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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

University of Sussex fined £585,000 by Office for Students

437 replies

OhBuggerandArse · 25/03/2025 21:34

The inquiry in the wake of Kathleen Stock's experience has finally been completed:

'An English university is set to be fined a record £585,000 over allegations it failed to uphold free speech and academic freedom, in a landmark ruling in the debate over student rights on campus. England’s higher education regulator found “significant and serious breaches” of free speech and governance issues at the University of Sussex, according to a draft press release seen by the Financial Times. The Office for Students press release, to be published on Wednesday, said policies intended to prevent abuse or harassment of certain groups on campus had created “a chilling effect” that might cause staff and students to “self-censor”.'

Sussex 'has reacted furiously...'

https://www.ft.com/content/d39f0db7-877a-4cf3-8c12-dd5581eecd0b?fbclid=IwY2xjawJP_1RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVWF1ZXM3cKbxGAvtKfecgeMyAXNae5933M9a3dru0zohKTe7Vk24foIeA_aem_HpdtsUQc6ipMGY9J5AGFWQ

England’s university regulator issues record fine in Sussex free speech case

Policies intended to prevent abuse or harassment of certain groups on campus had created ‘a chilling effect’, OfS says

https://www.ft.com/content/d39f0db7-877a-4cf3-8c12-dd5581eecd0b?fbclid=IwY2xjawJP_1RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVWF1ZXM3cKbxGAvtKfecgeMyAXNae5933M9a3dru0zohKTe7Vk24foIeA_aem_HpdtsUQc6ipMGY9J5AGFWQ

OP posts:
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30
NoBinturongsHereMate · 29/03/2025 11:33

I note the CAF report linked upthread says they found multiple other universities following the same template as Sussex - but all the ones they listed have the same (or remarkably similar) OfS criticised clauses b to d. (Don't rely on stereotypes; no anti-trans propaganda; no harassment.)

Those aren't in themselves bad principles - provided they apply to all groups, not only trans people; and they use reasonable definitions of propaganda and harassment. The problem is if they are applied to one group and not others, or are unreasonably restrictive.

What they don't mention is finding other universities with OfC criticised clause a (use only positive examples in course materials). And that's the one that is inherently problematic. So I'm not clear whether that came from the HE template but other universities spotted that it was nonsense and left it out, or is Sussex's own preposterous invention.

MarieDeGournay · 29/03/2025 11:47

Early on in the thread I posted:

The policy at the heart of the investigation had been adapted from a template, according to the university, and had since been changed.
So they didn't actually write the policy that got them into so much trouble themselves, they just cut and pasted a template, and they have since ditched it?

Which sounds very like 'A template did it, and ran away'!

and we all thought the template was likely to be Stonewall, so it's interesting that it came from another source, AdvanceHE.

Thanks Theeyeballsinthesky for this link about AdvanceHE

https://x.com/johnarmstrong5/status/1905690062899343383?s=46

It says that AdvanceHE runs the 'Athena Swan' programme 'which was meant to promote women in science and now promotes tampons in the gents' .

Thanks also for https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/profile/david-bass
I haven't read that yet, because I'm still laughing at 'meant to promote women in science and now promotes tampons in the gents' .😄
Well when I say 'laughing'... only at the witty words, not the content, obvs.

Theeyeballsinthesky · 29/03/2025 11:54

CarefulN0w · 29/03/2025 11:26

For all my joy at the bricks of the GI movement being steadily dismantled, I worry that when the wider backlash comes it will look like a reset that benefits traditional white males. Women won’t benefit (naturally) and vulnerable people are likely to suffer further. I’m actually quite fearful for the younger - likely autistic - gender questioners who will also be impacted by reduced school budgets and cuts to disability benefits.

I’m also concerned about LGB people as companies step run away from rainbow displays of corporate solidarity. Most of it wasn’t all that genuine anyway. Again, I imagine the blokes will mostly be OK, but will gender non-conforming women find it harder to be recruited or promoted?

