academics' letter in the Guardian

[morningtoncrescent62]

I know it's been said before, but I still find this shocking:

Many of our universities have close links with trans advocacy organisations who provide “training” of academics and management, and who, it is reasonable to suppose, influence university policy through these links. Definitions used by these organisations of what counts as “transphobic” can be dangerously all-encompassing and go well beyond what a reasonable law would describe. They would not withstand academic analysis, and yet their effect is to curtail academic freedom and facilitate the censoring of academic work.

How on earth did it come to this? Universities are huge, powerful institutions, surely they should be able to stand up for basic academic freedoms against these 'trans advocacy groups'.

We maintain that it is not transphobic to investigate and analyse this area from a range of critical academic perspectives. We think this research is sorely needed, and urge the government to take the lead in protecting any such research from ideologically driven attack.

Good for you, especially when you'll probably be targeted for abuse now, and your careers are in the toilet (that'll be the gender-neutral toilet of course). And is the Guardian waking up at last to this wholesale assault on women's rights?

Sorry, forgot the link

Looks like most of the signatories are women too.

I think the dam is cracking if the woke grauniad is prepared to carry this.

Excellent stuff thanks for the link.

That the message needs repeating again and again and again and again is tiresome but we cannot lose enlightenment values of knowledge being accountable to reason and the scientific method...certainly not for a load of unprovable beliefs (tosh) anyhow

Undemocratic shame that the government appears so resistant to evidence
.

Quite right that this is in the Guardian! I expect they felt they had to publish it as their reputation is now so awful for censorship, especially of women.
But an important letter!

There's another thread on this.

I am so encouraged to read this. I work in a non-academic role at one of the institutions listed by the signatories, and I honestly find the political atmosphere stifling. It’s changed so much in the last couple of years. This courageous letter is a step in the right direction.

They are absolutely right

Thank goodness academics have had the courage to organize and stand up for tolerance, science and academic enquiry against the bullies. We need light and sanity to return to academia.

That's interesting Hilbo.
I left academia a decade or so ago before all this kicked off and I think I would have found it very hard to negotiate this in a department that was already very right on in a way that could sometimes get nasty (certain people using competitive political correctness as a form of power play).

A decade ago was when I joined Countess and it was an absolute breezy delight in my office compared to where we are now. My friend on the LGBT staff group, who’s a biologist, says he cannot possibly speak up against the TWAW brigade for fearing he’ll be brought up in front of HR. We’re now being trained in dealing with micro-aggressions. People are “offended” by stuff very easily. And on and on. It shuts you down. I work in one of the nicest offices in the college but even so it makes for a claustrophic atmosphere.

They are brave. I’d be scared to put my name to such a letter! Scared I’d be accused of being the uni into disrepute or something!

'Competitive political correctness as a form of power play'