Work/study at a university? Great collection of guidance (by Kathleen Stock)

[FanEffinTastic]

kathleenstock.com/highlights-of-trans-policies-in-uk-universities/

Lots of excellent behaviour-policing, but my favourite (from university of Leeds) is unashamed thought policing:
"“Think of people as being the gender that they self-identify as.”

I had to read ‘bigender’ twice.

I still don’t understand how they a) have identified infinite genders b) how someone can know that they identify as infinite genders (pangender). Also how does pangender relate to pansexual?

There seems to be a lack of consensus on the number of genders - I wonder how they will resolve that.

So glad I’m not at uni now and praying that they sort this stuff out before dd s are ready to go.

I had to read ‘bigender’ twice.

That's a Lilliputian computer scientist who works on network protocols rather than processor architecture, of course.

(Sorry... I suppose I ought to read the piece but that may be my most cogent argument on this thread)

University of Kent:

"... Demigender: A person who feels partially, but not completely, connected to a particular gender identity.

Demifluid: A person whose gender identity is partially fluid whilst the other part(s) are static.

Demiflux: A person whose gender identity is partially fluid, with the other part(s) being static. This differs from demifluid as flux indicates that one of the genders is non-binary.”

De Montford:

"... Gender-neutral pronouns include: they/them/their/themselves; che/chim/chis/chimself; E/Em/Eir/Eirs/Emself; Per(person)/pers/perself; Xe/ hir/ hirs/ hirself. Language is continually shifting and previously used terms may no longer be appropriate”

THAT is what we are losing our sex based rights to ?????

Wow, just wow. Truly captured. Have a dc who will shortly be applying for uni - would love to hear that there might be unis out there who don't subscribe to this nonsense.

@thereplycamefromanchorage

Wow, just wow. Truly captured. Have a dc who will shortly be applying for uni - would love to hear that there might be unis out there who don't subscribe to this nonsense.

The bit that would also concern me is unis with a single gender policy in shared accommodation. If a female student got allocated a shared room in halls they could be put in with a self identifying male-bodied person. My dh initial reaction was ‘well you could pay to have a single room’ but it is not always as simple as that - despite it being something to need to do every year there still seem to be issues with a lack of accommodation and students often get housed in whatever is available so that wouldn’t be a solution. Also when I went to uni, the girls who shared (as long as they got on) had a great time bonding so it would be so sad if girls miss out on that potential experience because they can no longer rely on single sex allocation.

The difficulty as well will be that few freshers will have the confidence to complain and risk being labelled as a raging t*sphbe at the start of term. I really do worry for the girls with that and the mixed sex toilets.

@thereplycamefromanchorage

Wow, just wow. Truly captured. Have a dc who will shortly be applying for uni - would love to hear that there might be unis out there who don't subscribe to this nonsense.

Good luck finding one. Having said that, I did spot the trans officer at my university having a Twitter tantrum because the senior management had refused to pander to their latest demands, so there is hope that some more measured individuals are perhaps starting to realise that things have gone far enough.

@ErrolTheDragon

I had to read ‘bigender’ twice.

That's a Lilliputian computer scientist who works on network protocols rather than processor architecture, of course.

(Sorry... I suppose I ought to read the piece but that may be my most cogent argument on this thread)

Thanks !

I am seriously thinking again about the value of a university education. The costs, the treatment of undergraduates during covid, the teaching of lies, the lack of backbone of the academy. At one time the argument was that a degree would denote free thinkers, confident in intellectual argument, skilled in foundational thought. I don't see it anymore. Moreoever, as parents, the costs are phenomenal. I am not clear what the route is to making change, but as parents supporting kids at uni we are partly supporting this dangerous nonsense.

JoodyBlue - we need parents to start asking questions at open days. You have more power than we do as, ultimately, all university management cares about is income. Ask what the culture is around academic freedom. What would happen if students or staff tried to no-platform a speaker? Does the university demand that tutors teach modules that take a pre-determined position on controversial issues (e.g. the Oxford Brookes policy that is quoted in the link)? What rights does your daughter have to a single-sex bedroom (if there is any shared accommodation) or changing room at the gym?

@JoodyBlue
Yep. There's always been a decent argument that organised education essentially equates conformity and high achievement. The transparency of this now is breathtaking. The value of uni education is highly debatable, and I'd be careful of recommending it to young people in general.

Subject to the agreement of the individual, and except for degree certificates, a written notification of intent to transition is sufficient for the gender and name on staff and student records to be changed. This is necessary to enable the person to go about their daily life as a staff member or student without their sex assigned at birth being known.

This is from Bristol Uni. I guess, regardless of any other policy, if they allow students to register or update their sex based only on a signed declaration, the accommodation office have no way of reliably allocating same sex accommodation.

They do have a single sex accommodation policy but that is pointless if they allow students to change their sex on their records.

At least if it is not a deliberate policy (I think we heard from someone who works at another uni with a same gender policy?), then it might be easier for someone to complain and get moved.

