Anyone else work at a Uni?

[Phunkychicken]

Just having a uni wide 'meeting' - much pressure from the LGBTQ+ group about what they are going to do re the SC ruling to ensure trans staff/students are safe - management saying they're seeking guidance on what to do practically going forward. Tentatively posted that some of us welcome the ruling and have had 6 thumbs up - so they're at least 6 of us.

It's so hard not giving myself away but the push back has been insane

It's interesting that the different universities on this thread seem to be dealing with it differently.

Ours did make a mention in the statement about "strong and diverse views" or similar so at least they appear to understand that people will have different views on this.

Yeah, this. I wonder if we're at the same place. 😂

I’ve just read that letter. I had hoped the SC ruling would be a wake up call. Several from my uni. No one I know.

But at over 2000 signatures, it is depressing to contemplate how willing these intelligent academics are to throw women’s rights, safety, dignity and privacy under the bus to appease men.

Anti-trans campaigners say they want to exclude trans women from women’s spaces in order to protect cis women. We do not need protection from trans people…. That’s great for them, but what about some thought for women who do need that protection?

And we need the state to stop the violence that trans people face at the hands of cis men and cis women… and tough for women who face violence at the hands of trans women?

We unequivocally reject the idea that women can be defined by their biology, a claim which is neither feminist nor scientific...Lord save us from academics who refute that biology is not scientific!

Lots of people on there confused about the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions

Yep. Us too.

I’m feeling pretty upset, frightened and despondent. And alone, very alone!

@Unluckyjim it is easy ti feel alone in this as people are so scared to speak up. I have found a network of people who understand both biology and the law but until I found them I felt I was going mad.

You can see from this thread that there are realists all over the sector and there will be lots at your institution- probably the vast majority, but they are cowed by the chilling effect of this ideology

Keep posting here and know you are not alone

Now is bound to be the high point of public pronouncements of support/alarm/disgust. It won’t disappear, but it will lose momentum.

Just seen this from Keele University SU

Anyone have their bingo cards out? I spot “intersex” and “assigned at birth”…

Also, may I just lend my moral support to you all. I left academia 10 years ago, and in those 10 years have watched, from the outside, as it went batshit. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to have been inside while this happened.

Yes. This has been the problem all along. We have been scared of speaking up, scared of admitting to having perfectly reasonable views re sex, scared of saying we support women’s rights. It has been a bloody awful time. I just hope this marks the start of a return to normal.

Exactly. It’s all the same tired old inaccurate phrases. No concern for women at all.

@Unluckyjim Thanks for saying this. In my darker moments, I feel the same way. I remember very clearly the first time I was asked (nicely I thought at the time, manipulatively as I realise now) to do a ‘pronoun round’ with students. That was some time around 2017 or 2018. At least the gloves are off now and everybody can see that this isn’t about being nice to some very disadvantaged people but about a movement that in the final analysis is comfortable with tearing up the social contract and disregarding the law …

Linking another thread with a link to yet another open letter, signed by various networks and research centres across the UK:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5327375-womanhood-is-lived-it-is-not-biologically-given-or-legally-bestowed-centre-for-womens-studies-response-to-court-ruling?page=1

My question: if universities are supposed to be institutionally neutral, is this ok? Any scholar with a gender critical approach would automatically be excluded from these centres, therefore not be able to access resources which are ultimately funded by the public purse, no?

'Womanhood' as a term is such a red flag - a perfect example of the manipulative, exploitative corruption of language and meaning that characterises so much of this discourse. Not to mention that it sounds like a throwback to a dodgy quasi-pervy coercively romantic nineteenth century novelette.

Well on the bright side when I whinged about the gender-ID-masquerading-as-sex question on the sign up for a faculty event, pointing out that it wouldn’t help Athena Swan because it wasn’t about sex they changed it to a nice straightforward question about sex 😮.

I’m gobsmacked. I whinged about that question on general university records to the head of HR when it was first introduced and they didn’t give a stuff (because that’s what HESA asks) but now, at least on this one form, it has been changed. It may not be GC legend time but I’m impressed.

I’m at Bristol which has had plenty of gender related kerfuffle already with Raquel Rosario Sanchez.

we had a very similar communication go around, honesty I’m not brave enough to say anything publicly and because of the nature of my role it would likely cause problems with my head of service so I just roll my eyes and say nowt.

Thanks all. It’s wonderful to have support here.
I do have a few people in the extended work community that I can talk too. But none of my colleagues in my immediate department, and we are huge!

For anyone coming to FiLIA, we try to have an informal meet up of academics there. At least, that happened at Portsmouth (I couldn't get to the Glasgow FiLIA).

Wonderful post from Audrey Ludwig on LinkedIn to those who may not have considered the legal implications of signing open letters

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/audrey-ludwig-70933414_a-short-open-letter-to-those-in-the-arts-activity-7324186973965897728-jsyI

I'm quite fascinated by the concept of open letters of this kind. The person/team who writes such a letter must have a pretty feverish sense of single-minded, one-sided righteousness in order to initiate the activity, produce the emotionally-charged prose, and recruit initial signatories. After which, like a virus, the letter takes on a life of its own: it becomes an actual chain letter.

The later signatories (by the very fact that they weren't part of the inner circle to begin with) are almost certainly a bunch of mugs who are just told that they're signalling their own moral superiority and so jump blindly on the bandwagon. Even if they actually read what they're signing (I suspect most don't), it doesn't follow that they fully agree with it or understand it - they're just surfing the emotional wave created by the original one-sided author.

And realistically, nobody but perhaps the originators have any thought of what they expect the letter to achieve, beyond the frisson of "aren't I good" signalling.

Chain letter is exactly right, @Kucinghitam - it's as ill-thought through and as potentially destructive. At least a tiny bit of light relief is creeping in - their monitoring systems must be as weak as their analytic ones.

Good for Professor Hornblower …

There must be a good sociology paper in the study of this sub-genre, the trans activist academic open letter, ca. 2015 to 2025. I’m noticing subtle changes but I’m also tired of this tedious ‘activism’. So you’ve signed an open letter on your phone instead of marking a few student essays - congratulations, what a martyr to the cause.

🤣🤣