For all the shit that detractors throw at GC women, most of us are liberal at heart and want people to live as they choose, as long as it doesn’t affect others. I hope we don’t get to a situation where difference is discouraged.

That’s one of the most frustrating aspects of all this. Women on FWR have been saying for years that one of the issues of the forced teaming of TQ with LGB is that when the backlash inevitably came because you can only centre a reality denying sacred caste for so long, LGB ppl would be caught up in it & could lose everything they fought do hard for just because entitled men with a fetish couldn’t bear to keep it for their private life.

RedToothBrush · 29/03/2025 12:09

Solrock · 29/03/2025 11:27

With universities there is a fairly simple explanation: academics have been conditioned to believe that they represent the intellectual avant garde. They are pioneers in thought, they represent the future of the world, they are far more sophisticated than the rest of us. And the more we criticise them, the more they believe that they are correct in their beliefs.

The reality is that many of the beliefs and approaches to the world promoted by modern universities are intellectual dead ends, like the Lysenkoism of the Soviet Union. Similar to Lysenkoism, the notional academic truths have such an ideological grounding so as to render them worthless.

This is, of course, only part of the issue - I could write a whole book on what is wrong with universities - but a good example of why academics double-down on their positions when criticisms arise.

Basically they are arrogant self important tools who think they are more important and intellectually superior to mere mortals. So entrenched by their own self righteousness they've become detached from the rest of society.

Somehow they still seem to still be able to have offspring despite philosophically no longer believing in sex.

Its 100% a class issue.

And that's also why swearing at Trump and Co doesn't work. Again a class issue. Trump and Co don't below to the working class but they also don't belong to this country management class either.

It's essentially something of a proletariat revolt in progress, but these numpties (hello Norovirus media) can't see it because so many identify as working class...

TicklishLemur · 29/03/2025 12:19

What I can't believe is how the university are sticking to their guns after this ruling!

Chrysanthemum5 · 29/03/2025 12:24

@Solrock agree 💯

MarieDeGournay · 29/03/2025 12:40

Theeyeballsinthesky · 29/03/2025 11:54

That’s one of the most frustrating aspects of all this. Women on FWR have been saying for years that one of the issues of the forced teaming of TQ with LGB is that when the backlash inevitably came because you can only centre a reality denying sacred caste for so long, LGB ppl would be caught up in it & could lose everything they fought do hard for just because entitled men with a fetish couldn’t bear to keep it for their private life.

I'm not too worried about the consequences for lesbian and gay people when the T is at last crowbarred away from LGBTQ++++++

It is very damaging to us to be lumped in to the same acronym - my go-to example of that is the photo of an absolutely grotesque drag queen being used to illustrate the Gay Pride events in a small regional town in Ireland - what young lesbian or gay man in the area is going to feel represented by that? And worse still, they'll feel discouraged from coming out as gay if that's the only image of 'a gay person' their family and friends and neighbours are seeing.

We seem to be reaching and hopefully soon passing Peak Drag and increasingly, in the UK, Peak Pandering to Unreasonable Trans Demands in the Workplace, and I feel hopeful that when that fad passes, lesbian and gay people will be able to go back to being unremarkable members of our communities, who neither need nor want flags and days and parades and special treatment.

(All that would have been nice when we were actually denied our civil rights, and would be nice in countries where it still is dangerous to be lesbian or gay, but most of the the flags came out after the battles were won..)

Equality will suffice, and I don't think there's any threat of lesbians and gays losing our rights, as a consequence of removing privileges which go beyond rights from transpeople.

For example, if Sussex and other unis are required to stop ringfencing trans people for special treatment in teaching materials, I don't see how LGB people would get 'caught up in it' - we weren't benefitting from those policies anyway so we'd lose nothing if they were done away with.

