Scientists at Porton Down don't believe in biological sex!

[Kucinghitam]

Article in the Times. Sorry I don't have a share token, only an archive link.

https://archive.is/5bCAD

As a scientist at Porton Down developing technology to secure Britain’s defences, Peter Wilkins never imagined he would be considered a threat because of a belief in biology.
But when he stated his gender-critical views and support for the concept of immutable sex, Wilkins was reported for his “ideology” and labelled by colleagues as transphobic, “sad and pathetic” and “a rubbish employee”.
An employment tribunal has found there was a “clear hostile animus” towards gender-critical beliefs at the top-secret Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL). It found that an intimidating atmosphere resulted in the harassment and discrimination of Wilkins, 43, who was forced to leave as a result.

What with the Nature, Cell, so many biology learned societies, (not even including "playing-at-being-science" magazines like New Scientist and SciAm) being captured, and now this, I really am beginning to believe that this ideology is a brain-eating mind virus.

None of which relates to the reason's he ended up in an employment tribunal. But thanks for the lecture.

I suppose it's too much to ask that Kealey should be disciplined by Porton Down management given his severe criticism by the judge at the Employment Tribunal.

No it probably won't happen although it concerns me much more that a man with a senior role in counter terrorism for DSTL which has a key role in defence of the nation should hold such an extreme view!!!!

You seem to be confusing sex and gender here, gender is a social construct which requests that people who don’t believe in it either lie or are demonised by those that do. Sex is binary and can’t be changed.

No one is forced to pretend they believe in a religion, why should anyone be forced to believe in a damaging, regressive, homophobic, ideology? It’s not being kind it’s being ridiculous.

I wonder when people will realise that the messaging of how kind it is to respect other people’s beliefs by complying with their language demands is false. Sure it is one way respect. Ie. The giver of respect takes on the burden of compliance. It is not two way respect. It is not those with identity beliefs showing any respect, only the other direction.

And of course, that is a personal choice. What those choosing to accept that one way transaction should not be doing is trying to shame anyone else into doing the same.

Once you accept that it is assymetrical, you cannot unsee it. It is why we see so many posters who are new or who have other investment in this belief or in being kind making unjust accusations about how hateful those who do reject the burden of the one way transaction, I think.

Totally agree. For a while now I have used the religion analogy when someone asks me why I refuse to comply with pretending to believe in something I don’t agree is real. Would they expect me to say I believe in god when I don’t? I don’t believe in any god, and I’m perfectly at liberty to say so. I’m not going to pretend I do for fear of offending anyone. I’m a grown woman, I don’t have to pretend.

People’s beliefs are personal to them, no one has any right to coerce anyone else into believing them too.

Yes.

The messaging, that piggy backs onto promoting rightful respect, such as respecting same sex attracted people’s choices, shoe horns this identity belief element in. As you know, of course, this is why this messaging over the past decade has been so successful.

That Denton’s strategy was very successful. Now we constantly have the discussion about the limits of what we consider respectful. It is like the knee jerk accusations of ‘you are far right’. I mean, they go hand in hand because the same group of activists have delivered the messaging.

It is going to take a long long time to unpick.

Except that TiMs do not 'pass'. What they present at is a charicature of women.

You cannot become the opposite sex to the one you were born but you can present as the opposite gender at work, colleagues should respect this

What do you mean by 'present as the opposite gender at work'? Is a woman with a short haircut, wearing trousers, shirt and jacket, 'presenting as the opposite sex', or just presenting as a woman?

I think you're talking about male crossdressers. This is done for reasons of sexual gratification. Why should anyone respect this?

Share token for those who’d like one:

www.thetimes.com/article/1c23cb7b-f144-4e57-8ab0-f9fc45ba7853?shareToken=2d0dad9e03aded359ed31a594d18da2d

Yes - a man who not only promotes an unscientific fantasy as the truth but openly hectors and bullies colleagues to promote his niche belief.

Terrifying that the Head of Counter Terrorism at Porton Down is an advocate of trans extremism while working in a place with chemical & biological weapons & pathogen research. When a Judge determines that he's "lost sight of his obligation to be impartial in line with the civil service code" hopefully his employer will consider whether he's responsible enough to manage such a critical role.

I suggest that you take The Freedom Programme in order to learn how to recognise gaslighting and coercive control.

The comments under the article are a pleasure to read.

If Russia wants to invade they could first disable out defences by flying planes displaying 'trans women are men' in our skies. The nitwit in charge would have a collective meltdown and call in sick.

