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

Yes, the message was vile but there's no evidence that it was sent by anyone in the university. And it looks like Russell left the university quite some time ago, before 2022 at least, so it's hardly 'news' unless you count it being news to Russell who in 2022 said the university had been supportive:

https://twitter.com/Scot_Feminists/status/1782296618856763530

not really, i was going to do my PhD at Edinburgh but bailed because of this stuff. I can’t be arsed with the angst, so I pulled my application.

wtaf? is that right? A women walks into the loo, sees a bloke in a frock, walks out-and that's a micro aggression?

If you add a muttered "FFS" is that a microaggression, or an actual hate crime? <asking for a friend>

I’d call that a genuine physical reaction to an external stimuli. Science innit?

Jesus. How utterly controlling and not just eroding young women’s boundaries but completely dismantling them. You WILL validate a man’s identity no matter how uncomfortable you feel or what risk you run or ELSE!

What a misogynist’s dream. Can’t see that scenario ever being problematic.

Wasn’t Sarah Liu the one who tweeted about pissing all over the place in public loos and not clearing it up (she was trying to claim women’s loos are as dirty as the men’s). I believe she deleted that one!

It was that exact scenario that converted DD instantly from painstaking TWAW-and-mum-needs-educating to 'shit, this ideology really does mean no privacy from men' in the first few weeks of university.

It had all been a bit hypothetical before the first pissed bloke in miniskirt moment.

Yes, I’ve noticed that inclusion usually makes a big point of covering
people who, as you say, claim a special identity (as any one of us could at any time and for as long or short a period as we choose).

Yet it doesn’t bother much with people who genuinely do face obstacles caused by eg disabilities — or misogyny come to that.

I'm doing a phd at edinburgh and never once encountered anything to do with any of this. moral panic.

Bollocks. This is someone employed by the University tweeting about respecting a convicted paedophile's pronouns with no concern for the child victims of said person.

If a university employee was tweeting about how amazing it was that Israel was bombing Gaza would you be equally unconcerned? And in the former case it has actual practical consequences. They are employed in DEI and show a total disregard for the lived reality of minority groups on campus - disabled women, religious women, rape survivors all of whom may wish to have single sex spaces and not feel safe or able to participate in their degrees without them.

I do love it when someone finds it so very challenging that women are allowed to have opinions and act on them and needs to resort to trite meaningless misogynistic soundbites like 'moral panic'.

It shows that they're losing the argument.

Moral panic?

I can believe that this issue doesn’t overwhelm all departments in the university, but if somebody employed in the Equality, diversity and inclusion department doesn’t understand equality law, and claims to believe that humans can change sex, despite being a geneticist, that is concerning.

Would you not also be concerned if they were a creationist who believed that their interpretation of the Bible should be prioritised over U.K. law?

So, has Edinburgh University said anything about the fact that one of their employees has talked arrant nonsense in a national paper?

Asking as someone whose DD is applying for unis this year and Edinburgh is on the shortlist. And I wouldn't discourage her out of Moral Panic but because she is ND, and so I think could potentially be influenced and even targetted by all this nonsense.

DD is at Edinburgh. She is autistic and GC. There is nonsense around mainly from students in her experience. She largely ignores it and gets on with her studies. She reckons most of her lecturers don't subscribe to the gender ideology but keep their heads down. (Only her impression she could be wrong of course).

It is infuriating that the Equality agenda has been taken over though. Dd is also physically disabled and although the university isn't terrible on access ( and is hampered by having buildings dating from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries) it could do a lot better, sometimes on quite straightforward issues.

as I always say - a tin of rainbow paint is a hell of a lot cheaper and prettier than ramps, braille, accessible software…

Its definitely both sides but only one side is being sacked, then winning tribunals.

A couple of years ago, I was talking to a young woman who'd just finished her first year at another university. We didn't get on to what she thought of trans issues, but she did mention that she had been shocked to find out that the toilets at her halls were unisex when a male student walked in.

It may be relevant to mention here that she came from an ethnic minority background with a strong religious tradition. I doubt she'd told her parents that she was expected to share toilet and showering facilities with males.

Mmm, these were theoretically women's loos, but with multicoloured encouragement to the gender-exploring chaps to come on in.

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