LGB✂T

thenoisiesttermagant · 29/03/2025 13:04

I know someone who was once on an Athena Swan committee. Who hilariously was once asked to attend a meeting at short notice when they were expected to pick up a child from school. Which kind of sums up that it's about virtue signalling not actually make it easier for real women with real caring responsibilities and children to stay in academic jobs. Said it was a complete and utter waste of their time and took time away from actually helping female students by sitting in useless meetings.

thenoisiesttermagant · 29/03/2025 13:17

For those worried about the backlash, I think gender ideology as distinct from actual transpeople has already made a lot of trans people's lives harder. Remember when Miranda Yardley - long term transsexual - was sued for transphobia? It's such a reality denying cult this was apparently not entirely ludicrous and yes, he won but the process is the punishment as we all know - an actual trans person put under immense stress and being harassed for his legally held views. There have been a number of prominent trans people who've spoken up against gender ideology and usually paid a fairly hefty price for doing so. (as well as being factual, and normal English usage, and based on MY perception of Miranda, these are also the pronouns Miranda prefers)

As far as LGB goes, I agree with @MarieDeGournay - the LGB people i know are absolutely nothing like the way the 'LGBTQ+ community' is represented at Pride or on TV these days. They're just normal people going about normal lives who happen to be married to / in a relationship with someone of the same sex. And the faster LGB✂T the better, and the less likely any backlash relating to gender ideology will affect LGB.

RedToothBrush · 29/03/2025 13:23

MarieDeGournay · 29/03/2025 12:40

I'm not too worried about the consequences for lesbian and gay people when the T is at last crowbarred away from LGBTQ++++++

It is very damaging to us to be lumped in to the same acronym - my go-to example of that is the photo of an absolutely grotesque drag queen being used to illustrate the Gay Pride events in a small regional town in Ireland - what young lesbian or gay man in the area is going to feel represented by that? And worse still, they'll feel discouraged from coming out as gay if that's the only image of 'a gay person' their family and friends and neighbours are seeing.

We seem to be reaching and hopefully soon passing Peak Drag and increasingly, in the UK, Peak Pandering to Unreasonable Trans Demands in the Workplace, and I feel hopeful that when that fad passes, lesbian and gay people will be able to go back to being unremarkable members of our communities, who neither need nor want flags and days and parades and special treatment.

(All that would have been nice when we were actually denied our civil rights, and would be nice in countries where it still is dangerous to be lesbian or gay, but most of the the flags came out after the battles were won..)

Equality will suffice, and I don't think there's any threat of lesbians and gays losing our rights, as a consequence of removing privileges which go beyond rights from transpeople.

For example, if Sussex and other unis are required to stop ringfencing trans people for special treatment in teaching materials, I don't see how LGB people would get 'caught up in it' - we weren't benefitting from those policies anyway so we'd lose nothing if they were done away with.

LGB✂T

The article from the Committee for Academic Freedom on the previous page says this which fits with this:

Two things should be noted regarding these statements. First, the OfS specified that these policies were not in themselves in breach of the regulatory framework. The violations arose because Sussex had no “effective safeguards” that “adequately protected the expression of certain legally protected beliefs” in its other governing documents.

This means that universities can adopt quite restrictive trans-inclusion policies like the one above, as long as they make clear in their governing documents that lawful beliefs, including gender-critical beliefs, can be expressed.

One of the key points Kathleen Stock was making was that replacing sex with gender, removes protections from lesbians. It renders the meaning of homosexual meaningless and replaces it with homogender.

I go further than this and say there is rampant homophobia present within this.

Theres this little phrase on wiki about homophobia I keep coming back to:
Recognized types of homophobia include institutionalized homophobia, e.g. religious homophobia and state-sponsored homophobia, and internalized homophobia, experienced by people who have same-sex attractions, regardless of how they identify.

Universities replacing sex with gender and failing to recognise the protections of homosexuals in the rush to promote transgender policies are institutionally homophobic.

As pointed out, on these pages, many many times is the point that lesbians have not just one protected characteristics but two. Both of which are completely invisible in these guidelines which put trans above all else in a hierachical system rather than one based on equality of protections.

