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

That photo......

OMG, the gaslighting.

But they go along with the gender woo so they don’t get grief, such a pity that their virtues don’t include courage.

The comments about Edinburgh remind me of this

m.youtube.com/watch?v=RGuoO-aOUJg

She's a geneticist??? Heaven help us.

And she's no feminist.

She sounds batshit.

Edinburgh is an enormous institution with tons of depts and academics and one newspaper article quoting one person is going to make you tell your kid not to come here? Absurd overreaction.

Ideally humans learn things over time.

@Ecstaticmotion except in her case she has unlearned something (i.e. basic biology) over time...

Academics are not one homogeneous group! Not all of them go along with gender woo - Stock, Pheonix etc are academics - you just hear about the ones who very vocally do.

Plenty of people in academia are quietly standing up against gender woo, just look at the petition that was signed in support of Stock a couple of years ago.

Not RTFT but just wanted to drop a couple of examples of Katie’s retweets.

She’s an EDI Vampire - not surprised she’s feeling a bit unwelcome at work. Businesses Institutions, charities and orgs all over the country are realising that EDI is a terrible waste of money that harms social cohesion in the workplace rather than enhances it.

HR departments need to work within U.K. equality law, not flout the law and then re post twee graphics about flouting the law on twitter.

Not in my opinion, and it's my money. There is such choice of Universities why would I choose one that pays academics who actively support a convicted paedophile and supports an ideology that wants to remove women's rights and child safeguarding?

And it's not just one article, it's a lot of evidence. The attempts to prevent women speaking and watching films.

Do you dislike women having opinions you can't control / don't approve of?

And by the way both my DDs are GC so they agree with me.

Is there an opposite kind of lanyard? The kind that says "I'm definitely unsafe to be around"
I mean, I'm completely lovely and all that, but it might act like kryptonite to some of the annoying people that I'd rather avoid.

I think KJK’s online shop sells lanyards in suffragette colours…

Ooooooh! See you later, I'm going shopping!

is it just me, or am I missing something? In this case (and all the others to be frank) accusations of transphobia are thrown around like confetti without any proof or even a description of what this transphobia actually consists of? The suspicion its mostly being looked at funny remains strong.

Nope, that’s about the measure of it. I think we’re all waiting for the explanation as to why “hearing an opinion you don’t like” (when that opinion isn’t hate speech) translates to literal violence, threats to existences, genocide and so on.

I believe Edinburgh is the university that released guidance that explained leaving the room (for example, leaving the women's toilet because you'd walked in to see a male adult in there) was a transphobic micro-aggression.

So no, you're not missing anything.

wtaf? is that right? A women walks into the loo, sees a bloke in a frock, walks out-and that's a micro aggression? How do these people ever leave the house without a bodyguard?

Funny how EDI is important until its the 'wrong kind' of protected characteristic isn't it?

You've only got to look at some of the Blue Haired Brigade to know that they don't leave the house very often. And when they do it's with masks and umbrellas to hide their identity, blankets, snacks, energy drinks and so on. The infantilisation and fear of some kind of attack is as real as it is deeply tragic.

(This is actually the sort of "advice" that's handed out for attendees of trans rights protests, I'm not making it up!)

It was most certainly Edinburgh university who used this as an example of a micro-aggression. Fuckers.

Point taken, but the majority of them do, that’s why this has managed take such a hold.

The difficulty here is that it fits into the definition of a micro-aggression. In fact it's even more aggressive than some microaggressions which people supposedly do unconsciously.

Lots of people who may be somewhat skeptical of gender ideology still accept the rest of the EDI propaganda, so they won't get rid of the concept in case it means they are racists. So they are very vulnerable.

It's women saying or doing anything that could be construed by an incel as saying no to men.

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.

Words fail me. How can anybody, never mind a so-called academic geneticist, belive this bilge?