its findings, or subjected to attempts to influence the presentation or interpretation of findings inappropriately, should discuss this with the appropriate person(s) in their organisation so that the matter can be resolved.’

From the Gendertrender article. Mark Hellen / Natacha Kennedy establishes their credentials for the recruitment of young people to interview including:
Guardian
Well known to Trans Media Watch.
Friends with Christine Burns & Stephen Whittle (both key members of Press For Change) & Paris Lees

2013 article in Guardian discusses formation of Press for Change, also interviews Whittle, Burns and Lees (as well as Sarah Brown (LibDem prominant TRA, Stonewall Trans Advisory group)

(extracts)
"Much of their campaigning remained on the quiet. The passage of the 2004 law to give trans people legal status was "remarkable," says Burns, because "the government was able to pass an entire act in parliament without anyone throwing a fit in the press" (continues)

"In 25 years, [James] Barrett has seen trans people become "a networked bunch" – more so than other people, he thinks – thanks to the internet. Lees, who also works for Trans Media Action, says social media is the "essential catalyst" for the transformation of trans people in society. "Society is in transition and we've woken up from the operation and there's no going back. We can't pretend that trans people don't exist any more," she says. "People have been taking the piss out of trans people for 60 years. The narrative on trans issues has been controlled by people who have no understanding of them. Social media is about us grabbing the narrative back and telling our own stories – this is our reality, this is what we go through and this is what matters to us. We're here, we're in your face, we definitely exist. That's the most important thing – realising we exist." (continues)

www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/22/voices-from-trans-community-prejudice

partystress
The NSPCC proposed live talk still exists and, I believe at some point, will have to be considered.

It would be worthwhile asking a question there about the degree to which Mark Hellen and Paris Lees shaped NSPCC policy given your post above and this current thread.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_facebook_live/3343961-Facebook-Live-about-talking-to-kids-about-staying-safe-from-abuse-with-NSPCC

Another godo one from the Sunday Times today

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/why-was-convicted-paedophile-allowed-to-move-to-a-female-jail-nmpbfm272

It starts as follows and is very well written. Well done to The Sunday Times.

"Like most other women’s jails, HMP New Hall, near Wakefield, reflects the fact that women behave better towards each other than men. There are no Victorian wings with rows of cells. Instead the prisoners, even the high-security ones, mix freely together in what inspectors called a “fundamentally safe and respectful” place, with “very few” locked up during the core prison day.

Showers and some “rooms,” as New Hall calls cells, are also shared. There are even children: a mother-and-baby unit accommodates up to 10 infants aged under two.

Into this safe and respectful environment was placed a convicted paedophile who was on remand for multiple rapes, with a long record of other sexual and violent offences committed, as a man, against women.

Yet Karen White, formerly known as Stephen Wood, then as David Thompson, told the authorities she now identified as a transgender woman and wanted to be sent to a women’s prison. Remarkably, even though her full offending record was available to them, her male body was fully intact and she had undergone no physical transition or legal change of gender, they agreed.

Within days of arrival at New Hall, White sexually attacked female inmates, committing four such assaults before being moved to a men’s jail. The whole saga finally became public last week, when White pleaded guilty to the last of the rape charges.

Today a friend of one of Wood’s rape victims tells The Sunday Times she is “furious and absolutely flabbergasted” at the failures of the Prison Service."

Goldsmiths’ page on research ethics sets out their approvals process for all research by their academics involving human subjects:
www.gold.ac.uk/research/ethics/

I couldn’t see a page where you can read a lay summary of every Goldsmiths’ project which has had the university’s research ethical approval, which many ethics committees provide, but they do provide contact details on the page.

Goldsmiths could be asked to demonstrate the details of any relevant approval and details of how it was arrived at. They’d also have to respond to an FOI asking about any research approvals they gave for the relevant research with children and for how they reached the decision- REC meetings are always minuted.

Goldsmiths define children as a vulnerable group of research subjects (which is normal and is the correct definition in research terms so that is good):

Goldsmiths are also a signatory to the Universities UK Concordat to Support Research Integrity. Again, that is a good sign.

See my UK Research integrity office (UKRIO) post above in relation to guidance on authorship: the Goldsmiths page says:

Applicants should, in the first instance, consider the UKRIO Code of Good Practice that we have adopted as our institutional code of practice.

That UKRIO Code of Practice would not appear to be adhered to by co-authoring a paper with yourself -so if this is what has happened- then that would be definitely something for Goldsmiths to think about.

Finally I don’t know who the funder of the relevant research was, but funders often will have their own requirements about ethical research review.

Eg (i don’t know if this is the relevant funder in this case)- but just as an example, a substantial funder of social research is the ESRC, who in their guidance says:

The ethics principles set out in this framework provide the basis for reviewing research proposals. These principles should be considered in relation to the nature of the research outlined, the context in which it is undertaken and the accepted norms and standards set by professional societies, disciplinary bodies and research organisations (ROs). Researchers, ROs and research ethics committees (RECs) must ensure all proposals that have been recommended for funding by the ESRC are appropriately reviewed before the actual research commences.

esrc.ukri.org/funding/guidance-for-applicants/research-ethics/criteria-for-research-ethics-committee-review/

Sorry to be flippant but I wonder if he got paid twice as a co-author?

Oh and the Guardian and BBC barely reporting this is looking glaringly bad now.

The picture in the transkids graphic is disturbing

Christ that's inappropriate for a children's org. Absolutely zero self awareness and quite chilling.

Something I saw through following various links here suggested that NK/MH is doing a Ph.D. at the Institute of Education which is now part of UCL. Would any ethical approval be through UCL? I'm no expert on this but surely an academic/student go off and invite children in for interview with no ethical scrutiny at all?