Transphobia at Edinburgh University ‘driving out staff’

[Igneococcus]

Times Scotland today, both sides vicious, yada yada.

"Katie Nicoll Baines, a geneticist who is a feminist activist and co-chairs Edinburgh’s Staff Pride Network, blamed gender-critical colleagues for what she called a “growing culture of hostility”.
She said: “I have worked at the University of Edinburgh since 2017 and in the past seven years have witnessed a growing culture of hostility towards trans and non-binary staff and students at this institution. Much of this hostility has been stoked by those who want to spread their ‘gender-critical’ ideology that is largely based on the premise that sex is binary and immutable, a premise I know to be incorrect, both scientifically [and] based on my academic expertise.
“While these gender-critical colleagues have been the ones to stoke this hostility, by inviting transphobic speakers on to campus, screening films that are filled with anti-trans misinformation and propaganda, etc, it is the failures of university management that have enabled this hostility to go unchecked and [often] it has been enabled by the structures of the university organisation that perpetuate discrimination against our trans and non-binary staff and students.”"

Are there physics departments with outspoken flatearthers? And if not, why not?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1cfa0aeb-ac6a-42e4-a667-829427f1f572?shareToken=5f5780ef3e0eabba2a85129ecdf3f08b

It’s also clear from her twitter that she is a full on TRA.

Do you think these people are actually so desperate to be victimized that they have actually convinced themselves that they are experiencing violence and threat?

It would seem so, along with the conviction that anything they don’t like the sound of is violence and threatening.

You wonder how they function on a day to day basis with that level of paranoia.

Agree that it's DARVO - those trying to stop women speaking or (clutches pearls) watching films are the real bigots, against sex realists who don't support men's wants over women's and children's safety.

Does Edinburgh routinely issue statements about the safety and 'value' of other groups? E.g. disabled students?

I look forward to reading her paper where she proves that sex in humans isn’t non-binary and immutable. This will be revolutionary. So much so, she will be up there with Darwin and Einstein in how important an advance her contribution to our understanding of science is.

She's a Project Manager apparently.

It is indeed.

In 2012 she knew what sex meant.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=katie+nicoll+baines+sex&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1713767276284&u=%23p%3DXjXjwI8jrHMJ

I am starting to feel sorry for her, something has clearly happened to her brain in the last decade...

You wonder how they function on a day to day basis with that level of paranoia

Well they obviously don't, demanding statements about safety and the banning of heretic women.

What with her and Nicki McLeod of Aston, academics are making themselves look proper shite at the moment aren't they?

Using their positions and alleged expertise to make biased statements and further their own political agenda.

In fairness, if you look on Google Scholar this person does have around 12 publications. Some of them were even actual primary research in actual genetics. A goodly proportion are about Inclusion.

Edit: Oh, in the time it took me to leisurely peruse Google Scholar, I see the awesome FWR MNers have unearthed everything!

The same type that had trainy midwifes taught how to catheterize a biological male with an intact penis for labour 🤪

Tell me that you are incapable of caring about the rights and safety of anyone other than yourself without telling me that you are incapable of caring about the rights and safety of anyone other than yourself.

Here is something Katie retweeted:

"I don’t need a safe fucking space to pee. I’m a grown-ass woman. Stop victimising & infantilising us"

Did you read the tribunal tweets of the Jo Phoenix trial? If you want to see queer theory delusion and paranoia on display read those.

Although 'insane extremists untethered from reality' would be my tl:dr summary the extent to which such poor academic thinking and poor mental health was encouraged by uni management because they were scared of social media toddler tantrums was highly disturbing.

I thought at the time - this is what you get if your senior academics have never had to deal with toddlers. It was total capitulation to the stamping of feet - and capitulation that resulted in harm to professor Phoenix, including iirc death threats.

Legitimizing threats of violence is not something academics should be doing. As yet I've not heard of any consequences for those who perpetuated or allowed this bullying and harassment

There must come a time when eventually these TRAs realise that their ideology is flawed if the only way to get people on side is by bullying, silencing and guilt tripping. Ideology built on lies is not going to win over truth and what people see with their own eyes.

On some level you've got to admire the sheer capacity for maintaining cognitive dissonance.

It's infantilising to suggest women need single sex spaces.
It's terrifying to hear people say that sex is immutable.

Sex is dimorphic.
It's inaccurate to say sex is binary.

Actually maybe she's making the point that 'binary' and 'dimorphic' have different meanings? I raise my hat to her pedantry if that's the case!

What's the phenomenon where seeing evidence that counters your belief only further entrenches it?

I genuinely think they realised it was flawed from the start. That’s why they started with no debate. They knew their position could not withstand scrutiny.

I googled it - Belief perseverance!

Nah, I don't feel sorry. She has clearly latched onto a bandwagon and abandoned any ethics and principles of scientific thinking. DEI jobs are an easy money maker and these kinds of roles have proliferated in various sectors, including universities - no real expertise or intelligence required.

Academia needs its own Cass Review.

The thing is that "hearing someone saying outloud that a personal declaration of gender doesn't change biological sex and biological sex is sometimes more important than one's personal experience of gender identity" is the same thing as that person declaring that you don't exist which is the same as wanting you dead so saying such words is violence and if such words are deemed acceptable to be spoken out loud then the people hearing them are not safe

This means that wielding a barbed-wire-augmented baseball bat near people who one suspects might say such words is simple self-defence.

Idiocy?

I know the word you mean, but can't remember what it is just now.

Yes it does and as soon as possible!

It's hard to care,people this dumb shouldn't be anywhere near a university,