There is a way out of cancel culture – but it’s not free speech
A competing human rights framework would help the likes of Jo Phoenix and her critics into a dialogue shaped by active listening, says Andy Hargreaves
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/there-way-out-cancel-culture-its-not-free-speech
If you don't have access to THES it's on one of the usual sites.
A taster, in which a man declaims.
When I was starting my academic career at the UK’s Open University (OU), feminism was against the determinism of biological sex as the defining force in identity. The malleable influences of gender and culture were emphasised instead.
So it seems odd that gender-critical feminists such as <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/ZY5lL/www.timeshighereducation.com/news/open-university-wont-appeal-jo-phoenix-ruling" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jo Phoenix now insist on its primacy.
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But people who identify as transgender have compelling human rights too…People with transgender identities aren’t taking a cheap ticket away from “normal” life.
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Adopting only that second human rights position, numerous OU faculty made Phoenix’s life so difficult that she felt compelled to resign – a “hostile environment” from which the university was criticised for failing to protect her in an <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/ZY5lL/www.timeshighereducation.com/news/jo-phoenix-every-single-v-c-should-read-judgment" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">employment tribunal ruling last month.
Women’s and transgender rights are just one spiky cultural controversy in our educational institutions.
Are FWR posters tempted to rend garments for the revelation of collective ignorance? This man has come to explain what wims should have been doing all along.
Jo Phoenix robust response:
How would this help Phoenix and her critics? It would bring them together in facilitated dialogue, guided by protocols that ensure active listening. Rights and risks would be addressed on both sides. Clear ground rules would be set, such as civility, empathy, humility, forgiveness, rationality and practicality. It might even encourage transgender students and scholars to work together with gender-critical peers on common projects that create mutual understanding."
HargreavesBC - with the greatest respect, Your portrayal of what happened is wholly in accurate. I am not a biological determinist. I say that there is social salience and that there are times and places where sex matters more than gender identity in organisations and policies.
I follow the rules of my profession at all times. I act with civility.
Those who wanted to shut the debate down do not. They play the person and not they ideas. They harassed me. They called for discrimination. They acted unlawfully.
There can be no facilitated dialogue when one side is acting unlawfully and the other side is doing what we are paid to do. That is why there is a 156 page judgement from an ET.
https://twitter.com/JoPhoenix1/status/1758091568014049502