Presumably, if they did gather the relevant information, they could ensure that transwomen get to share with each other :-)

che/chim/chis

🤣😂🤣🤣🤣😂🤣😂🤣

I think there is a marked contrast between the stress these policies place on subjective concepts of identity ("Think of the person as being the gender that they want you to think of them as.") and the insistence that 'trans' is a quantifiable group.

Post modern theory doesn't play well with statistics and legislation.

There is a right way to accommodate trans people and women/girls, while protecting everyone’s privacy. Private information including grades, parental income, etc, is something that unis already have the infrastructure to deal with. Including someone’s bio sex as this sort of information to be used when doing things like assigning people rooms should be trivial.

I think it would be Fine if a female student opts in to room with anyone of either sex that has a female gender identity, or with anyone of the same sex and any gender identity. Or, if she only wants to room with someone of the same sex and gender ID I think this should also be supported. Like is currently done for Things like sending out bills/scholarship applications materials, or grades, it can be done “under the hood” algorithmically without any human knowing the persons sex or gender ID.

But trans women don’t want that. They want to be viewed in literally every way as identical to women. I understand this. But we all know it’s a polite fiction, and that other people exist whose feelings about privacy and bodily autonomy are based on sex, not on “gender”. You can force people to say something they don’t believe, but you can’t force people to believe it.

It's also quite a bad understanding (unsubtle, lack of nuance, inaccurate) of po-mo theory ...

But rest assured @thereplycamefromanchorage there are academics like me - I've just taught a women's history course, where I talked about female biology and female life patterns & the ways that pregnancy has rarely been accommodated in a society structured around the male body & male life patterns. We also studied women's suffrage & the suffragettes. And I told them about the Contagious Diseases Acts.

No complaints of transphobia (yet). Interestingly, the serious complaint of transphobia against me a couple of years ago was made by students whom I had never met, let alone taught. Yet, they were so sure that my Twitter feed showed that I was dangerous & they just couldn't be expected to be in the same room with me.

@GCAcademic

JoodyBlue - we need parents to start asking questions at open days. You have more power than we do as, ultimately, all university management cares about is income. Ask what the culture is around academic freedom. What would happen if students or staff tried to no-platform a speaker? Does the university demand that tutors teach modules that take a pre-determined position on controversial issues (e.g. the Oxford Brookes policy that is quoted in the link)? What rights does your daughter have to a single-sex bedroom (if there is any shared accommodation) or changing room at the gym?

Mine will be going soon although he is thinking of deferring a year but you can be damn sure I will be asking those questions, particularly focusing on academic freedom and freedom of debate. I have worked in several universities and I am disgusted at what is happening there.

So ridiculous. In 50 years, we'll either be crying with laughter at the list of quotes or just plain crying...

"Demifluid: A person whose gender identity is partially fluid whilst the other part(s) are static.
Demiflux: A person whose gender identity is partially fluid, with the other part(s) being static. This differs from demifluid as flux indicates that one of the genders is non-binary.”

Wtaf... They have got to be trolling, right? I used to think it was only right-wing conspiracy theorists who talked about the end of 'western civilisation' but when I read the above, it does cross my mind...

I also read bigender as big-ender. I prefer it, tbh. I think I could legitimately identify as a big-ender myself.

This whole stuff is beyond moronic, and to think it is being peddled by the one group of people whose entire job is to think critically is too dispiriting for words.

I suppose it takes the 3 years to get to grips with the gender stuff and therefore that's why students are now dafter when they leave

Is there anything we can do as students to challenge this from within universities?

I mean, the policy attached to my institution seems directly at odds with the commitment I signed up for when joining, never mind the law protecting academic freedom. It's also discriminatory towards the neuro-diverse. IMO no one should alter their thoughts because an authority figure tells them too, but it's worth noting that even with a willing intent, not everyone can.

I find it hilarious that people who have the luxury of coming up with something like ‘demiflux’ as a self-descriptor probably consider themselves somehow marginalised, rather than highly privileged, pretentious and narcissistic.

Many thanks to Kathleen Stock for all her dogged work over the years and for putting this together.
I work at the University of Kent which has the nonsense about Demigender, Demifluid and Demiflux in it's 37 (!) pages of guidelines. To my knowledge, this policy has not been widely publicised or circulated to staff - I first saw it here on this thread.
I am an academic and very gender critical, so it may only be a matter of time before I find myself in trouble. But I swear to God, if anyone challenges me, I am going to claim to be Demiflux - after all, they can't prove I'm not.

It's just a hunch, but I think most academics see this for the nonsense it is. They just choose to keep quiet about it out of a sense of self-preservation. What do others think? I'd be interested to hear from people working in academia.

"Are there any other equivalently heavy-handed policies for any other minority group on campus? (I'll answer that one: no, there are not)."

This is the telling thing.

I am truly thankful that I got out of working in a university before this ideology took its stranglehold. I left only two years ago but the signs were there that it was beginning to take hold. We had a new non-academic transwoman staff member who was the only person in the entire institute who wore a skirt and heels, and I read in the news after I'd left that they had become chair of the LGBT soc and were demanding all sorts of things. Nothing to do with LGB and all to do with T by the looks of it. I'd definitely have found myself in trouble had I stayed.