In other words we are now at a position where its recognised that sex MUST be acknowledge IN ADDITION TO gender identity rather than gender being used INSTEAD OF sex. This hasn't changed in law. The law has stayed the same. The difference is that we are seeing how this hasn't been done.

This is why these universities are continuing to fall down.

Academically speaking, a philosphical idea of gender CAN NOT replace sex for many many good reasons. Or it becomes nonsense. Cos reality. You lose all credibility overwise. If you have a legitimate reason to exclude trans you can. Its all about the legitimate aim. You can't dismiss negative stereotypes in academia - they may be stereotypes for a scientific or sociological reason which remains relevant to the functioning of society or an issue. The key is that research and use has that 'legitimate' element. Thus if you have an hypothesis you can explore it, as long as your methods are unbiased and there is a legitimate reason to discuss that issue. This is not harassment.

The problem central to this, is that some activists believe recognising sex instead of replacing it is harassment not legitimate aim as protected in law. Thats what has to stop.

Certainly, being a lesbian and feeling marginalised or coerced by males falls under this - the legitimate interest is to protect lesbians, it is NOT to marginalise or negatively stereotype or otherwise smear transwomen. We are centring lesbians in this scenario by focusing on harms to them as a group. This is allowed and an essential part of the law. Equally dictates that if one group are behaving in a way that is negatively impacting another protected group, then there needs to be awareness of this so it can be dealt with. It not only merits discussion, it means a discussion is necessary and essential for the good running of an organisation and to ensure academic standards.

Stonewall's betrayal of lesbians is at the very core of everything.

KnottyAuty · 29/03/2025 13:55

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 29/03/2025 08:39

I wonder whether there's a way to force universities to stop wasting public money on this shit. The problem with the public sector is that it is ultimately taxpayers who have to pay their fines and legal fees. (And students, in the case of universities.) Not these ideologues. I think a few high profile heads need to roll before the DEI industry as a whole starts to wind its neck in. If you were working in the private sector and you caused your employer to be fined or lose a big legal case over shit like this, you'd get fired.

Edited

Exactly.

MarieDeGournay · 29/03/2025 14:46

I found this on the Sussex website:
INCLUSIVE SUSSEX - EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION STRATEGY 2018-2025
file.php

I did my usual thing of doing a word search for various terms, starting with 'transgender'. Zero. LBGTQ? Zero. Women? Zero. Lesbian? Zero. Gay? Zero.
Some good stuff about disability, 'non-traditional' and BAME inclusion. No hierarchy, no special cases, no favouritism.

It was so non-genderwoo that I suspected it had been rushed out in the wake of the current situation.

In fact it was published in July 2022.
The current VC took up office in August 2022.

If the OfS had reason to believe that the reality of academic life in Sussex was in fact in compliance with this document, I think they'd have been happy enough.

It's apparent though that there was a captured counter-current making up pro-trans policies - beyond their remit in many cases - which in no way reflected this strategy document. In view of what actually happened to KS right in the middle of the timeframe of this strategy document, it reads like counterfactual fiction. That was during the tenure of the previous VC.

The current VC maintains that the fine is unfair because changes were already being made, but have the changes been in accordance with the uni's own strategy document?

StickItInTheFamilyAlbum · 29/03/2025 18:13

We seem to be reaching and hopefully soon passing Peak Drag and increasingly, in the UK, Peak Pandering to Unreasonable

Except, the BBC has recently abolished Hard Talk (revered programme with viewing figures of 70 million worldwide) as a cost cutting measure while commissioning a second series for a comedy about drag queens sharing a flat (viewers something like 30,000 for the 2nd episode).

If the BBC has any influence over this then we’re a long way from peak.

TizerorFizz · 29/03/2025 18:42

@MarieDeGournay I was a school governor for many years. One thing that was drummed into us was that policies, with no monitoring, evidence of success or otherwise and essential follow up, are just words. They are largely meaningless documents to satisfy SLT and regulators. The real work and skill is making sure they make a difference and are actually adhered to. Any numpty at Sussex could see the policies just sat in folders. Where was the monitoring process? Where was any action based on objective evidence? They had evidence all around them that the policy wasn’t working. SLT ignored what they published and let individuals plough on. What then happened was harassment and they didn’t bother to monitor that or act on evidence either.

