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

Bimodal distribution of sex is the one I see tossed around most frequently, the idea that sexes "cluster" around two nodes of a broader scale.

However it is a fallacious claim, because the scale and clustering they claim is for the genetic expression of (mostly secondary but also primary) sex characteristics, not sex itself.

When they claim this, they are saying that a tall woman is more towards being a man, or a man with small hands is more towards being a woman, which is deeply sexist.

As far as I know, dimorphic still means that there are physical distinctions between the parties to sexual reproduction, that are otherwise unrelated to reproduction itself.

I take it she didn’t intend that to be read as a moment of her own self-reflection 😀

All this hyperbole and catastrophising has the effect of making the people who have fallen for this ideology actually feel unsafe.

I've posted this before but until KJK, or someone, puts it on a t-shirt I think it bears repeating

Leave kids alone you absolute freaks!

I'm not sure if the Office for Students consultation about free speech on campus has been posted on FWR yet.

www.officeforstudents.org.uk/consultations-on-free-speech/consultation-on-proposed-regulatory-advice-and-other-matters-relating-to-freedom-of-speech/executive-summary/

I think it is very clear in telling universities what their duties are.

I think that brining back a duty on universities to enable all views to be heard, and to stomp out protests and aggression/intimidation is an important first step. Once it is clear that free speech isn't just permitted but is welcomed and seen as a fundamental part of a university education, the TRAs can get help with growing their resilience (so they don't feel unsafe by experience that don't present danger).

They'll be screaming into the void in terms of transphobia in universities once it is made clear that debate and discussion isn't transphobia.

I sort of see this OfS consultation being a bit like what the outcome of a review of universities would result in. Whilst it doesn't have the same clout as it would with systematic reviews to support it, there isn't a body of empirical evidence about what is happening on campuses and different interventions to address this!

'to stomp out protests' - that does not sound healthy at all.

Peaceful protest is a foundational right, and must be protected. No matter how strongly one disagrees with the people involved.

https://x.com/uoestaffpride/status/1517817248576151552?s=46&t=ZX_bLozRqm8etdGICMcAvA

interesting…

I mean, 'stomping out protests' is the precise opposite of protecting free speech.

Everyone has the right to protest; they don't hve the right to spit on women, aggressively heckle them, attack them, prevent them from attending an event, etc.

Is there anything that can be done about the tras in positions like this that are actually making students and staff unsafe? Not just those who are GC but those who are Gi or trans and are led to believe they are under threat because of nonsense spouted by people like this. It must be terrible for their mental health.

Edinburgh university are paying her to work as an equality diversity and inclusion officer?

Shouldn’t she have a better understanding of equality law?

In terms of viewing film screenings and hosting 'wrong think' speakers being actual violence, Kathleen Stock often talks in a humorous way about this. She highlights that universities and academics' success/jobs are based on thoughts and words. Stock suggests that it's within this context that the hyperbole arises. They massively over estimate the importance of words/speakers etc.

Well, what she is unwittingly doing is illustrating really effectively how EDI has been taken over by single agenda activists.

I imagine she's not very happy that she didn't manage to get Simon Fanshawe removed from his elected role as the new rector.

blogs.ed.ac.uk/staffpridenetwork/2024/02/14/spn-committee-statement-regarding-the-appointment-of-simon-fanshawe-to-rector-of-the-university-of-edinburgh/

I expect she'd see nothing wrong with this

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/21/exeter-university-student-disciplined-veganism-wrong/

https://archive.ph/V3VmM bypass the paywall, just check first who's on the other side

The comments seem to have caught fire. Perhaps anyone with a subscription could post a link to the petition requesting a public inquiry into gi capture..

WOW. So she's pro-padeophile criminal men feelings but anti- girl children having a safe place to pee free from 6ft 5 Dolatowski. Or being able to name reality./

I would also like to point out that those children may have had their male parents with them if the toilets hadn't fraudulently been labelled 'women's' and that if honestly labelled as mixed sex, Dolatowski might not have attacked his victims if there were other adult males present.

How on earth can someone defending a predatory convicted paedophile hold a position on DEI at Edinburgh uni? What an insult to Dolatowski's victims.

Stop the world I want to get off.

Something of a swerve from the point of the thread, but UKHE is dying on its feet. We'll have problems far more serious even than TRAs if that trend continues. A developed nation with no higher education system to speak of is heading for very serious economic problems.

Of course those commenting above are right: claiming an expertise you don't own would once have rendered an academic as much persona non grata as plagiarism. It's just another example of how much dumbing down and lack of informed, evidenced critical thinking has eroded the very principles of higher education.

Universities are FUBAR.

So not actually a lecturer? Thank God 😂🙈. Hardly a good advertisement for Edinburgh that they employ such dimwits. Still scary she’s even in that role

Regarding my previous post there a link to the petition on this thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/5049413-we-need-a-public-inquiry

The government have already responded. Tbf barring a miracle I don't see it reaching 100k before it times out, but please sign and share anyway.

I think UKHE needs significant pruning to stay healthy. The likes of Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group unis will remain as long as they don't do anything catastrophically stupid and shoot themselves in the foot / head like Edinburgh seem to be doing. Many others will go to the wall. I don't think it's a bad thing if going to university becomes more selective as it previously was. The drive to turn Universities into businesses where profit was all and without any quality control was bound to backfire and the sooner it collapses in on itself the better.

There are too many degrees that benefit the degree holder and society very little, as we've seen in many of the academic court cases with 'gender' academics in some cases are actively harmful, and just serve to create debt.

I'm certainly not going to force my children to go to University if they don't want to and I'll actively dissuade them if they're aiming to do a degree that doesn't advance their prospects in any way but just saddle them with debt.

Just to be clear - these staff members at EU - Rosie is male and Lucy is female?

and there have been issues with GC staff being bullied at EU. Neil gray, Anne Henderson and others.

The DT ran an article recently about young people choosing not to go to university and taking up trades instead.

And why not? You can earn good money in the trades and you don't get saddled with a massive debt for no purpose. I've long thought the old trades, like thatching and those needed for listed properties etc. would be a really good way to go for the right people. Obviously, we still need academics but where Tony Blair widened the net, it should maybe be narrowed again.

Except that it's often the 'higher ranking' universities that seem to have become enamoured of their own cleverness and gobbled up gender ideology hook line and sinker. Or at least their students have.

I'm sure someone has the photo of the little cherub gluing themself to the floor at Oxford while the grownups tried to talk.

This current round of phantasmagorial statements by TRAs are so undermining of reality that they are sending shivers up my spin.

The Cass Report supports their calls for quicker access to 'treatment'
The Cass Report is a shoddy piece of work by a known transphobe.
Edinburgh University is an anti-trans place.
We never said any body was 'born in the wrong body'.
There is no conflict between trans rights and women's rights.
We are the true feminists, defending true feminism against the Right including GC transphobes.
...and so on and so on.
In other words, every critique of trans ideology can be tweaked and turned around as a defence of trans ideology and an attack on GC bigots who are victimising innocent little TRAs.
I find myself experiencing this as a form of emotional abuse by narcissists [the psychological kind, not the mirror-gazing kind], where absolutely everything becomes part of their narrative that they are the totally right, the totally wronged, the totally important, the total arbiters of truth and reality..

To what extent are DEI staff muttoning on about this sort of thing because complaining costs nothing and can be done from the safety of your office, but making adaptations so blind or mobility impaired students can get around costs money, and implementing an outreach program for gypsies and travellers is just plain scary and difficult?

Yes. Academia is supposed to advance knowledge. Currently it risks actively doing the opposite.