University's new 'inclusive language' policy

[NoWireHangersEver]

I feel like I'm honestly going insane

Our university admin are drawing up a new 'inclusive language' plan due to a racial incident that happened last year. I'm very concerned because the proposed policy seems to treat postmodern gender identity as if it's an unassailable truth.

Here's the 'sex and gender' part (emphasis mine):

Across the world there are cultures and languages that have expansive visions of gender and sexuality. Language can perpetuate the idea that gender exists along a binary mapped onto male/female sex. Gender neutral language as a matter of practice avoids pre-conceived ideas about people, roles, domestic arrangements, and their identity. Transphobic, homophobic and sexist slurs as part of texts being taught in class should not be vocalised.

When you click on the word 'transphobic', you get sent to an online resource produced by UC Davis in America and hosted by the Bath and North East Somerset Council (our university is in the UK and situated nowhere near Bath btw)

What concerns me is that the resource, along with probably one genuine example of hate speech (the T slur) includes this sentence, as if it is undeniable fact:

'What does it mean to look like a man or a woman? There are no set criteria...Gender presentation is fluid and distinct from gender identity, and all forms of gender presentation deserve affirmation.'

How is it acceptable to police academics in this way? We are home to lots of researchers who study developing countries where women are sincerely and violently oppressed for being female - could they be persecuted if they decide to take a more radical view, looking at gender as a socially-constructed hierarchy mapped onto biological sex?

The 'expansive visions of gender and sexuality' comment is BS too. This might mean researchers can't look at 'third gender' societies without affirming them as such - what about casting a critical eye for the homophobia so often involved here?

Pretending there are no 'set criteria' to be a man or a woman, as if dictionary definitions don't exist, also seems very disingenuous...

Does anyone have any idea how to address this or does anyone just want to commiserate ? I'm on a year off from my BA but am thinking of emailing the administrator involved. I can't get involved through my SU because they also think Butlerian gender theory is an objective fact and seem to thrive off hiring the world's wokest people. I was considering testing the waters by using our anonymous confessions page on Facebook but this seems to have been shut down in the past day

Every culture and language has a word for man and woman.

If any culture has a word for a non gender conforming person, then they use that specific word. They don’t change the meaning of the word man or woman.

This useless word salad has me concerned frost the people in charge of your university are idiots. I hope the students demand a refund.

This puts an incredibly high burden on non native English speakers. Do they have any idea how difficult it is to learn English for many people? The simple concepts of man and woman do not need to be changed.

I consider myself someone who speaks English fluently, however, at moments I will forget an English word. When that happens i will refer back to my native Swedish and try my best to describe in English from Swedish what it is I’m trying to say. If there is no clear definition of the word in English, then how could I or anyone be able to speak about men or women in English?

This is nonsense. I hope foreign students boycott and take their money away from UK universities because of this foolishness. It’s utter nonsense.

Comisterating!

Surely any policy should take into account the laws? I’d complain and reference (including copying and pasting the accurate equality act, the pcs and the expansion on the legal definitions of these) and point out they are disregarding the legal factual language. I’d also reference the high court judgement in Forstarter case that recognised that believe that biological sex is real is a protected under the belief pc in the equality act. If universities ignore this then they would be leaving themselves open to costly legal action. Just point out you are trying to help them avoid that.

Bloodingutters, agree. It appears though that Universities do not think the law applies to them, or maybe they think SW law is the correct version. Have been spitting feathers most of the day. Academia has become a real sh*tshow and credibility is declining at a rapid speed.

We need a thread of legal certainties and definitions to counter this and to give us a good resource

That would be a great idea. I don’t know anywhere near enough to do that though, but no doubt plenty here would. I know about how to address it with schools. But that would be a really good resource to have here.

Challenge it. I did at my university and it did get changed. They rely on people not saying anything...

Transphobic, homophobic and sexist slurs as part of texts being taught in class should not be vocalised.

How are they going to ‘not vocalise’ sexist slurs that occur in history and literature and still teach?

Which university?

all forms of gender presentation deserve affirmation

Nothing is intrinsically deserving of affirmation.

I think women started to wear trousers in the U.K. about 100 years ago. As far as I know discussions have revolved around being allowed to wear trousers, not a demand to be affirmed for wearing trousers.

The government should defund these 'educational' establishments.And they should stop funding Stonewall. Edinburgh has lost 24 donors this week over too much wokeness. I'd like to seepte of that before the UK's Universities become the laughing stock of the world.

.

@merrymouse

Transphobic, homophobic and sexist slurs as part of texts being taught in class should not be vocalised.

How are they going to ‘not vocalise’ sexist slurs that occur in history and literature and still teach?

Which university?

