Launch: Open University Gender Critical Research Network

[Deathsquito]

Hello everyone!

I’ve been a lurker on these boards for the last year or so. I’m a mature student at the OU and was made aware of this whole debate when I was warned to be very careful what I was saying by my (friendly) OU tutor. He told us that what we were discussing may get us threatened online. The whole tutor group was told this.

This was because we were discussing a group experiment we were doing for the module. One involving using biological sex as an independent variable. Like comparing male/female heights.

We had what I thought was a considerate, polite discussion around how best to make sure the data was correct. We decided on asking for biological sex rather than gender as we all understood it to be a different thing.

It was quite a shock to realise this (what I thought was) widely accepted scientific view would get us publicly hung, drawn and quartered, even by other students in the sciences.

I haven’t posted in here before, mostly because I haven’t had anything new to say. But I came across this on Twitter this morning and thought it may be interesting to some.

The OU has launched a GC research network and podcast. The podcast can be viewed on YouTube and after being scared to speak my opinion in real life/my OU studies it has restored my faith in the OU!

Wow good on the OU. This is in stark contrast to the cancel culture of mnsy universities. Genuinely surprised.

That's great news. Very brave of the OU in the current climate.

Amazing - off to have a look now.

Well done, OU.

I’m astonished at the concept that when students are being threatened, the preferred option is to tell students not to bring threats on themselves, rather than, say, going to the source of the threats and making them stop

The 2020s are quite an odd time.

Just had a look and what an amazing collection of people!

I think we most likely have Maya Forstater to thank for this. Hopefully other academic institutions will follow.

It seemed insane to me that students had to be careful not to talk about the reality of biology...during the first stages of a biology degree. Hopefully this means it will now be more acceptable to discuss these things.

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing, OP.

So Maya's case has made a difference, they must have been waiting in the wings for the outcome. It may not be a landmark case, but it has, hopefully, stopped the rot

Maya's case has been extremely important but don't forget some of these academics have been out as gender critical for some time and have received a lot of grief for it.

Indeed. But the Forstater judgment gives everyone an opportunity to level up (as Maya is fond of saying).

As an ex OU student, then tutor, then full time member of academic staff - my reaction is YEAH OU! 🎉

Thanks for posting this.

@Deathsquito did you misunderstand what your tutor was saying? Was it intended as a 'yes we can talk about sex in this way here (in an academic setting which is safe) but a piece or advice is perhaps to avoid it where possible online as you may become a target for TRA' type of thing? Eapecially as an undergrad where, as a generalisation, many students may be particularly sensitive to defending their point of view (as opposed to post grads where defending views and our work is part of the territory).It just surprises me that the OU would outright try to shut you down.

Personally, I've found the OU to be absolutely brilliant and very level headed around sex/gender and being gender critical which is an overlap of my own area of research.

@JustOneMoreStep my tutor was really good and quite friendly about it all. It was during an online tutor session.

You are right, sorry if I didn’t convey it properly! He warned us not to discuss what we were talking about in wider student circles/online. He was worried we would receive abuse. He also missed it out on the final ‘confounding variables’ list.

It was that that brought me to mumsnet, and this section, to ‘lurk’. One of our tutor group decided to discuss it (very politely!) on the wider ‘unofficial’ group WhatsApp. She was called a number of very unpleasant things and likened to a nazi, and also accused of being radicalised on mumsnet.

I decided to check it out for myself and see if I really was suddenly a bigot.

Thanks for posting OP. This is really cheering to see.

Best of luck with your OU studies, OP. I really enjoyed my time with them.

Excellent!

This is amazing! Hopefully it'll lead to some change with OU teaching material too... there was recently a FB thread in which students from loads of modules and different courses from maths to psychology talked about how (lgb)T (in that priority) appeared in their materials. It was quite striking. There were so few students who said it hadn't appeared in their studies at all.

Maybe they'll take on the "sex work as great job" narrative too. I know someone who began a module with the idea that sex work wasn't something she'd ever want to do and ended with "It's just a job like any other! If I needed the money I'd do it now."

This has unsurprisingly been jumped on. Sally Hines is now trying to set up a counter-network after calling the OU academics involved mediocre. twitter.com/sally_hines/status/1405261064724439046?s=21

Am absolutely sitting on my hands trying not to reply to the utterly brainless people tweeting that the existence of a podcast discussing the concept of gender and sexed bodies makes them literally unsafe.

I'd hate all this less if so many people in the debate were not completely and utterly dumb.

@SoMuchForSummerLove

Am absolutely sitting on my hands trying not to reply to the utterly brainless people tweeting that the existence of a podcast discussing the concept of gender and sexed bodies makes them literally unsafe.

I'd hate all this less if so many people in the debate were not completely and utterly dumb.

It's hard not to respond sometimes. Not always in the mood to get called bigoted. Or accused of genocide.

Yeah, same. I know that one tweet will only escalate so I'm laying off today.

Also - depressingly - I feel like I have to restrain myself as I'm job hunting and my Twitter account is in my own name.

Oh go OU

This has unsurprisingly been jumped on. Sally Hines is now trying to set up a counter-network

Aren't all the other networks "gender inclusive"?

@SoMuchForSummerLove

Yeah, same. I know that one tweet will only escalate so I'm laying off today.

Also - depressingly - I feel like I have to restrain myself as I'm job hunting and my Twitter account is in my own name.

My account is in my biz name and I'm wondering if that's sensible. I don't lose my temper, I'm never rude, I ask questions and correct lies or inaccuracies. Ive still managed to get blocked by people.

Thanks for posting this. I’m a current OU mature student and this is welcome news. I have also witnessed people tearing into anyone who believes in biological reality on student Whatapp groups.