Oxford University dons back trans students’ call to cancel gender-critical academic

[IwantToRetire]

The letter in support of students opposing Professor Stock’s appearance was written and organised by Addi Haran Diman, president of the Oxford University LGBTQ+ Society and doctoral researcher in politics at Lincoln College.

In a statement, Mr Haran Diman said the university had been “captivated” by apparently misleading press reports, adding: “We thank the academics who stand by us - the rapid and massive supportive responses completely overwhelmed us and will embolden our efforts.”

... the letter - signed after the SU saga - states Prof Stock’s appearance would not be “an open discussion or balanced debate” and states “trans students should not be made to debate their existence”.

The letter also insists “disinviting someone is not preventing them from speaking”, after supporters of Prof Stock said she had been de-platformed.

Prof Max Van Kleek, who was among signatories, said it was “critical” to support trans students to counter the “increased hostility, violence, and discrimination” they are faced with.

“The trans movement are not enemies of free speech; they have every right to protest speakers who frame them as anything but our full, valid, equals.”

The dons’ letter concludes: “Debate is essential for a vibrant democracy, and we champion it. But what the discourse needs now is more civil conversations and less bad-faith argumentation.

“The theoretical debate over gender does not matter - what matters is trans people’s basic living conditions, autonomy, dignity and respect. Freedom of speech matters, but we shouldn’t forget the right to protest. We call on the media and university to take trans voices seriously and treat them with respect.”

Article in the Telegraph republished by yahoo news Oxford University dons back trans students’ call to cancel gender-critical academic (yahoo.com)

(I tried to find existing thread but couldn't - sorry)

[IcakethereforeIam]

I think the BBC have changed their story on this. Unless I'm getting mixed up (so many letters flying back and forth), it seems it's essentially 100 people. The BBC now refer to them as 'academics and staff'.

[zibzibara]

Here's the letter, as one might expect it's full of all the usual histrionics:

docs.google.com/document/d/1myWcqaU0E4Yokw6NavfNwgxuXwJ_Fad5zsiwZt8fl4Y/edit

[zibzibara]

@zibzibara

Here's the letter, as one might expect it's full of all the usual histrionics:

docs.google.com/document/d/1myWcqaU0E4Yokw6NavfNwgxuXwJ_Fad5zsiwZt8fl4Y/edit

Letter: Universities must protect trans students

Universities have a duty of care to all of their students. Trans students and staff are important members of our community who should be free to be known and loved and should be protected. This is particularly true in 2023, as trans people around the world face increasing rates of discrimination and violence against them, with many losing vital legal and medical rights. More governments deny trans people the right to change their name and legal gender than allow it [1]. Over the last three years, the number of laws in the US targeting trans people has gone from 79 in 2020, to 80 in 2021, to 280 in 2022, and 549 bills have already been introduced in 2023 [2]. The most recent legislation bans the use of preferred pronouns, limits drag shows and allow trans children to be taken from affirming parents [3]. In the UK, two in five trans people have experienced at least one hate crime within the past 12 months because of their identity [4], and a third of trans students have experienced harassment from university staff because of their gender identity [5].

This is the context in which the Oxford Union invited Dr Kathleen Stock to give an address on her "gender critical" views [6]. This was an address, not an open discussion or balanced debate. Dr Stock is not an expert on gender identity and yet was invited to speak on this topic unchallenged. This prompted the Oxford University LGBTQ+ Society to issue a statement opposing Stock’s views and the Oxford Union’s decision to amplify them [7]. Subsequently, these students faced a significant, targeted, online harassment campaign. These students were sent abuse. They had their private and personal information leaked [8]. Amid sensationalist news coverage and a response from Stock, students received death threats in the mail [9]. Finally, 44 Oxford academics issued a letter arguing that the LGBTQ+ Society’s advocacy endangered free speech [10]. This claim was based on erroneous media reports that falsely linked the Student Union's decision to cut ties with the Oxford Union to the LGBTQ+ Society's response to Stock’s invitation. In turn, this prompted the university’s senior leadership to pressure the SU to overturn its decision and then to come out against the student campaign in the national media [11].

