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.

God, Enough4me is that official University endorsed information?
I won’t comment on the content (!) but it’s full of “like, you know, right” teenspeak.
Piss poor use of the English language.
Shameful for an official university document.

@SuperLoudPoppingAction

Catherina, are you able to see the link I just posted?

yes, I can - I think it's highlighted to be removed, because there is a second page that has the same name and is structured a bit differently, but has the same King's Buildings example and then several link boxes below. Can you see that (on the side bar)

@AlfonsoTheTerrible

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

I find this particularly interesting as I have autism. I struggle with social communication and social interaction and am constantly second-guessing myself as to whether or not what I've just said is socially 'acceptable'. I cannot bring my "whole self" (or whatever the nauseating phrase is) because of my disability. I limit my social interactions with colleagues because I am worried that I will say the 'wrong' thing or what I say will be interpreted wrongly. I struggle being forced to obey and observe transideology because compelled speech and belief conflict with my disability.

If forced to wear a lanyard at work (I currently work from home) I will wear my sunflower lanyard, not that I expect it will do me any good.

This is a hideous and perfectly foreseeable effect of this whole nonsense. Dreadful.

I've found the Edinburgh Uni Microaggressions guide:

blogs.ed.ac.uk/learningexchange/wp-content/uploads/sites/1606/2020/09/IADtransandnonbinarymicroaggressions.pdf

It's very long - I imagined half a page of guidance but it goes on for pages! Some of the contents are very worrying indeed. There's this, on page 5:

Some people use the phrase ‘reasonable concerns’ as a way to limit the rights of and marginalise trans and non-binary people. This is most common in the arguments about the use of female toilets and changing areas by trans women. While concerns for women’s safety are valid, there is no evidence that trans women pose any more danger than other women. This type of ‘reasonable concern’ is used frequently by trans-hostile groups, such as ultra-right wing campaigners and certain feminists.

This is in staff guidance FFS. Where to start with the gross misrepresentation of feminists and our concerns, and the accusation that we're coming from a place of bigotry and hatred. Are academics expected to swallow this stuff, and (more worryingly) do they?

Then on page 7 we get this gem:

Academic freedom and a commitment to freedom of expression on campus are enshrined both in law and in University policy. However organising events with speakers who are seen as transphobic or trans-hostile can contribute to the feeling that the University is a hostile and unwelcoming environment.

So they've noticed there's a problem with academic freedom, but my reading of this paragraph is that the potential for upsetting the Stonewall apple cart trumps academic freedom every time. I think it was Edinburgh which cancelled a public seminar on schools and transgender ideology just before lockdown. Presumably no staff member is now allowed to invite anyone remotely critical of trans ideology to speak - note the bar is set at " seen as transphobic or trans-hostile" so inviting a speaker who has simply been accused of transphobia even if those allegations are completely unfounded is now a Microaggression. How is this being allowed to happen in one of the UK's top universities?

I'd feel the same about any man wearing what is essentially a "women, you can trust me" badge.

Back in the mists of time - the 1980s - it started to be fashionable for men to declare themselves feminists as a way of trying to seduce women. Those were the men to avoid, in my experience back then (more sexist than overt sexists & duplicitous into the bargain).

Seems like nothing has changed ...

When I heard that Manchester Uni was urging staff to delete the words 'woman' and 'mother' in its communications, I sent them the following message, and the VC's assistant bothered to reply, with some 'we are totally ignoring you because the need to appear 'inclusive' to a minority group far exceeds our duty of care and the potential rights of women/the biological female population of our students' type hogwash.
At this point, I gave up - but will of course subtly steer my daughter away from Manchester. Maybe if enough of us write to these places? Contact info for Manchester Uni is included below.

Sent: 11 March 2021 10:48
To: [email protected]
Subject: Your 'guide to inclusive language'

Dear Madam,

The release of your 'inclusive language policy', as reported in the Spectator today, excludes referring to the female sex and uses language that must ultimately destroy our sex-based rights.

My daughter currently has an application to your University; she thought it would be a fantastic place to study. As a former lecturer at the University of Southern California's Film School, with many useful contacts, I had imagined that if she had been offered a place, I would have contacted the University to offer information about potential internships, film industry contacts and routes to success.

This policy means that I will have to do my best to persuade my daughter to terminate her application for study at a University whose language policy guidance is Orwellian, and which denies her very existence.

Sincerely,
Concerned Mother

President
16:48 (1 hour ago)

Dear Mother (if I may),
I am responding on behalf of the President to your email below.
The University has not scrapped or banned any words, we have simply produced a guidance document for our staff that uses more inclusive language to avoid biases, slang or expressions that can exclude certain groups based on age, race, ethnicity, disability, gender or sexual orientation. The use of 'parent/guardian' is well established and does not in any way mean that we are banning the words 'mother' or 'father'.

I hope that this will reassure you, and that your daughter will reconsider in the light of this.

