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.”

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

I work somewhere where the senior management are saying that disabled and clinically vulnerable students and staff are now a "disproportionate burden" and that their needs can't be accommodated within the campus environment during the pandemic. Those needs being actual, physical ones, btw, not imagined ones.

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.

The senior staff in my department are all gender critical. They are all men, and openly criticise the ideology. A previous female professor also was, but would literally whisper her concerns to me. There's a deeply misogynistic culture in universities and it's always female academics who are persecuted, threatened and no-platformed.

There's a deeply misogynistic culture in universities and it's always female academics who are persecuted, threatened and no-platformed.

That's so depressing. And I assume the gc men don't stand up for the women who are being no-platformed?

What I don't understand is that if most people think this ideology is nonsense where the pressure comes from. Is it HR? Students? Senior management? It's such a bizarre situation where the majority of academics in an institution are so cowed that they feel they have to go along with an utterly bonkers set of ideas.

I work somewhere where the senior management are saying that disabled and clinically vulnerable students and staff are now a "disproportionate burden" and that their needs can't be accommodated within the campus environment during the pandemic. Those needs being actual, physical ones, btw, not imagined ones

Good LOrd! that is utterly appalling @GCAcademic. Just awful.

And to @TirisfalPumpkin thank you so much for asking what students can do. You can support feminist staff, you can ask questions in seminars, you can talk to feminist staff one to one (I refuse to add "gender critical" any feminist worth her salt is gender critical, it's kind of the point).

I will freely admit, I am a coward in comparison to wonderwomen such as Selina Todd, or Kathleen Stock, or any number of academic women who've put their nose over the parapet. I was the subject of a complaint (my story is in Prof. Stock's collection on Medium) and those 3 months dealing with it, and the prospect of disciplinary action (students wanted me sacked) were some of the worst of my life. I don't have the domestic support (or the guts, to be honest) to do it again. I do my quiet under-the radar version of activism by teaching women's history in various forms. If you have a tutor or lecturers who do this, make contact with them - they'll love to talk to you - honest! (I've just written several references for students going on to do MAs in Women's studies).

No one should apologise for doing the activism they can do, QueenoftheAir - it isn't cowardice at all. Definitely not up for this performative 'doesn't count unless you're getting dragged off in handcuffs' stuff.

Don't know if we have any openly GC staff here, will look into it. The university is deeply saturated in woke (it seems to coagulate in particular locations, ever noticed this?) but I didn't go to study philosophy to be told what I can and can't think.

I wish someone (would probably have to be someone about to retire) would change their pronouns everyday and inform everyone else everyday and make everyone in every meeting they attended announce their pronouns and reprimand anyone who mis-zee/che/she-s them. Every single time. And then see if people still want to go ahead with it.

I think it’s really important that parents, prospective students and also students press institutions on this. Approach academics, not support staff in HR or admissions bureaucracies, because it’s us academics who need evidence that extreme gender identity orthodoxy (of the sort documented by Stock) is damaging recruitment. Ask about equalities policies and balancing competing rights, and viewpoint diversity.

Many academics are very uncomfortable about this, they are bright people who understand the logical consequences of TWAW. They have to be told that the issue won’t go away if everyone could be just a little bit nicer on twitter.

Ask about equalities policies and balancing competing rights, and viewpoint diversity.

Absolutely. It’s worth pointing out that this intolerance is not restricted to gender identity matters. In the last year at my university, there have also been attempts to get one academic disciplined for anti-semitism and another for racism (both lecturers did no more than read out excepts from historical or media texts in lectures, and were careful to frame the material and give content warnings), Jewish students trying to no-platform a pro-Palestinian speaker, Muslim students trying to shut down a Jewish society event, and Chinese students making some very nasty threats to students from Hong Kong who supported the pro-democracy activism. It’s pervasive, across many groups on campuses. I found it really illuminating to see the correspondences between the tactics of the authoritarian Chinese students and those of TRAs (both seem to involve threats of violence, following individuals on campus, singling out women, etc).

"Try introducing your colleagues in such a way that makes their pronouns clear"
God I would find that really patronising.

“Any historical content or comparative content containing what is now recognised as transphobic material needs to be clearly labelled with a trigger warning.”
Hmm, yeah, good luck writing up archaeological finds where you've sexed the skeleton based on its actual anatomy, then.

"Denial of an individual’s gender identity – for example denying that a person is trans, nonbinary or intersex"
Because they can't go five minutes without dragging intersex individuals into this, despite repeatedly being asked not to.

This whole thing smacks of a desperate attempt to legitimize people who found out otherkin wasn't real and they weren't really an elf/fairy/dragon/whatever.

So. Much. Bollocks.

If there’s a more appropriate thread, please repost this and share, but the Office for Students are looking for several Advisory Board members at the moment in case anyone wants to apply:
publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/non-executive-directors-at-the-office-for-students/
Closes 23 August, 9K a year.

Utter utter puffinwankery.

How can anyone write those words down and expect them to be taken seriously?

We need a Chris Morris type to come along and do a Brass Eye type job on this, but I suspect that we are now waaaaaay beyond parody.

Someone unplug the Internet please, I want to get off.