GC Academic/ Professional Services support thread

[VictoriaLucas102]

I’ve noticed quite a few university colleagues pop up on different threads so thought it might be worthwhile having a dedicated support thread.

I work/ teach in a university in the north of England. I was pretty active on Twitter (professionally but also posting GC stuff) until I had an anonymous complaint (which was ridiculous and ignored by my HoD) and then a senior colleague unfollowed me after I tweeted that biology was real (and that really freaked me out). Consequently I ‘shut up’ and left twitter and have since felt like a coward for doing so. It wasn’t so much about the impact to my own career, but I work in collaboration with colleagues who I truly like and respect and the thought of their work being tainted by my beliefs/actions was just too much for me to cope with.

I know of 3 or 4 male colleagues and a couple of female colleagues who have voiced concerns but otherwise I feel so utterly isolated. Even my closest colleagues, who I would also consider friends, I just cannot even broach this with them.

I know I am not alone but it often feels like I am. I am still very much an ‘early career’ academic (despite my age and professional experience) but then I see what happens to female professors and it makes me even more terrified to put my head over the parapet, and it is not in my nature to ‘keep my mouth shut’ on issues I’m passionate about.

Sorry for the ramble! TLDR; any other GC university folk here who want to chat about stuff ☺️

I also left UCU because of Jo Grady and her use of Terfblocker

Name changed. I am a Social Sciences researcher (fairly junior) at a middling uni. A while ago, when we could all still go into the office and have tea breaks, I had an informal conversation with a colleague who is on the equality and diversity committee for our dept, in which I hinted at my GC views; they didn't seem to be very aware of any of the arguments (eg. was surprised when I mentioned the issue of trans women in prisons as didn't realise this happened), which was in some ways reassuring as clearly not top of their agenda at the time, but also a bit worrying! Like others I then had a series of sleepless nights wondering whether there would be any repercussions... I have expressed my views to anyone since :-(

As someone who spent time in the DDR in the 1980s, this whole thread sounds like something out of East Germany under Communism.

Quite incredible that university academics, professionals and students should feel the need to be silent over biology, wonder who they can trust and only able to express bog-standard views secretly.

Anyone who supports No Debate or attacks gender critical women - you are on the same side as the Stasi in this, and will be remembered with similar affection. Your rule is going the same way.

Wow. Just wow.

Quite incredible that university academics, professionals and students should feel the need to be silent over biology, wonder who they can trust and only able to express bog-standard views secretly.

It's the objection to bog standard, reality-based views that is concerning. Academia is so out of touch with reality - the number of very vocal academics on Twitter who see the public as bigoted peasants is worrying. I wonder how long it will be before the public decide they can't tolerate the humanities and social sciences any more and we start to go the way of Hungary. Academia can only hope to occupy a place in society if it offers credible, rational and open thinking.

Absolutely. In fact the whole thing makes me regret my career choice. Academics have feet of clay and will openly suppress fact - I have had male colleagues tell me that although they know men kill women at higher rates they are happy to say transwomen are women. They teach socialisation all day long, discuss toxic masculinity, concur that men pose a threat and then happily accede to the nonsense argument that one only has to report feeling female to magically pose no threat at all. I despise them for their broken thinking and their cowardice. I have also had colleagues contact me to say that they have seen me get bullied and were worried about me - not that they ever bothered to call out the bullying while it was happening. I hate going to work now. I'd happily leave academia if I could find something else to pay the bills.

Yea, I also hugely regret my career choice, for this and many other reasons, to be fair. But yeah, it's pretty disturbing that I avoid mentioning Mumsnet at work. Contract researchers like me are already living precariously. We can't afford to be blackballed (as the Maya Forstater situation aptly demonstrates).

I hear you @CurledUpCat2021. No one can afford to lose their job, and to mention these things is now a clear signal to many that we don't deserve permanent employment. Disgusting.

What does the abbreviation PS mean in this context? Sorry to be dense..

Professional Services

Thank you, was puzzling away!

Well I'm out and proud obviously, though I do also have a "moan about my university anonymously" MN username.
I would really urge anyone in Psychology or anyone in the NW to get in touch - I feel that most of my discipline think the research (including stuff I've publicised/I'm actively researching) is correct but that they can somehow agree with the facts and also "be kind".
I know of a handful of PS/student services/students at my university who are GC but also all the complaints about me being transphobic (apparently saying the menopause affects one sex only is transphobic) have come from non-academics.

I don't know if there are other academics who have kept their heads under the parapet or if they are just all oblivious.

