A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities | The