Universities will be the last bastion of gender ideology and the denial of women's rights

[BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth]

With thanks to @IcakethereforeIam A new/spinoff thread to discuss/commiserate about the steadfast refusal of universities to acknowledge that women have rights in law.An article from The Critic, and what I posted on the House of Communion/EDM thread (love the typo, BTW!)

https://archive.ph/L8E0b

https://thecritic.co.uk/how-the-war-wasnt-won

It is depressing, and I think she has put into words how I have been feeling lately about the whole thing. I worked in HE many years ago (not as an academic) and it seems clear to me now that, as universities always do, they will continue to move and change at a glacial pace, if at all.

Universities exist, and have for a very long time existed, in order to exist. They generate income in order to generate income. They hoard their resources in order to buy up land and build their estates, in order to generate more wealth by taking on more and more international, high-fee-paying students, whose families then do their publicity for them. Which, in turn, generates more wealth. So they can exist. In order to exist.

I believe that the only thing that will shift the HE sector will be a high-level, extremely public, lawsuit against a top-ten ranking, Russell Group institution, won with significant damages awarded. So, not one academic suing for constructive dismissal, but a suit by a high-profile, wealthy individual or foundation taken against UCL, Imperial College, or LSE, with the outcome and damages awarded not being hidden behind an NDA.

Or a major foreign donor withdrawing support for the institution.
This could take another generation. I have a feeling that universities will be the last bastion of gender ideology, where the law-deniers teach the next generation of law-deniers.

I'm very glad that I no longer work for a university.

Any thoughts? We know that many universities have withdrawn from Stonewall, but there's a lot more to do. Please cheer us all up if you have any progress in HE that you have noticed. I think we could all use a good news story right now, after the EDM and Hampstead Heath Ponds announcement.

I work as an academic - it's all I've ever wanted to do since I was about 14. I'm also a good feminist and teach stuff based on 2nd wave feminism. There are a few of us about, quietly working under the radar. I'm not going to give up.

And I suspect that a lot of my (lovely) female students are pretty terfy - without realising it.

Universities will be the last bastion of gender ideology and the affirmation of women's rights

There, fixed that for you. I certainly hope we will be. Ultimately though it's up to individual students and tutors to believe what they want to believe. Academia is not a police state, happily

I'm very sorry to read this.

I have said many times that some of the biggest victims of this ideology/social contagion are the vulnerable people who thought that identifying as trans and altering their body would solve all their problems, as if it were some kind of universal panacea.

Academia is not a police state, happily

Well, it's doing a very good impression of one.

This is so sad, but was infinitely foreseeable. The people who weren't damaged or sacrificed will happily move forward with their full, adult lives.

It will be the parents (who these children are told are bigots who don't understand/hate them) who will be left to deal with the fallout and carry the grief and devastation of their blighted futures.

Well, why go to the bother of being a police state yourself when you can just sit back and let self-appointed ideologues bully anyone they disagree with, unchecked?

Or have the university now stepped up and dealt with the disruptors in the situation described at 12.48 on this thread?

The debating society at Cambridge managed a civilised debate on gender issues not long ago. Both sides had their say. Nobody screamed and intimidated. That's how it should be.

Sorry to disappoint you, but Bath has already sent out an email to staff saying they won't be implementing the FWS ruling; the EHRC guidance is all too complicated for them and they'll be putting their trans colleagues first and they can use the loos that align with their gender.

Flagging this up from another thread (posted thanks @VictorianPlum ) becauwe it seems very relevant.

Michael Foran has been one of the most influential academic legal brains in the UK. His opinion is referenced by the Supreme Court in FWS. He made the case that self-id in Scottish broke the Equality Act 2010 and could be challenged by a Section 35 order. He was recently recruited from Glasgow University by Oxford. Oxford University know who he is.

So now he has been trying to give a short seminar series on "Sex, Gender Identity and the Law". His specialism. I'd have thought students would want to know what the law says especially if they want to change it. Wrong.

Michael Foran on Twitter.

"Due to escalating disruptive protests, I have decided to cancel the remainder of these lectures. This is deeply lamentable, but the disruption has undermined the academic nature of this series. Students shouldn't face bullying or harassment when attending academic events."
https://x.com/michaelpforan/status/2063577885928013833

I am flabbergasted. Academic freedom at University of Oxford? My arse.

Sorry @Mmmnotsure - I mised your earlier post on this thread. Too shocked to think straight!

Ah, but you gave added context ❤

I teach at one of the most Gender woo UK Universities - a high rank Stonewall approved employer. Politically our institution is very happy to continue to break the law on women's spaces and remain dangerously inclusive in the student sporting teams

Its exhausting a lot of the time, we also had a "Sex worker" support group at the freshers fair a couple of years ago and no one seemed to realise how problematic is was until it made the nation news cycle - but I'm starting see bits of push back. Partially in new students rolling their eyes from time to time.

In last couple of years I've had to deal with a couple of evil and unhinged students, the kind that give staff nightmares and anxiety, they have all been trans identified... Which sort of undermines the "be kind" narrative... Especially when students use their "transness" as a way to bully people up....some recent incidents in my dept have shaken even the most staunch trans allies.

Activists have run out of road. They don't have the law to hide behind when they destroy property and intimidate people, and they have lost the good will of a lot of people who might have gone along with their demands once. All they have left is bullying, blaming, and they are starting to turn on each other now, because nothing they say is giving them what they want.

And they're doing all this out in the open for everyone to see and understand, because they're not the sharpest tools in the box.

The more they do, the less likely it is that universities will continue to indulge them, because they will soon find out that whatever demands they meet, it will never be enough for the activists. A lot of them are absolutely unhinged, and the universities will pull the plug once their reputations start to be damaged. No one will want to send their children to a dangerous institution.

The ideology that has embedded itself will need to be rooted out, and that's what will take the most time. Even after the activists have moved on to something else.

Wonder if we should start a Universities thread, to keep track of the good, the bad and the batshit? Could be a useful resource for parents and teaching professionals.

There might already be one on the Parenting forum? Or is there an Education forum?

It's an interesting idea, however, the information would have to be very carefully referenced. Most of the information we have here is anecdotal (I'm not saying it isn't true) and anonymous. I have seen lots of threads on MN, with parents coming on asking "what's this place like for...?" and "I've heard the accommodation there is crap, what's your experience?" But, a thread listing and grading universities based on what your daughter's experience is likely to be in supposed single-sex accommodation, what's the state of free speech in this academic school, how many academics are breaking the law in this department because of this...? - that would be tricky if you can't prove any of it, it's all anecdotal, and everyone's viewpoint is different.

There is a Higher Ed forum, mainly people asking about individual unis.
I was not really thinking of anything formal. Just somewhere where people can post anecdotes from open days, students' experiences, staff experiences. Also issues that reach national news, such as today's. Anything to do with freedom of speech around women's rights really.
I know there is always the problem of threads dropping off into zombie land. Let's see if anyone has an opinion on this tomorrw 🙂

We know that many universities have withdrawn from Stonewall, but there's a lot more to do.
Random looking at a couple of RG universities near me finds they are still Stonewall. I wonder if there is a list?

Maybe we should run a HE policy audit, like KnottyAuty did for the NHS. It would be unwise for those of us who work in the sector to use FOI Act requests, especially via What Do They Know, to find out what university equality, transitioning colleague, and accommodation policies are. Experience tells me that they are usually hidden on internal-only intranets, so they'd have to be requested under FOI Acts.

If you make a FOI Act request under a false name, you cannot complain to the ICO if the institution declines to supply the information.

We need a "cat's paw", someone outside the sector, ideally retired or with a very common name, who is willing to put their name to FOI Act requests. I don't mind paying for a WDTK pro account for a short time to enable all HE institutions to be emailed at once.

I think one aspect that is being overlooked is who these students are, the influences growing up.