So what use are policies if nothing happens as a result of them ? None.

MarieDeGournay · 29/03/2025 19:01

Absolutely agree, TizerorFizz , Sussex in the early 2020s gives the impression of being totally out of control, as the hounding out of KS showed.
Not only was the official university strategy not being followed, but random pro-trans policies were popping up all over the place, and being enforced by threats and harassment.
It sounds like dystopian fiction, doesn't it?

TizerorFizz · 29/03/2025 20:49

@MarieDeGournay I think it lies at the heart of some issues we have in the uk. We love policies. We let them multiply like topsy but we don’t know what to do with them. Universities seem to be well intentioned but spineless when it comes to challenging what’s going on when it’s clearly wrong. Maybe Sussex and Brighton should merge. Might save some money.

SinnerBoy · 30/03/2025 07:59

I imagine that they think the same as they did before, with an additional grievance that the law is wrong and transphobic.

334bu · 30/03/2025 08:38

Thank you for share token.

StickItInTheFamilyAlbum · 30/03/2025 09:09

Igneococcus · 30/03/2025 07:14

Edited

Archive version

https://archive.is/aHyCB

Pleased to see her described as a heroine to many feminists and a heretic to transgender ideologues rather than the usual framing.

ItsCoolForCats · 30/03/2025 09:14

Igneococcus · 30/03/2025 07:14

Edited

Thank you. Her comments about the types of girls who self-harm, who previously would have cut themselves but now are using binders and having double mastectomies, are interesting. The difference with the latter scenarios is that adults (who consider themselves to be progressive) have enabled and championed the latter scenario. It's quite horrifying really.

SidewaysOtter · 30/03/2025 10:28

I thought it was also interesting that she talked about this “going out of fashion”. I’ve long since thought that nothing will kill this ideology stone dead faster than it being “out of date”.

Men in women’s sports and prisons might be the things that peak people, but time - and quite possibly medical scandals when the puberty blocker chickens come home to roost - will be the things that finish this ideology off.

FlowchartRequired · 30/03/2025 10:56

This caught my eye.

"Yet only one colleague publicly backed her: a military historian who she has never spoken to. He put a sign on his door which read: “I stand with Kathleen Stock.” When she left, she asked that the flowers be given to him."

Bolding by me.

If someone had asked me to guess what the one colleague who put that note on their door was like, I would have guessed history a possible subject that they taught and I would have thought that they were more likely to be male. I do wonder how much backlash he got for having that sign?

ETA
"But her background in philosophy played a role too. “I didn’t believe in the power of words utterly to change reality,” she says."

Bloddy hell. I just made the connection - it's magic spells! All this 'words create/change reality' is just a belief in magic bloody spells!

SidewaysOtter · 30/03/2025 12:16

FlowchartRequired · 30/03/2025 10:56

This caught my eye.

"Yet only one colleague publicly backed her: a military historian who she has never spoken to. He put a sign on his door which read: “I stand with Kathleen Stock.” When she left, she asked that the flowers be given to him."

Bolding by me.

If someone had asked me to guess what the one colleague who put that note on their door was like, I would have guessed history a possible subject that they taught and I would have thought that they were more likely to be male. I do wonder how much backlash he got for having that sign?

ETA
"But her background in philosophy played a role too. “I didn’t believe in the power of words utterly to change reality,” she says."

Bloddy hell. I just made the connection - it's magic spells! All this 'words create/change reality' is just a belief in magic bloody spells!

Edited

You can believe in magic and still think gender woo is bollocks 🙂

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 30/03/2025 13:05

SidewaysOtter · 30/03/2025 12:16

You can believe in magic and still think gender woo is bollocks 🙂

As a result of all of this JK Rowling has been forced to clarify that she does not actually believe in magic.

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