We believe that trans students should not be made to debate their existence. We also refute that this is a free speech issue–disinviting someone is not preventing them from speaking. Trans students, too, have a right to voice their disagreement. Oxford students have always vocally expressed their opposition to views they disagree with, and will always continue to do so: protest and activism are an essential Oxford tradition. Presenting those who fight for trans liberation as a dominant majority seeking to quash dissenting views is a distortion of reality. Those who fight for trans liberation are a persecuted minority who merely seek to receive basic dignity, respect, and the freedom to live a life free from political demonisation.

What we are particularly disheartened by is the lack of care and attention to student concerns and student welfare. The press has ridiculed the need to care for the well-being of the student population, and the university leadership followed suit by not listening to, or communicating in any way with, the students who protested. We believe in attentive leadership, and as academics, we believe in the need to care for student wellbeing in order to ensure their success and combat inequalities. As those that teach Oxford students, we have seen them to be strong and more than capable to confront ideas they disagree with in the best way that can be done.

Debate is essential for a vibrant democracy, and we champion it. But what the discourse needs now is more civil conversations and less bad-faith argumentation. The theoretical debate over gender does not matter - what matters is trans people’s basic living conditions, autonomy, dignity and respect. Freedom of speech matters, but we shouldn’t forget the right to protest. We call on the media and university to take trans voices seriously and treat them with respect.

[1] www.stonewall.org.uk/cy/lgbtq-facts-and-figures

[2] translegislation.com

[3] edition.cnn.com/2023/05/17/politics/desantis-signs-anti-trans-bill/index.html

[4] www.stonewall.org.uk/cy/lgbtq-facts-and-figures

[5] www.stonewall.org.uk/cy/lgbtq-facts-and-figures

[6] oxford-union.org/pages/term-card-calendar

[7] twitter.com/OULGBTQ/status/1650166089387474944?s=20

[8]www.oxfordstudent.com/2023/05/13/is-oxford-a-welcoming-place-for-trans-students/

[9]www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/22/oxford-university-lgbtq-president-death-threat-kathleen-stock/

[10]12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/16/free-speech-oxford-university-trans-row-kathleen-stock/

[11]12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2F2023%2F05%2F18%2Foxford-university-free-speech-trans-row-kathleen-stock%2F

Written and organized:

Amiad Haran Diman (any pronouns)

President, Oxford University LGBTQ+ Society

Doctoral researcher, Department of Politics and International Relations

Menashe Ben Israel scholar, Lincoln College

Signed:

Prof. Max Van Kleek (he/him)

Associate Professor of Human-Computer Interaction, Department of Computer Science

LGBTQ+ Fellow, Kellogg College

Senior Member, Oxford University LGBTQ+ Society

Prof. Kate Tunstall

Professor of French, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages

Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones Fellow in Modern Languages, Worcester College

Former Interim Provost (2019-2021), Worcester College

Prof. Dan Healey (he/him)

Emeritus Professor of Modern Russian History, Faculty of History

Emeritus Fellow, St Antony’s College

Prof. Diane Purkiss (she/her)

Professor of English Literature, Faculty of English

Tutorial Fellow, Keble College

Prof. Katherine Ibbett (she/her)

Professor of French, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages

Fellow, Trinity College

Prof. Afsie Sabokbar (she/her)

Associate Professor and Botnar Director of Graduate Studies, NDORMS, Medical Science Division

Fellow and Tutor, Wolfson College

Fellow, Royal Society of Biology

Prof. Rachel Bernhard (she/her)

Associate Professor of Quantitative Political Science Research Methods, Department of Politics and International Relations

Fellow, Nuffield College

Prof. Ramon Luengo-Fernandez (he/him)

Associate Professor, Nuffield Department of Population Health

Prof. Reuben Binns (he/him)

Associate Professor of Human-Centred Computing, Department of Computer Science

Fellow, Kellogg College

Prof. Sneha Krishnan (she/her)