They dont arrive at university innocent and questioning. They arrive, in some instances, fully fledged TRAs.

The bully of students not to attend talks is other students.

I suspect many Universities will go on being non GC assertive because as they are now dependent on fees, they are not going to try and impose standards of decent behaviour on each crop of cash cows.

If parents could stop their children being TRAs bullies why would anyone think Universities will do it for them.

The only hope is, and it may take decades, that if it is possible, despite drag acts and all the rest of it, it that in years to come fewer and fewer teenagers will arrive at university puffed up with "pride" that they are trans inclusive.

Quite a sad state of affairs that the loudest (ie bullying students) have only recently left home and arrive as entrenched misogynists, demanding women acquiesce to male rights.

Which ones are the Mickey Mouse degrees?

I know just the person! It won’t be quick though - i think the NHS responses took several months to submit and then follow up… And it is a lot of work to collate the info (and I can’t take on the coordinator role) but I’d be happy to share how I did it. So is there anyone who could take the lead?

How many universities are there in the UK?

I think that’s maybe the case for some struggling unis but it cannot be the case for those most oversubscribed?! There will be plenty people who would fill the place of any TRA who decides on a personal boycott. The top unis should be pressured to take the lead - if Section 28 (?) was a source of guilt for done then surely the woeful track record on women’s rights should have the same shaming effect?

Michael Foran describes a case in the 19th century where women at Edinburgh university sued to get the courses they needed to graduate after some lecturers refused to given them to the women. The courts found that the university had been founded for the benefit of men - so the women lost their case. This established a presumption of sexism/second rate status for women which lasted about 100 years until the 1975 sex discrimination act. Which as we’ve discovered was ignored in many places across the uk in terms of access to financial products/banking. With the arrival of the GRA in 2004, it seems that we only had around 30 years until work began as n to demolish those rights?! In stealth.

I think it’s time to run a history campaign

Everyone knew what a woman was when we were not persons under the law and could be discriminated against. Now many claim not to know what a woman is so that we can be denied our hard won rights and (surprise!) be discriminated against?!? You couldn’t make it up

There's a theory doing the rounds at the moment, and was discussed on Free Speech Nation last week, that this all stems from humanities academics wanting to be treated as scientists, and therefore rejecting simplistic theories in favour of complex ones.

This is Grok's explanation of this theory:

Many (or most) battles in the culture wars — from gender ideology, cancel culture, DEI initiatives, COVID policies, net zero, academic freedom erosions, and more — stem from the same underlying philosophical mistake: a rejection of simplicity (parsimony, elegance, and straightforward explanations) in favor of overly complex, "nuanced," or exceptionalist theories that multiply entities unnecessarily and resist falsification.

Simplicity as a virtue: Good theories (in philosophy of science and reasoning) should have fewer independent assumptions or "moving parts" when they explain the data equally well. This is rooted in classical ideas like Occam’s Razor.

The modern problem: Society/academia has increasingly rewarded complexity bias — treating simple, unified explanations (e.g., biological realities for sex, individual agency, basic free speech principles) as "simplistic" or naive, while favoring elaborate, disunified, or "intersectional" frameworks that can explain anything but predict or test little. This leads to bad policy, institutional capture, and cultural dysfunction.

This isn't just a left/right issue but a deeper epistemic failure: people (especially in elite institutions) have lost methodological sensitivity to when complexity is justified versus when it's obfuscation or ideological overreach.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5537780-educate-motivate-and-inspire-lawmakers-stonewalls-new-proud-employers-scheme-and-strategy

I started another thread about Stonewall's new employer scheme which they launched in 2025, called Proud Employers.

The list of employers is hidden behind a members' wall, but I'm on the lookout for the logo and any mention of the scheme. Searches don't bring up much, so either there aren't many on the list, or it's very well hidden.

Re policy audit, yes, good idea, but bear in mind that just because the policy says so, doesn't mean it's been actioned or even applied. Just like in the NHS, and perhaps more so because there are no lives at stake, policy change and implementation moves at slower than a glacial pace.