Yours sincerely,

Roz

Roz Dutton | Executive Assistant to the President & Vice-Chancellor | The University of Manchester | John Owens Building | Oxford Road | Manchester | M13 9PL | E: [email protected]

@GreyhoundG1rl

Seriously? It's Edinburgh Uni's fault that Edinburgh, in Scotland, is colder than where the students come from? That’s all you took from that post?

It's the hyperbole at the end that struck me most.

There is definitely a need for more services around sexual and mental health and rape. Counselling has months of wait time. It is slowly being remedied as far as I can see. Too slow.

Widening access services have gotten so much better in terms of flagging students who may need support right from the start and providing bursaries and other support (for example, the uni can act as a guarantor for rent on the free market). I am sure that can be improved, but having looked into it recently, I was pleased to see that there are a range of things on offer.

The old buildings are hard to adapt - I certainly see the barriers. They are trying, but you have to work with what you have in estate, short of building everything new. Have you seen something that could be, reasonably well, be made accessible but hasn't?

That blog is unbelievable - the callouts are in pink and blue.

And, yes, avoidant behaviour is considered a 'microassault'. So if I avoid a person because I am afraid that I will mis-gender them - strong intake of breath - or commit another microassault by stating that humans cannot change sex or by asking them what their pronouns are - then I am, in effect, committing a hate crime.

Oh another one who hasn’t got to grips with the EA.

(That was in ref to the Roz email)

From the PDF:

"Microassault
These are explicit transphobic derogations expressed verbally or non-verbally. They may be precursors to physical assault. For example:

• Abusive descriptions, e.g. “Tranny”
• Deliberate ‘Deadnaming’ (use of birth or former name without consent)
• Deliberate misgendering (saying ‘he’ instead of ‘she’ or ‘they’)
• Insistence on gender binary or gender immutability, e.g. “you’re either a man or a woman”, “you can’t change sex”
• Excess focus on anatomical sex markers, most usually reproductive organs
• Avoidant behaviour
• Anti-trans posters, stickers, leaflets, particularly in toilets
• Inappropriate touching without consent (‘checking’)
• Intrusive questioning about intimate details without consent."

WTAF?

Expressed verbally or non-verbally?
May be precursors to physical assault?
A ban on saying humans can't change sex?
A ban on "avoidant behaviour"?

I repeat, WTAF?

Christ, I've just skimmed that document. How embarrassing for Edinburgh University.

Out of interest is there similar guidance for other protected groups?

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.

This bears repeating, and isn't limited just to the U of Edinburgh.

The inmates have taken over the asylum.

From the microaggression link above, Edinburgh University will not permit views that consider other's needs, e.g. the needs of women, if transpeople will object (surely that is transpeople being allowed to be aggressors?)

Academic freedom and a commitment to freedom of expression on campus are enshrined both in law and in University policy. However organising events with speakers who are seen as transphobic or trans-hostile can contribute to the feeling that the University is a hostile and unwelcoming environment. Given the presence of many trans-hostile messages in the media, it can be particularly distressing for trans and/or non-binary people to see these being apparently
sanctioned and approved by University staff.

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

Christ, I've just skimmed that document. How embarrassing for Edinburgh University.

Out of interest is there similar guidance for other protected groups?

I actually think it is very good.

I hope someone has emailed a copy to everyone at the Edinburgh Medical School... I imagine their teaching must be full of micro aggressions...

The inmates have taken over the asylum.

You know, it wasn't actually an asylum before they turned up.

Is any of this actually coming from trans groups?

Or is it, like most of this Wokery being driven by middle class leftists?

Personally I'd just want to be left in peace and treated like anyone else whatever my gender identity. All this nonsense just gets peoples backs up.

I actually think it is very good

As you say you are an employee of the university I think that rather proves the point...

I wish my hospital would ban patients from asking me what country I come from.

(Answer = UK)

Not really. I’ve figured out my own polite but firm comebacks.

My sister wanted to be a boy.
Aren’t I allowed to make that remark any more?

Academic freedom and a commitment to freedom of expression on campus are enshrined both in law and in University policy.

@blackwhiteandstripey mentioned The Coddling of the American Mind above.

Haven't got around to it myself, but here's a good lecture by the author Jonathan Haidt:

(Executive summary: they're going to have to choose between Truth and Social Justice, and one institution can't have both be sacred. In an ideal world, you would be able to have both types of university, because some would rather have Social Justice than Truth, and some would rather have Truth).

It's not just Edinburgh. In Exeter transpeople are encouraged to say who they are happy to change in front of - but what of the choice of the other students:

"You are organising a residential trip, one of the students in the group identifies as non-binary and the accommodation is segregated by gender, what do you do?
Ask the student if they would prefer a separate,
non-gendered room and if so organise a separate
room for this student. If they are happy to
share a room ask them who they would be most
comfortable to share a room with, as they might
be happy changing in front of some course mates
but not others."

www.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/humanresources/edi/equalityanddiversity/equalityanddiversity/toolkitcontent/2018PS023_-_Trans_Inclusion_Booklet_st4.pdf