Associate Professor in Human Geography, School of Geography and the Environment

Tutorial Fellow in Geography, Brasenose College

Prof. Tarik Abou-Chadi

Associate Professor in European Union and Comparative European Politics, Department of Politics and International Relations

Fellow, Nuffield College

Prof. Debbie Hopkins (she/her)

Associate Professor in Human Geography, Department for Continuing Education and School of Geography and the Environment

Prof. Laura Stevens (she/they)

Associate Professor of Climate and Earth Surface Processes, Department of Earth Sciences

Prof. Catherine Walter (she/her)

Emeritus Fellow, Linacre College

Associate Professor, Department of Education

Prof. Amber Murrey (she/her)

Associate Professor in Human Geography, School of Geography and the Enviroment

Fellow and Tutor, Mansfield College

Dr Nicholas Dickinson (he/him)

Bingham Fellow in Constitutional Studies, Balliol College and the Department of Politics and International Relations

Dr Robert Beagrie (he/him)

Sir Henry Dale Fellow and Group Leader, Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics

Mr Andrew Elliott (he/him)

College Lecturer in Economics, St Catherine’s College

Dr Heloise Stevance (she/they)

Schmidt AI Science Fellow, Department of Physics

Fellow, Reuben College

Dr Tassia Ferreira (she/her)

Royal Society Newton International Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Physics

Dr Maryanne Saunders (she/her)

Access and Career Development Fellow, Lincoln College

Dr Amy Howard (she/they)

Postdoctoral researcher, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience

Dr Adam Harper (he/him)

Stipendary Lecturer in Music, Christ Church College and St Johns College

Dr Tanvi Rai (she/her)

Senior Researcher, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences

Dr Weng Ng

Postdoctoral Researcher, The Jenner Institute

Dr Enric Domingo

Postdoc in Bioinformatics, Department of Oncology

Dr Claire Martin

Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Centre for Medicines Discovery

Dr Benjamin Wright (he/they)

Bioinformatician, Nuffield Department of Medicine

Dr Matthieu Joseph Miossec (he/him)

Senior Bioinformatician, Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics

Dr Pelagia Goulimari (she/her)

Co-Director, MSt in Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Co-director, Intersectional Humanities, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Research Fellow, Somerville College

Dr Alexandra Hardwick (she/her)

Stipendiary Lecturer in Classics, Corpus Christi College and Balliol College

Dr Catherine Sloan (she/her)

Career Development Fellow, Hertford College

Dr Martina Astrid Rodda (they/them)

Career Development Fellow, Merton College

Dr Will Clement (he/him)

Departmental Lecture in Modern British and European History, Faculty of History

Fellow, Brasenose College

Dr Jennifer Oliver (she/her)

Departmental Lecturer in French, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages

Fellow, Worcester College

Dr Jack Doyle

Departmental Lecturer in LGBTQ History, Faculty of History

Dr Emily Rutherford

Junior Research Fellow, Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Dr Attila Szabó (he/him)

Keeley-Rutherford Research Fellow, Department of Physics and Wadham College

Dr Eleri Anona Watson (they/them)

Lecturer and Tutor in English Literature and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Faculty of English Language and Literature

Dr Joshua Phillips (he/him)

Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Faculty of English Language and Literature

Dr Ellen Dyer (she/her)

Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Geography and the Environment

Dr Samantha Martin (she/her)

Postdoctorate Researcher, Department of Primary Care Health Sciences

Dr Sandor Szunyogh (he/him)

Research scientist, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics

Dr Marc Roth (he/him)

Senior Research Associate, Department of Computer Science

Dr Melissa Stepney (she/her)

Senior researcher, Nuffield Department of Primary Care and Health Sciences

Dr Laura E Ludtke (she/her)

Stipendiary Lecturer in English, Merton College

Dr Laura Seymour (she/her)

Stipendiary Lecturer in English, St Anne's College

Dr Krishnan Ram-Prasad (he/him)

Junior Research Fellow, Merton College

Dr Jemima Tabeart (she/her)

