GC Academics Targeted for Signing Sunday Times Letter

[RosaFreedman1983]

From today's Sunday Times

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/academic-faces-sack-for-letter-to-sunday-times-that-criticised-trans-training-gnbr8gxgm

Academic faces sack for letter to Sunday Times that criticised training on trans issues
Sian Griffiths and Ewan Somerville

A lecturer who signed an open letter to The Sunday Times criticising LGBT training in universities has been threatened with being sacked as an editor of an academic journal unless she recants.

Sarah Honeychurch, a fellow in the Adam Smith Business School at Glasgow University, was among more than 30 academics who signed the letter in last week’s Sunday Times. It registered “disquiet” over a programme run by the charity Stonewall in which “anti-scientific claims are presented . . . as objective fact”.

The guidance includes instructing academics on using gender neutral pronouns such as “zie” and “ey”, as well as insisting that “one in 100 are born with an intersex trait” and that trans women should be allowed to use female changing rooms.

The letter was organised by Kathleen Stock, a professor at Sussex University. Many lecturers believe academic freedom to debate trans issues is being stifled on campus.

Last week Honeychurch, an editor of the journal Hybrid Pedagogy, received a formal email from Chris Friend, the managing editor, stating: “Unless I have misunderstood the intentions of the letter or the convictions of your signature, I must ask that you resign your position as editor for HPJ.”

Honeychurch said she had been branded a transphobe by students for signing the letter and was worried that her academic contract might not be renewed at Glasgow. But she was not going to back down.

“I’m not going to recant — I signed that letter after hard thought because people get so much abuse simply for wanting discussion,” she said.

Another signatory of the Sunday Times letter, Michele Moore, honorary professor at Essex University, who has edited the journal Disability & Society for many years, is also facing calls to resign after warning that autistic and other children might be harmed if they are wrongly encouraged to question their gender, which could lead to taking hormones and later surgery.

A petition from 750 colleagues calls on her to step down. She said her career hung in the balance because of the campaign, but the journal’s publishers and people from around the world were being supportive.

She added: “Somebody has to say we will talk about the potential harm of transgenderism of children, as many with autism or other social learning problems are being caught up in this.”

Stock said any academic who examined gender identity critically faced intense hostility.

Today more than 1,000 academics have signed a counter letter to The Sunday Times denying that the Stonewall “diversity champions” programme is a threat to academic freedom.

Thank you OldCrone, I really did not notice. Had just decided to send an email and now I don't need to. Clearly too caught up in teen drama hell to pay proper attention (which probably isn't the best time to write an fyi email to a complete stranger anyway).

I couldn't look away from Caroline Pennock's Twitter feed last night. First congratulating herself, then admitting - unprompted - that she hadn't read the Stonewall programme, then trying to bluster it out, then turning on Kathleen Stock and accusing her of organising a pile on (I was actually beginning to feel a bit sorry for her - Caroline - until that point) then getting quite deliciously skewered by Rosa Freedman. And every so often other people popping up - people who are literally paid to read and think and who are possibly marking our kids' exam papers as we speak - to say they'd signed the letter without reading to and so what, nerr nerr.

Several threads but this is one of them: twitter.com/carolinepennock/status/1143198729714974722

Soz, if I'm going to point and laugh at academia I should at least get my own spelling right: 'without reading too'.

ClaireCAIS strangely invisible on that thread when she speaks about the appropriation and othering of intersex people being perpetrated by trans ideology. Amazing how the better and more relevant her point, the less some people can hear her

Hi Charlie

Thanks for that message.

Many people have asked that question on Twitter over many years and particularly over the past 12months, and they have been met by silence or by the 'sex-is-not-what-it-is-but-is-somehing-else-entirely-that-we-cant-quite-explain-but-trust-us-it-is' word salad brigade. Stonewall of course have refused to answer.

Rosa

The ‘science’ stuff they come out with is such a red herring. It doesn’t matter whether it’s complex as to what constitutes male and female. The point is that 99.9% of people on the planet are easily classifiable into one of two sexes. You don’t need any science at all to know or observe that. And across the planet, those people who are classed as female are treated differently and worse than those classed as male. So what does it matter whether there are complex chromosomal issues at work? Nobody cares about that because we cannot see chromosomes but we can determine sex very easily by sight, just as we can with other species. If I go to the doctor tomorrow and discover that I have internal testes, that doesn’t change how I was socialised and how I am perceived by the rest of the world. And nor will not recording my sex on a birth certificate or official documents make a jot of difference to how I am treated. It just means that I cannot name the problem anymore. It becomes an individual problem rather than a class problem. It’s very frustrating when you see people who call themselves feminists try their hardest to dismantle the ability to at least be able to have a record of how women are systematically oppressed (here I am referring to that gender project with the terrible questionnaire, where they want to abolish records of biological sex).

At least CCP’s book has been good at opening many people’s eyes to the dangers of ignoring the female body and although some label her a t*rf, she is much more ‘acceptable’, meaning that talking about her book doesn’t necessarily open you up to harassment and abuse.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s complex as to what constitutes male and female. The point is that 99.9% of people on the planet are easily classifiable into one of two sexes
I thought of this yesterday, when I was listening to a Radio 4 programme about death. They were talking about how hard it is to determine when someone is dead - it used to be when their heart stopped, now it's usually considered to be when the brain stops, but that isn't the conventions in certain religions etc. So, I guess, Jeremy Bentham is actually still alive. And I'm identifying as a ghost.

Recommended read:

www.taylorvinters.com/article/academic-freedom-of-speech-and-trans-rights-policies-does-one-take-precedence-over-the-other-in-universities

You don’t need any science at all to know or observe that.

Quite. People understood the difference between night and day even before they understood that the Earth rotates and the Sun doesn’t ride across the sky in a golden chariot.

They don’t need to know the precise moment that day turns to night, and the distinction between day and night doesn’t disappear because a tiny minority live so far north they have ‘days’ and ‘nights’ that last for months.

We evolved on the savannah and those who didn’t instinctively recognise the difference between the scorching days and the freezing nights didn’t leave descendants; nor did those who did not instinctively recognise the difference between a mate and a competitor.

I’m quite sure that no one engaging in sex has any question whether or not they need worry about contraception, and why or why not, including same sexual partners.

Sexual dimorphism is no mystery at all and it’s pure sophistry to claim that it is.

They were talking about how hard it is to determine when someone is dead - it used to be when their heart stopped, now it's usually considered to be when the brain stops, but that isn't the conventions in certain religions etc.

It’s when your insurance runs out.

Bitter laugh here, Always. Bitter laugh.

I’m quite sure that no one engaging in sex has any question whether or not they need worry about contraception, and why or why not, including same sexual partners.
You'd be surprised, there are all these navel gazing articles about how Xie Didn't Think Xie Could Get Pregnant Because Xie Is Non-Binary.

What? They signed it for you without asking? That’s seriously bad and I would have a serious word with the person who did this.

Which letter is it?

We evolved on the savannah and those who didn’t instinctively recognise the difference between the scorching days and the freezing nights didn’t leave descendants

That made me laugh.

I’m quite sure that no one engaging in sex has any question whether or not they need worry about contraception, and why or why not, including same sexual partners.

Apparently, the pregnancy rate in America for female teens who identify as lesbians is double that of female teens who identify as heterosexual, which suggests that some people may be very, very confused.

Apparently, the pregnancy rate in America for female teens who identify as lesbians is double that of female teens who identify as heterosexual, which suggests that some people may be very, very confused

That's correct.

teenage pregnancy usa lesbian - Google Search
www.google.com/amp/s/www.lifesitenews.com/mobile/news/lesbian-teens-are-getting-pregnant-more-than-twice-as-often-as-their-peers

teenage pregnancy usa lesbian - Google Search

www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN0NZ2AT20150514

Teen pregnancy among sexual minorities linked to abuse: study | AAP News | AAP Gateway

www.aappublications.org/news/2018/03/12/teenpregnancy031218

teenage pregnancy usa lesbian - Google Search
www.google.com/amp/s/www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/2018/04/23/why-are-lgbt-girls-higher-risk-becoming-pregnant%3famp

Lesbian and bisexual women's likelihood of becoming pregnant: a systematic review and meta‐analysis - Hodson - 2017 - BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology - Wiley Online Library
obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1471-0528.14449%4010.1002/%28ISSN%291471-0528%28CAT%29VirtualIssues%28VI%29BJOGCPDPapers

You'd be surprised, there are all these navel gazing articles about how Xie Didn't Think Xie Could Get Pregnant Because Xie Is Non-Binary

From these reports it's a tad more complex than this or just being "very, very confused"

For the girls and young women whom these reports describe as "sexual minorities", abuse, homelessness, coercion to have sex at an earlier age are all factors.

For the girls and young women whom these reports describe as "sexual minorities", abuse, homelessness, coercion to have sex at an earlier age are all factors.

But heterosexual teens also suffer abuse, homelessness, and coercion to have sex; the inherent risks should be based upon being biologically female, rather than on how one identifies. That there is a massive disparity measurable on identity, suggests that the problem is linked to that.

But heterosexual teens also suffer abuse, homelessness, and coercion to have sex; the inherent risks should be based upon being biologically female, rather than on how one identifies. That there is a massive disparity measurable on identity, suggests that the problem is linked to that

Well the risk of a teenage pregnancy is 100% reliant on being biologically female so I think you are missing the point. Here are some quotes from the reports. It would seem to suggest to me that the girls who are exclusively heterosexual may have been expecting to have intercourse and therefore may have been prepared for contraceptive use whereas girls who are lesbian, as one report says, were involved in forced or unplanned sex without contraception.

All five adolescent studies showed higher rates of pregnancies in LB girls compared with heterosexual girls Figures1and2explore this further in lesbian and bisexual women separately. Figure1shows that the rate of pregnancy was significantly higher in teenage samples of lesbians compared with their heterosexual peers

It is unclear why we found higher rates of pregnancy in LB adolescent women, and further research might help, but LB adolescents may need considerable help with advice, support for emergent sexuality, contraception and safe abortion because of the higher risks of teenage pregnancy

It is currently unclear as to why there is a higher rate of pregnancies in teenage LB women than their heterosexual peers and the reasons need to be established

Higher rates of pregnancy in LB adolescents might follow their being more adventurous or sexually active in general, more forced or unplanned sex without contraception, or if they experiment with heterosexuality to persuade themselves that they are heterosexual

It’s difficult to tease out the reasons why young women who aren’t exclusively heterosexual have a higher risk of pregnancy. There are well-established risk factors for teen pregnancy in general populations. For instance, bothchildhood abuseandearly sexual activityare known to increase the risk of teen pregnancy more generally. Some data suggest sexual minorities are exposed to these risk factors more often — although the reasons why aren’t always clear

In a previousstudy, Charlton found that sexual minorities start having sex at younger ages than heterosexual kids do. But it’s not clear yet why sexual minorities are more vulnerable to such risk factors for pregnancy, says Charlton. But we can make some educated hypotheses: A bisexual girl may experience more bullying because she doesn’t dress or look like other girls, or she may be targeted by an abuse perpetrator because she appears more vulnerable. A girl questioning her sexuality might have more and earlier sex with boys in an effort to prove or hide something
In the study, sexual minorities reported suffering higher levels of abuse, mistreatment, and bullying compared with heterosexual girls — and those experiences were important contributors to adolescent pregnancy risk, explaining about half the disparity between heterosexual girls and sexual minorities. It's unknown what explains the other half of the disparity, although it's likely some combination of risk factors unique to LGBTQ teens.

In a recentstudy, Brittany Charlton, a Harvard epidemiologist, and her co-investigators found that girls identifying as "completely heterosexual" had the lowest teen pregnancy risk, while the risk of "mostly heterosexual" girls and lesbians was doubled, and bisexual girls' risk was nearly five-fold in comparison

One finding in Charlton’s latest study hints that internalized stigma might play a role: the earlier that girls in her study sample were aware of same-sex attraction and had sexual contact with girls, the more likely they were to have a pregnancy in adolescence

But fundamentally, we can't yet connect the dots: "We would need more data to really understand what's leading to those risk factors being more common among sexual minorities," Charlton said