Russell Group statement says Gender Critical Speech unlawful then backtrack

[LargeSquareRock]

Unbelievable. What a bunch of numpties. The group representing the top universities in the UK can’t even issue a statement without cocking it up. Did Stonewall write this for them? Don’t they run serious statements like this past legal?

Screenshot of original statement and backtrack tweet attached.

Whoops. Backtrack tweet here.

No matter how many times I try, when I type transphobic on my keyboard, it never autocorrects to gender critical.

I know, right? 🤔

The RG need everyone to believe in self-ID - they’re a paid-membership lobby group that self-IDs as a benchmark of academic excellence & thr voice of the UK’s top universities.

There are 166 universities in the UK, so the RG rep 15% of UK unis - the 15% who pay them to do so; some of which are objectively excellent & world-renowned; others…

Clearly the RG universities need to read Jo Phoenix’s judgement.

I for one am disappointed they've backtracked so soon.

Had ordered a truckload of popcorn.

It's obvious that to whoever wrote this gender critical = transphobic and that hasn't changed.

I wonder if Private Eye will pick up this reverse ferret

As a member of staff at a RG institution, I'm 👀

🤣
Brilliant

I work for an RG and thankfully the university dissociated itself from stonewall last year

Do any of the RG universities have law courses? I would have hoped that a first year undergrad could have managed to have not made that "mistake"

Does this back track prove that their legal team think that 'gender critical' words are indeed, not bad and perfectly lawful? That's good to know!

I rather suspect they see "gender critical" and "transphobic" as interchangeable terms as, to those of a gender ideology/Stonewall Law persuasion, they mean the same thing.

They just said the quiet bit out loud, then realised what they'd done.

Operation Let Them Speak rumbles on...

In the meantime there are no examples of unlawful homophobia, racism or sexism for RG universities to worry about. How well they must be doing!

I guess they don't need examples of unlawful things to say about gender critical views, they can just read the tribunal judgments. Assuming gender critical means transphobic, that's unlawful. Oops!

I really do wonder who was responsible for the original statement (do they still have a job? Are they being retrained if they do? I mean we should be having education sessions on this)

I wonder if a memory has gone out to all Russell Group members about updating and improving their inclusion policies to reflect the law.

And just who was it who sent the memo saying 'you absolute fuck wits, this is unlawful bullshit liable to get you in court if you don't retract this immediately'

Oh to have been a fly on the wall

I wonder how many examples of "transphobia" they will be able to come up with.

And having fallen foul of all theses industrial tribunals, what universities seem to need most is examples of gender critical speech that aren't transphobic.

No luv, it's not transphobic to say that men don't belong on women's sports teams or in women's spaces even if they identify as women. It's not transphobic to say that sex is more important than gender. No-one has to believe that you are the sex or gender that you say you are. No-one has to agree that transwomen are women, or call themselves "cis", or accept being called "cis" by others. It's not transphobic to say there's no meaningful difference between people who identify as "non-binary" and people who don't. It's not transphobic to say that sex is more important than gender identity.

You can disagree with any or all these statements but that doesn't make them transphobic. As universities have found out the hard way at industrial tribunals.

Are they deliberately trolling?