University staff given list of banned 'microinsults' they cannot say to trans people

[ChristinaXYZ]

From the Telegraph. the last para make you want to weep -

A Newcastle University spokesman said: "We want our campus to be a welcoming and safe place for everyone who studies, works or visits here, regardless of gender, race, class, age or disability."

But it would seem they are not bothered about making people feel welcome regardless of sex, as they don't even mention it.

Edinburgh University has drawn up phrases that staff cannot use

Amazing.

Other "microinsults" in Edinburgh’s guidance include saying "you’re either man or a woman", "you’re just dressing for effect" or uttering "you’re just trying to be special". Another is engaging in "avoidant behaviour" around trans people.

So, if a woman leaves the women's toilets because a trans woman has just entered and the woman feel uncomfortable, they are engaging in a microagression towards the trans woman?

Another is engaging in "avoidant behaviour" around trans people.

This is one of the particularly sinister aspects. This will outlaw things like avoiding "correct" and specified pronouns by defaulting to "they" or using someone's name. You wait until people are literally compelled to say preferred pronouns instead of using other forms of speech.

Plus forced engagement too. If we look at the aggressive trans activist protests around meetings of gender critical women, one might think that one should be allowed to avoid some of the more aggressive ones.

These are "microaggressions" that "negate or nullify the thoughts, feelings or lived reality of trans and non-binary people"

Perfectly fine to dismiss the lived reality of women though, eh?

Lecturers are urged to wear rainbow lanyards around campus "as a visible sign that you are safe for trans and/or non-binary people"

Grown adults need to see someone wearing a rainbow to feel safe?!

Edinburgh University has drawn up phrases that staff cannot use, including saying "all women hate their periods" and "all people think about being the opposite gender sometimes"

In my own case both of those statements are untrue so I would not be particularly pleased at hearing them being put forward as a universal truth.

Meanwhile, the glass ceiling for women academics lives on unchallenged, women do the bulk of the first year teaching whilst watching younger men shoot ahead with promotions, and there are multiple, daily, aggressions and microaggressions leveled at and experienced by women and no one gives a proverbial.

MissBarbary would you consider those phrases as constituting criminal hatred against you or merely thoughtless, flippant throwaway comments to be either refuted or ignored?

Edinburgh lost all credibility when it renamed David Hume Tower.

Sheffield apparently has blackballed Isaac Newton.

The thing that intrigues me about them is that I cannot in a month of Sundays imagine academic staff saying any of them at work (if at all).

“trans people are offended that gender binaries are assumed to be the norm”

I am confused. Surely the very notion of transitioning from one ‘gender’ to another requires a belief in gender binaries? Otherwise why not just present however you like regardless of sex?

@DaisiesandButtercups

MissBarbary would you consider those phrases as constituting criminal hatred against you or merely thoughtless, flippant throwaway comments to be either refuted or ignored?

I'd view them as Irritating comments intended to draw me into some sort of universal sisterhood of suffering. I'd simply ignore the person saying them as being not worth bothering about.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

The thing that intrigues me about them is that I cannot in a month of Sundays imagine academic staff saying any of them at work (if at all).

Yes , I thought that too.

And while this important work of policing the language of academia goes on female students are being raped on campus. Disabled students have huge issues navigating Edinburgh university's old buildings. Poor students have massive barriers to learning. Foreign students are freezing their tits off because Edinburgh is Baltic.

Where's the lanyard for them?

What 'micro aggressions' are on the list regarding women?

Scholars should also not place "excess focus on anatomical sex markers".

Isn't one of the major issues with research that it treats male as the default human and doesn't look at varying impacts and effects for women? How can we start to address this if we're not supposed to focus on sex markers?

I wanted to be a boy when I was a child

I did, though

Why am I not permitted to say that, when that is my “lived reality”? Isn’t that me being erased?

Grown adults need to see someone wearing a rainbow to feel safe?!

Quite boggling.

And this “avoidance” concept is a pernicious little bugger, isn’t it. You can’t even do a quiet act of conscientious objection by melting away from any confrontation. Bit chilling, that.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

The thing that intrigues me about them is that I cannot in a month of Sundays imagine academic staff saying any of them at work (if at all).

The point isn't to prevent people saying those phrases. It's to create a penumbra of fear around them and any analogous concepts meaning that it becomes so awkward for people to express themselves that it's easier to use the approved trans activist mantras or simply to shut up.

However, shutting up also has to be avoided because engaging in "avoidant behaviour" around trans people is strictly prohibited.

@Jaxhog my understanding is that the micro agreessions on trans was prioritised over any work on micro aggressions against women. So make of that what you will

Another is engaging in "avoidant behaviour" around trans people.

Compelled association?!

Surely this is all totally counterproductive?

My behaviour towards trans people has changed because of this sort of nonsense. I don't want to say something that is clumsy, even if it is well meaning, and get accused of committing a hate crime. There is a trans person I know who is "trying out" names - so they are on about the 5th name, it is very difficult to remember which of the names are now dead names and I am cautious about getting it wrong and landing up on the receiving end of an upset rainbow.

So, I avoid that person now.

It is totally counterproductive to try and police people's behaviour and communication in this way. Adults should be able to manage people saying things which are a bit less than ideal. Christ knows I manage it every day.

Back at the beginning of the century, I was given a scholarship for being a female Engineer. (£500 I think, so a lot for a student but not a lot... Then another for A level grades which all the UK students on my specialised course got). Would such a scholarship count as an aggression towards any potential Trans engineers?

Sheffield apparently has blackballed Isaac Newton.

What crimes has Newton been accused of?

"Being cisgender comes with social privilege. That's even for people who are socially disadvantaged in other ways."

What the actual fuck? Why are they trying to position trans people as worse off than those generationally affected by systemic racism/ethnic cleansing etc.? Why this incessant need for victimhood? And not just any victimhood, but the most victimy victimhood that there ever was..

Possibly besides the point but I really wish actual gays (tm) could keep hold of rainbow stuff. It's very disappointing thinking someone in your life might be gay and therefore understand a bit about your life/circumstances when in fact they are engaging in performative virtue signalling and unlikely to even be able to critically engage with a gaydom-related issue you might be having.