Is there a simple explanation for why so many academics have fallen for this?

[resistingreality]

Hi all, this is a bit of a woolly question but I am trying it anyway. I am an academic in the broad area of equality and diversity (not specifically sex-based inequalities). I am aware of many other academics, people far senior to me and much more 'successful,' and who I admire for their work, who are fully behind gender ideology. Some are advocates of queer theory and work in this area, but not all. Most are feminists, and one very prominent example posted on twitter this week saying that anybody who called themselves gender critical was not (a feminist, that is). It sent a shiver down my spine partly because I simply cannot understand this. I can sort of understand how people not immersed in these debates could be swayed by the 'be kind' thing and not see how trans rights and women's rights might clash. But these are intelligent, well-read, people who are supposedly (as academics) led by evidence. I simply can't understand how they can't see the very active harms caused by gender ideology. Or ... perhaps they can, and they don't care? But this requires a shift in my thinking to accept that women (and some men) who profess to stand for other women and have often built a career on this ... simply don't. I'll also admit to not knowing what to do. I want to stand up for my beliefs and I absolutely hate this conspiracy of silence but I am also aware that these more prominent academics could damage my own career and I don't feel brave. Help!

What I mean above is that your brain works really, really hard to hide stuff you're ashamed of from your consciousness. I think probably most genderists are deep down very ashamed of what they're pretending to believe and the horrors they're allowing - that's why the reaction to "TERFs" is so vicious. Shame is at the heart of the AGP fetish - I think shame is at the heart of it for the enablers as well.

@FOJN - thanks for that video - not seen that one. Seems like a good summary of the situation.

The video I've often recommended myself is this Jonathan Haidt one - it's another covering the same area from a slightly different angle.

""Two incompatible sacred values in American universities"

(Part of me wants be to believe this is a particularly American thing - I can't believe anyone the UK would allow that sort of nonsense - but I guess Kathleen Stock's experience shows it's spread).

My ex is a successful academic and obviously knows how to apply logical argument and debating skills in his job. But as a person, he's extremely suggestible and very easily falls prey to confirmation bias. He also loves a POV that he thinks is counterintuitive, so if any study suggests a counterintuitive conclusion, he'll wang on about it, even if most studies actually do suggest the opposite. As in the Sowell quote above, it's about wanting to feel special and show others how clever he is - not by actually being clever, but by playing a game of showing off knowledge in such a way as to make others feel baffled or wrong-footed.

I think there are a lot of people like this in academia. Often people who lack empathy, are very image-conscious, or are quite childish. The vicious spats and feuds I have seen over who gets the best office or go on a jolly are astonishing. Combine that with one of the most innately, structurally sexist work cultures in existence and you have a recipe for virtue signalling and placing the needs of any novel oppressed group you can find above more general, obvious issues such as women's rights. It's a way for academics to show off specialist "new" "knowledge" and woke credentials that at the same time doesn't address the many actual inequalities in academia - class, race and sex-based - because addressing those issues would actually risk breaking down the system that lets middle class white blokes get most of the top jobs, influence and money. It's not really about helping trans people either, but counting trans women as women and not men certainly helps to keep those jobs and influence going to males, while appearing "inclusive".

I don't think it's all conscious. A lot of them fall for this and genuinely just think they are being wonderful kind people. But the reasons they fall for it are because it holds a powerful appeal for a number of reasons.

I'm a working-class in origin, economically left-wing academic who has not fallen for the ideology. I'm finding some of the generalisations on here a bit insulting too.

I find that most (not all) who have fallen have been products of post-massification in the university sector (so post-1990 or so) and an education that treats them like a consumer rather than an emerging scholar (driven by government policy). It was the neoliberalisation of the university that watered down critical thinking and emphasised the (post) 'modern' rather than the classics in the humanities and social sciences and so-on. Students since the 1990s are less likely to have to evaluate ideas - it's more often about interpretation and application. There are exceptions of course - but there is a general trend away from real, quality, critically oriented education towards a sausage factory where critical thinking is frequently espoused but in practice, it's pretty thin.