My department (Oxbridge; SocSci) mooted the idea of making all toilets unisex in an all-staff meeting last year. Nobody in the meeting openly objected to the idea although I and some other female colleagues expressed concerns to each other after the meeting (I think the reticence to speak out in the meeting stemmed from the ubiquitous rainbow lanyards / pronouns in email signatures/ general consensus in the department that anything the TRA movement wants should be granted no questions asked in the name of equality). It was the first time it really hit me that the TRA agenda is a direct threat to women's rights, and it's what set me on the course to GC feminism

One of the big worries for me, is that the no-debate has filtered into the media. It has been really obvious with the Guardian and if youy look across the pond, the media supression of anything GC is astounding. I know the consultation on free speech is ongoing (think it now closes at the end of the month) and it would be well worthwhile completing this. Make your views known. It is clearly being brought up as an issue otherwise no need to consult.

committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/307/freedom-of-expression/ extended to 31st January

It’s so depressing isn’t it? I would also leave if there was something else I could realistically do. Although saying that, I do like teaching and researching but I don’t like it when the culture is like this and I am scared I will lose my job for saying the wrong (albeit completely factually correct) thing.

I suspect that many of the academic TRA crowd (the ones who signed the open letter about KS for instance) are using this as some sort of revenge against women they didn’t like anyway. Some of them are so angry and it’s not escaped me that many are precariously employed or had to be precarious for a long time before getting a job. I think the anger directed towards people like KS is partly born out of jealousy.

I think they tell themselves that they are being ‘kind’ which stops them examining what they are doing. With that letter and the pile-on on Twitter I just want to shake some of them and remind them that they are talking about a fucking human being here. It’s so disgusting - hundreds of people who are your colleagues across the world all publicly sharing that they think you’re a vile bigot that they hate. You’d need a rhino’s hide not to let that get to you. Who the fuck do they think they are laying into a woman whose ‘crime’ is just stating that biology is real?

I agree Reality - there have been similar pile-ons against other female professors (e.g. Mary Beard). It stinks of jealousy. The same kind of thing can be seen in other sectors (visual arts, poetry, crafting) where people are clearly relishing taking down a competitor.

The other thing that I note with the KS letter is the number of US-based academics and students who signed it. There is a perceptibly neocolonial relationship between US and UK academia at the moment; we're being thoroughly infected by the authoritarian identity politics and cult-like thinking that has sprung up over there, and I find it extraordinary that these people think they have a stake in who gets an OBE over here.

What can I say. Banned from Twitter, 'queer society' at my uni in Germany asked the president of the university to issue a statement condemning my transphobia (my views are on record, including in article on MLR blog, and they are not transphobic, they are feminist), I have received several death threats, students have disrupted a conference that I was chairing, several academics have blocked me or criticised me both in UK and abroad. A contribution to an edited collection which had been originally invited was so criticised, also without reason, that I decided to withdraw (the editor of the collection had blocked me on Twitter some time before). I think this will do for now.....

Signing in. Am currently working in a stonewall accredited uni in the UK.

@xxyzz

As someone who spent time in the DDR in the 1980s, this whole thread sounds like something out of East Germany under Communism.

Quite incredible that university academics, professionals and students should feel the need to be silent over biology, wonder who they can trust and only able to express bog-standard views secretly.

Anyone who supports No Debate or attacks gender critical women - you are on the same side as the Stasi in this, and will be remembered with similar affection. Your rule is going the same way.

Wow. Just wow.

I asked my university aged daughter if she had ever been taught about the Stasi and East Germany at school and she said no.

Would explain the lack of understanding of totalitarian actions and the subsequent consequences in the younger generation.

This thread is depressing. We must be able to mobilise in some way.

Good grief Alessendra, hi by the way - I saw that you’d got thrown off twitter - shocking! As pp says above, I think these people forget (or don’t care) that they are talking about human beings - they have treated you abominably!

Do you have an opportunity for any legal recourse? Even if only for the death threats - surely the police still take them seriously even if made to a woman?

Lllama well done!

I asked my university aged daughter if she had ever been taught about the Stasi and East Germany at school and she said no

Slight derail, but this is a very good point. Nazis etc are taught, but in such a way that you could come away thinking totalitarianism was specific to Germany and Hitler and could never happen anywhere else or at any other time. This is perhaps why people don’t recognise it.

I’m a student and the ‘what are we allowed to say’ atmosphere is palpable, and very uncomfortable. Much respect to the academics trying to teach and research in it while maintaining their integrity as thinkers and truth seekers.

Thanks for talking about this. I find that this past year or 2 I'm living in an alternate universe and I'm forever dumbfounded at the amount of charities/organisations etc are listening to this.
It feels like a smack in the mouth for women and girls safety, awards, sports.
Only yesterday I got told that my daughter will just need to train harder if she wants more chance of beating a male bodied person in competitive sports. This is crazy.

Kathleen Stock has referenced this thread on Twitter today, in relation to the current furore around her academic work and recent OBE. There are some interesting responses from a number of female academics