Hooke Fellow, Mathematical Institute

Dr Suzan Meryem Rosita Kalayci

British Academy Postdoctoral Researcher, Faculty of History

College Chaplain, St Hilda's College

Dr Anna Dowrick (she/her)

Senior Researcher, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences

Dr Alexandra Martin-Geary (she/her)

Postdoctoral Bioinformatician, Nuffield Department of Medicine

Dr John Fleming (he/him)

Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences

Dr Juju Fars (they/them)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences

Manal Bougazzoul (she/her)

​​Doctoral researcher, Department of Education

Junior Dean, St John's College

Helen Worrell (she/her), Bodleian Libraries

AB Siegenthaler (they/she), School of Archaeology

David Wells Newman (he/him), Nuffield Department of Medicine

Anna Grybenyuk, Pitt Rivers Museum/History of Science Museum

Sadie Slater (she/they), Faculty of English

Wojciech Brudlo (he/him), Nuffield Department of Population Health

Aym Maidment (they/them), St Antony’s College

Hetty Mosforth (she/her), Oxford University Press

Robert Weavers, Kellogg College

Amy Hinks (she/her), Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division

Nathan Grassi (he/him), Centre on Migration, Policy & Society

Kristin Lilja Linnet (she/her), Bodleian Libraries

Catherine Chahrour (she/her), Weatherall Institute

Imogen Harris (she/her), Said Business School

Mandakini Jathavethan (she/her), Nuffield Department of Medicine

Rebecca Smithson, St Edmund Hall

Alison Ray (she/her), St Peter's College

Elena Rossi (she/her), Magdalen College

Zavier Nunn (he/him), St Catherine's College

Amelia Talbot (she/her), Nuffield Department of Primary Care and Health Sciences

Elly Walters, Wadham College

Lucy Abel (she/her), Nuffield Department of Primary Care and Health Sciences

Hannah Ravenswood (they/she), MPLS Division

Maria Granell-Moreno (she/her), NDORMS-Oxford University

Pk Kulasegram (they/them), School of Geography and the Environment

Louise Cotterell (she/her), Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics

Christine Bunyan (she/her), Oxford Internet Institute

Rakhshan Kamran (he/him), Hertford College

Anne Wolfes (she/her), Medical Sciences Division

Amanda Kerr (she/they), Nuffield Department of Population Health

Natalie Catchpole (she/her), Nuffield Department of Population Health

Maddie Welland (she/her), Medical Sciences Division

Ian McFarlane, Balliol College

Ele Penfold (they/them), Said Business School

Paola Medina (they/them), Said Business School

Jamie N. B. Fishwick-Ford (they/them), Lady Margaret Hall

Thea Teasdale (she/her), St Antony's College

Miles Burke (he/him), Department of Geography

Sierra Sparks (she/her), Keble College, Department of Engineering Science and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering

Jocelyn English (she/her), Bodleian Libraries and the Faculty of English

Miranda Reilly (she/her), Department of Computer Science

Sol Sanders-Farmer (he/him), Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics

Thomas Marin, Department of Physics

Tonny Brett (he/him), Medical Science Division

Sara Elizabeth Green (she/her), Department of History and Lincoln College

[IwantToRetire]

Well they obviously had to make sure they have more than the 40 academics who signed the letter in support of KS.

That Addi Haran Diman seems to be one busy bee - again!

Starting to wonder if there would be any sort of protests if he wasn't running round getting every one het up.

Have also just seen on another thread that C4, the exemplar of truth telling, will be broadcasting a documentary in which KS features called (drumroll) Gender Wars. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4789474-channel-4-documentary-gender-wars?page=1

[SinnerBoy]

I think that the only accurate words in that piss-poor propaganda puff were: "Kathleen Stock."