Thanks for everybody's answers - should be working now so I'm going to read them properly later, but even a quick skim is so interesting. It's actually given me an idea for a study/paper though. I want to say what it is but I guess I can't because if I ever actually wrote it, and in the even more unlikely event that it was published, I would out myself. 😀Any GC academics fancy taking part in a confidential interview though, let me know! (Only half joking)

I think because unlike most people on mumsnet seem to believe, it isn’t actually black and white. Scientific studies have shown that those identifying as trans have a brain structure more similar to the gender they say they identify with. You can’t ignore that science.

How that compares with the suddenly massive numbers of people who are supposedly trans and this whole non-binary thing, I don’t know. But real trans people do exist and always. They have just been repressed and criminalises since the beginning of time (we all know this). Academics tend to be smart enough to know society is changing their view and behaviour around this, even if we haven’t quite worked out how it’s going to work in practise.

I’m afraid this isn’t going anywhere.

And nor should it, btw. It just doesn’t fit around our society that is still very gendered .

Give it 50 years and there will be no sex/gender like it is today. People will raise their eyebrows that we segregated ourselves like that. Just like many of us are starting to roll our eyes at those who still segregate everyone between straight and gay. We’re all on a spectrum right? Some more one way that others.

Why don't you give us a link to those studies @BiscuitLover3678

''There were about six men in the group, talking in low voices. As their
lordships approached, they caught “—and at a time like this one really must
ask oneself where one’s true loyalties lie…oh, good evening, Madam…”
On her apparently random walk to the buffet table, Madam happened to
meet several other gentlemen and, like a good hostess, piloted them in the
direction of other small groups.
Probably only someone lying on the huge beams that spanned the hall high above would spot any pattern, and even then they’d have to know the code. If they had been in a position to put a red spot on the heads of those people who were not friends of the Patrician, and a white spot on those who were his cronies, and a pink spot on those who were perennial waiverers, then they would have seen something like a dance taking place.
There were not many whites.
They would have seen that there were several groups of reds, and white
spots were being introduced into them in ones, or twos if the number of reds in the group was large enough.

If a white left a group, he or she was effortlessly scooped up and shunted into another conversation, which might contain one or two pinks but was largely red.
Any conversation entirely between white spots was gently broken up with a
smile and an “Oh, but now you must meet—” or was joined by several red
spots. Pinks, meanwhile, were delicately passed from red group to red group until they were deeply pink, and then they were allowed to mix with other pinks of the same hue, under the supervision of a red.

In short, the pinks met so many reds and so few whites that they probably
forgot about whites at all, while the whites, constantly alone or hugely outnumbered by reds or deep pinks, appeared to be going red out of
embarrassment or a desire to blend in.''

Terry Pratchett, Night Watch.

Scientific studies have shown that those identifying as trans have a brain structure more similar to the gender they say they identify with.

Link please?

Can't wait to see this

I want to know how we evolve away from two distinct sexes within the next 50 years.

davidrobson.me/the-intelligence-trap/

Just leaving this here ...

Well, if we actually do we'll evolve into extinction quite quickly.

I'm starting to think extinction might actually be preferable to having to put up that kind of idiocy @ArabellaScott

I think because unlike most people on mumsnet seem to believe, it isn’t actually black and white. Scientific studies have shown that those identifying as trans have a brain structure more similar to the gender they say they identify with. You can’t ignore that science.

Some people have mentioned studies, I think this is a useful meta-synthesis - www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763421000804

However, I don't think that's particularly useful, as the brain isn't what determines sex. Saying someone's male or female based on their brain structure is no different from saying it based on their height.

@PoundShopPrincess good point. I was thinking of people who work in E,D&I. They often need to fight for inclusion, rather than simply implementing it.

I think because unlike most people on mumsnet seem to believe, it isn’t actually black and white. Scientific studies have shown that those identifying as trans have a brain structure more similar to the gender they say they identify with. You can’t ignore that science.