The whole idea is very weird. I keep imagining that they clap instead, like for the B.I.N.G.O. song.

What is wrong with these students?

@GCmiddle

Challenge it. I did at my university and it did get changed. They rely on people not saying anything...

This is very interesting. Can you share more details on what you did?

Does your university have a “report and support” scheme? You can complain anonymously through that but also make it clear you want the complaint put in front of the VC and EDI officers.

How will this help with racism?

My instinct is to say challenge it. Use the law, potential to discriminate, academic freedom, and especially how the policy will disadvantage some students. What kind of environment will be created for speaking in class if the ideas you are allowed to express are so circumscribed? I wonder if a student objection would be listened to more than an academic even.

Look up Counterpoint who are an organisation that help people challenge post modern influenced policies etc in their organisations.
Look up Sex Matters.
There's also "gender critical academia network". I wonder if anyone has experience of challenging these kinds of policies in universities.

They are baking a certain belief about sex and gender into the language that's allowed, when that is only one theory about sex and gender. They are therefore pre emotions the answer to the question and forbidding other theoretical franeworks. But will they care?

I was wondering about starting a similar thread. The university where I work has sent an LGBT+ newsletter to staff. Some of it is fine. But it also contains the following:

A new international Gender Inclusive Network (GIN) is in the process of being established ... consisting of academics, community organisations, individuals, private, public, and third sector organisations. They are cis, trans and non-binary, and are coming together with a commitment to a politics of gender inclusivity in response to the sustained attack on trans and non-binary people from some sections of academia, media, social movements, government, and policy in the UK. They hope this will provide a shared organising and networking space ... to collectively and productively counter transphobia and gender conservatism.

This really quite upset me as it seems to be presenting a very one-sided view, especially considering all the discussion of Kathleen Stock in the media. I feel like they may as well have said, if you're critical of gender ideology like that woman at Sussex then we'll get you.

I feel very supportive of trans people and our trans student population. But I work in medical research FFS, so biology is kind of important!

My instinct would be to address the claim that "gender-neutral" is generally a positive concept.

It's a matter of record that most of the time "gender-neutral" defaults to male. If no efforts are made to acknowledge women, they are not thought of.

Like for instance take the word "chairman". It was criticised (by feminists) for giving the impression that women don't chair anything. So gender-neutral language was applied and now the word most commonly used is "chairperson". Only when people are surveyed and asked who they think of when they see the word, it's almost always men. Nothing achieved in reality but it's now harder to argue because, hey, it's gender-neutral. (The better solution is to use chairwoman and chairman.)

The other issue is that women can have specific needs arising from their biology that require measures men do not need. Gender-neutral language and policymaking does nothing at all to meet these needs but instead obscures them.

Look at the growing list of awards abolishing the women's categories. The result is that instead of half of the award winners being female, hardly any women win. This is across all kinds of industries. That's gender-neutral in practice. It hides discrimination or disadvantage experienced by women. In some cases it enables them.

I would also ask how students are expected to critically engage with texts if you cannot voice what they are supposed to critically engage with. Furthermore, there's a definitional problem with this - will there be a list of terms considered ~phobic? Or sexist?

I mean look at the recent thread about a barman who called a woman "darling". She objected, and thought it was sexist. But very many posters disagreed, pointing out that the use of certain endearments when talking to people varies between regions, ages and class and they are used without any malign intent. If you're in Scotland, you'll find a lot of people will call a male who is younger than them "son" regardless of relationship status. (Sounds very odd to me every time my SIL calls DH - her brother - "son".) Women get called "hen" regardless of age. Is that sexist? I'm sure some would think so.

So who decides?

Also I would point out that mandatory censorship is wholly unacceptable in academia and would refer your admin to the UK law on university obligations to uphold academic freedom and freedom of speech. Which this directly conflicts with.

So essentially this policy means that staff can’t make legally protected statements, as per forstater? That’s challengeable, as well as how people are supposed to teach this ‘questionable’ material.

@ScreamingMeMe

How will this help with racism?

It's just the Trojan horse used to sneak in gender identity ideology.

and all forms of gender presentation deserve affirmation

Why? Who gives a flying fuck how other adults dress or presents themselves.
Imagine your own 'identity' requiring constant external affirmation to make it 'real'.

So sick of the perpetually offended.

OP, some good answers here in this summary by Helen Joyce giving her opinion on gender identity ideology

Groups that can help

womansplaceuk.org/

fairplayforwomen.com/

sex-matters.org/

segm.org/

legalfeminist.org.uk/

genspect.org/

Threads that can help

Q&A thread for New Posters
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4165041-Q-A-thread-for-New-Posters

Break it down for me?
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me