Alternatively, the Russia soldiers could all drag up and they'd be welcomed with open arms. At Porton Down anyway, who think they know who the real enemies are

Trans people using disabled loos, as you suggest they should, are showing zero respect for disabled people's hard-won rights.

There's a pattern emerging here

• Sex: TRAs don't respect women's rights to women-only spaces.
• Disability: TRAs don't respect disabled people's rights to exclusive or priority access to hard-won accessible facilities, nor to same-sex intimate care.
• Religion and belief: TRAs don't respect gender-critical people's right to not believe in gender identity. They don't respect religious people's right to same-sex spaces on religious grounds.
• Sexual orientation: TRAs don't respect lesbian and gay people's right to be exclusively same-sex attracted.
• Marriage and civil partnership: TRAs don't respect married people's (usually women's) right to exit the marriage via annulment or divorce prior to having that marriage unilaterally converted into a same-sex marriage in law.
• Pregnancy and maternity: TRAs don't respect the rights of mothers to clear and simple health messaging. They don't respect their right to be called mothers and be described as breastfeeding their babies. They often support surrogacy as means of overcoming their self-inflicted infertility, breaking the mother-baby bond. Some of the male ones LARP childbirth and breastfeeding that they physically cannot do and demand access to breastfeeding support groups on social media.
• Race: TRAs trivialise the struggle for racial justice by pretending that excluding men from women's spaces is comparable to racially-segregating loos. They conflate Blackness with being a rape threat by claiming that having a penis is equivalent to being Black.
• Age: TRAs seek to deny elderly people same-sex intimate care. They teach children to believe in gender identity as though it were a fact and encourage children to take untested hormones for a psychological distress that most of them will outgrow.

That's all eight of the other groups with EA protected characteristics that they trample all over.

That's an impressive tour de force, selffellatingouroborosofhate , very comprehensive. It's so good I'm going to save it. Thank you!

edited for rogue asterisks that made it look like I was swearing at you😄

selffellatingouroborosofhate · Today 20:19

What an excellent summary. I don't think I've seen it all in one place before.

I am told by my auntie's hairdresser's cousin's gibbon, who was involuntarily employed at Porton Down, that much of the work of DSTL is very biological. Does this level of idiocy influence the quality of their work on keeping us safe?

It's very telling laid out like that. disrespect for the rights of others every way you turn.
Presumably when there's no intellectual or moral arguments to support the notion of a sacred caste, baked in contempt for others is what you're left with?

To be fair, if I were new to this and I'd heard of cases like this, people being abused, sacked, ostracised, reported, NCHIed, etc for just liking a post that expressed as scientific and mainstream view. Or for supporting a colleague who has earned the wrath of the rainbow warriors for something completely anodyne. I'd think there must be something more to it, there has to be a background where they'd been rude or abusive. There never is though.

Yep. And yet when the boot’s on the other foot as in the recent case of the transwoman nurse who was found to have been racist to colleagues, their new employer stuck up for them. It’s bonkers.

I think the key confusion we keep running into is that loads of people hear “trans” and immediately think of a sweet young person who is merely gender non-conforming and very probably same-sex attracted. Someone who they probably bullied themselves when they were younger, or who they actually were and experienced being bullied as a result. The former bullies are aghast at themselves and making up for it. The former bullied are healing old wounds.

The problem is that both of these responses are completely emotional and inward-looking, and there’s no attempt to get to grips with what pretending people can literally change sex MEANS. That’s why we keep getting “Be Kind, Be Kind” as a rational for switching our brains off - because our “correctors” haven’t got past that stage themselves.

The cognitive dissonance involved in using female pronouns for individuals who are visibly male or who I know to be male, or male pronouns for individuals who are visibly female or who I know to be female, causes me such acute mental distress that for the sake of my own mental health I will not do it.

Anyone who objects to that is an ableist dickhead.

Full judgement released - it's 81 pages!
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/687e55f188c74f0fd15c96d5/Dr_P_Wilkins_v_Defence_Science_and_Technology_Laboratory_-6000548.2023-_Reserved_Judgment.pdf

Counsel for the respondent is J Russell. Does anyone know if that is Jane Russell currently counsel for NHS Fife

The only J Russell on the Barristers' Register with a female title is Mrs Jane Elizabeth Russell of Essex Court Chambers.

Edited for clarity

I for one am disappointed that these judges don't refer to Lady Russell by her proper title.