Not only are the studies that supposedly show this small and inconclusive at best, they also don't reveal anything unless we also test everyone else. People who appear to be "normal" and not trans-identifying, people who are noticeably gender non-conforming and not trans-identifying, people who are gay and not trans-identifying. Otherwise you cannot attribute what might make someone's brain appear "like" that of the opposite sex. It might be that some people's brains show they what you call "real trans" when they don't think they are - what would that mean? It might well be that people who are gender non-conforming / gay and have been allowed to be so are more likely to grow up happy in their sex, and vice verse.

Furthermore, if you really do think a brain scan can show you're "really trans", then there should clearly be no self-ID. To avoid predators exploting loopholes and people ending up regretting transition, everyone should just be scanned right? So that is quite black and white - according to such a study. Were it true.

”Saying someone's male or female based on their brain structure is no different from saying it based on their height.”

I always think that facial appearance is a better example than height for this comparison. Some men have very feminine faces, even to the point where they could potentially be taken for women. Still male.

There’s huge anatomical variation in many different body structures, but the only one that genuinely pertains to sex is the gonads.

So if a man has a “feminine brain” structure, it simply demonstrates that there is a broad spectrum of potential male brain structures. It doesn’t make him a woman. It might affect aspects of his behaviour (the suggestion has been made that this supposed structural difference might actually pertain to being gay, rather than “having a trans identity”) but the presence of testosterone is quite likely to have a bigger effect.

However, I think the studies that were done have never been replicated. It certainly isn’t settled science. If it was, there would be a diagnostic test for “being trans”. There isn’t, which tells you all you need to know about this supposed difference.

I do think the neuroscience studies are interesting, and I hope they will help in the future to tease out differences in what is currently a big single thing called 'being trans'. Quite obviously this 'thing' contains several different groups, all of whom find being transgender a useful treatment/coping strategy in the current culture. The culture will change and so will the strategies that are useful for some of the groups.

I have a female cousin in academia (humanities) whose ex-partner transitioned about 10-15 years ago. I have no idea how they think about this issue. I note that their published work manages to be completely free of any reference to gender. I think that's quite impressive in the current climate. I don't like to think how much they have both been through. I hope her department provides a safe harbour for any non-combatants.

Yes Tasteful rainbowUnicorn . i can really see the psychological elements at play (shame and projection and the drama triangle particularly). Always helpful to see how these play out in our own psyches and relationships and then recognise how this can happening on a societal level too.

I would not just be concerned about mature transitioned males.

I would be very concerned about young people who have stated they have a trans identity. Not only for the potential of complaints about subject matter and manner of address, but particularly those males that are elected as Women’s Officers and the changes they can make to policies.

We know well that some have transitioned only months before. Yet are elected into these roles.

I'm an academic and in a senior position. I think most academics aren't really involved in any discussions on gender ideology and don't really concern themselves with it at all, or let it impinge on their work. Some are definitely gender critical, but find it very difficult to voice their views and are very mindful of the shit heaped on women academics who do ( Kathleen Stock, Jo Phoenix, Michele Moore, etc). Others are firm believers in gender ideology and because those ideas have been in the ascendancy, can and do speak out freely.
In my university, when staff were encouraged to state their pronouns, the vast majority simply ignored it, but didn't make a fuss. Some did it happily and some complained at it being suggested.

I agree OP, I find it very strange. Twenty years ago I was an anthropology undergrad and the consensus then was that gender is a social construct. I really can't understand how it's got from there to here.

Also, I had a lot of gay friends who were active in the LGB society (as it was then), and they were debating the addition of the T. People recognised that it wasn't the same category as LGB, and the debate was around inclusion on the grounds of solidarity. Again, how have we got from there to here?

Does area of expertise make a difference I wonder? All the academics I know are of the sciencey type and none of them have bought into gender idiology. The endless diversity training pisses them off as it takes them away from what they should be doing.

This is so insightful. It was why people who thought they might secretly be almost Christians shopped the baptised and applauded in the Circus as the lions came in.

It’s hard to admit to changing your mind when your mind and your opinions and your thesis is what has constructed your status and your self regard. Easier to scream at the heretics and silence them.