[IwantToRetire]

I have tried to make a list of all the threads this one event has generated on mumsnet - there are probably more!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4807882-40-oxford-dons-sign-letter-in-support-of-kathleen-stock

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4793122-oxford-students-call-for-feminist-kathleen-stock-to-be-no-platformed-at-union-over-trans-views

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4803661-oxford-students-union-servers-ties-with-oxford-union

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4811849-ambitious-young-people-will-do-anything-to-get-ahead-and-they-have-learned-that-cancelling-virtue-signalling-and-silencing-is-the-way-to-do-it?reply=126377501

[dropthevipers]

I thought these people were supposed to be the brightest and best we have? Incoherent, contradictory woke bingo word salad. Again.

[ThereIbledit]

and states “trans students should not be made to debate their existence”.

Literally nobody is doing this. Literally nobody. Every "threat" to trans being able to take over all womens spaces rights is met with such abject hyperbole and words like genocide, and "literal violence" thrown around. How little resilience these people have to always jump to such hyperbole.

[TheAntiGardener]

But what the discourse needs now is more civil conversations and less bad-faith argumentation.

All well and good, but any disagreement is de facto bad faith for these people. It’s a curious feature of this ideology that for some adherents it is theoretically possible to be genuinely concerned about women’s rights as opposed to being motivated by anti-trans hate, but in reality anyone who professes that standpoint is a hate-filled bigot.

(I say some as many don’t seem to think it’s even theoretically possible.)

What is Stock saying that is in bad faith? What does a good faith debate on this subject look like?

From where I’m standing, the bad faith argumentation is coming from those who paint all their opponents as bigots and, when confronted with questions as to where this bigotry is, resort to the dog whistle argument.

Also from those who over and over present the GC view as seeing trans people as less than or wishing them not to exist.

Can anyone think of another ideology that consistently refuses to even acknowledge what their opponents are saying, relying instead on straw men?

[Justme56]

Mr H-D - didn’t they initially complain about the newspaper misgendering them, now he is a Mr and uses any pronouns. It’s hard to keep up.

[Iafontaine]

Wow that is histrionic to the point of parody. There is a strange "I have more names on my letter" competition going on, I am going to be in Cambridge from the Autumn and I wonder if a similar tug of war will be happening there (and what on earth I am walking into).

[TheAntiGardener]

Overlooked this gem:

The theoretical debate over gender does not matter

Society is being pushed to realign itself according to a particular theory of gender. We are being asked to rethink how we conceive of ourselves according to it. It’s crazy to say this doesn’t matter. It’s also strange to read academics say that any theoretical debate is unimportant, even if we recognise that practicalities are just as or more important. It’s a sad indictment of where we are if we you can’t even rely on academics to stand up for the importance of scrutinising ideas and ideologies.

[Iafontaine]

As they purity spiral into oblivion do the "any pronouns" win I wonder?
They have bypassed critical thinking to such a degree, I wonder if they really can see the threat to women's rights and are covering it up with hysteria.

[FigRollsAlly]

Why the need for nearly all of them to state their pronouns as if the signatories’ self identified gender is in any way relevant? Readers might be interested (and sometimes dismayed) to see from which department or college they come but in this context pronouns seem pretty redundant and narcissistic.

[AnythingToSay]

Oxford, Edinburgh... Do these supposedly top universities not realise this only makes them look like clown-schools?

Doctors who are "they/them". I mean, really.

[TheCartimandua]

I just googled one of the names at random btw and 'they' is an assistant administrative officer, formerly of Bryn Mawr.

[Brisland]

How did the addresses and names of the transactivists get released for them to receive “abuse” and “death threats”? Who sent these vile messages?

I hope that any threats and abuse to TRAs are investigated with the thoroughness and urgency applied to those directed to Dr KS….

[PatatiPatatras]

Duty of care. Hmm..
All animals are equal but some are not equal than others.

[Solrock]

@dropthevipers

I thought these people were supposed to be the brightest and best we have? Incoherent, contradictory woke bingo word salad. Again.

It has been twenty years at least since universities have employed the brightest and best.

Looking over the list, I am familiar with the work of two signatories. I won’t name one of them, as she is a decent enough person, and I don’t want to criticise her on a public forum. The second, Diane Purkiss, is interesting enough to deserve some comment.

Purkiss came to academic prominence back in the late 1990s, on the back of her first book, “The Witch in History”. The reviews you will read of this online are fairly good because, if you are a sensible academic in the humanities, you will be getting your friends to write the reviews of your books. In reality, it’s derided amongst academics as an example of an English academic thinking that they are actually a historian, but that also all the traditional tools used by historians are old-fashioned and that what they really need is less objectivity.

”The Witch in History” gets very heavy criticism in Richard Evans’ “In Defence of History”, for effectively claiming that what Purkiss wants to believe is true should be regarded as true rather than, for instance, what is indicated by the evidence. Evans regarded the Purkiss type of history as undermining the whole academic endeavour, and was the kind of book which necessitated the writing of “In Defence of History”.

Evans was a product of university expansion in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, which delivered us many of the intellectual powerhouses of the humanities. For those who don’t know about his career, he played a key role in the David Irving - Deborah Lipstadt libel trial, which was ultimately a court case about the importance of truth and intellectual rigour.

Times change, and the Evanses of this world have been retiring, replaced by the Purkisses. Facts are somewhat out of fashion in the humanities, a lower priority than what is, ultimately, wishful thinking. Small wonder that in this world you now get letters from academics which are, effectively, in favour of censorship, as the discipline of the universities of the past gets superseded by a world in which simplistic and comforting beliefs are considered more important.

[dropthevipers]

@Solrock

It has been twenty years at least since universities have employed the brightest and best.

Looking over the list, I am familiar with the work of two signatories. I won’t name one of them, as she is a decent enough person, and I don’t want to criticise her on a public forum. The second, Diane Purkiss, is interesting enough to deserve some comment.

Purkiss came to academic prominence back in the late 1990s, on the back of her first book, “The Witch in History”. The reviews you will read of this online are fairly good because, if you are a sensible academic in the humanities, you will be getting your friends to write the reviews of your books. In reality, it’s derided amongst academics as an example of an English academic thinking that they are actually a historian, but that also all the traditional tools used by historians are old-fashioned and that what they really need is less objectivity.

”The Witch in History” gets very heavy criticism in Richard Evans’ “In Defence of History”, for effectively claiming that what Purkiss wants to believe is true should be regarded as true rather than, for instance, what is indicated by the evidence. Evans regarded the Purkiss type of history as undermining the whole academic endeavour, and was the kind of book which necessitated the writing of “In Defence of History”.

Evans was a product of university expansion in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, which delivered us many of the intellectual powerhouses of the humanities. For those who don’t know about his career, he played a key role in the David Irving - Deborah Lipstadt libel trial, which was ultimately a court case about the importance of truth and intellectual rigour.

Times change, and the Evanses of this world have been retiring, replaced by the Purkisses. Facts are somewhat out of fashion in the humanities, a lower priority than what is, ultimately, wishful thinking. Small wonder that in this world you now get letters from academics which are, effectively, in favour of censorship, as the discipline of the universities of the past gets superseded by a world in which simplistic and comforting beliefs are considered more important.

what you say is profoundly depressing, but seems to be true, given the utter bollocks these people parrot all the time.

[FrancescaContini]

@AnythingToSay

Oxford, Edinburgh... Do these supposedly top universities not realise this only makes them look like clown-schools?

Doctors who are "they/them". I mean, really.

It’s embarrassing. There’s a “he/they” somewhere. What does that mean?

I skim read the word salad and am left wondering why “trans people’s living conditions” are any worse than anyone else’s “living conditions”.

[FrancescaContini]

@Solrock That’s really interesting, thank you for your insight.

[AspiringChatBot]

OMG!!!!

Addi Haran Diman and Max Van Kleek!!

Am bangin' hard on ma keyboard tae let me mum know that there are a couple of tiresome misogynists who may be in the market for a cheap room 'round Oxford, and tae look out and avoid 'em! 🤓😂🙄

[SinnerBoy]

I have read of Diane Purkiss somewhere in the dim and distant. She seems to be more of a third rate historical novelist, than a historian, if Solrock is correct.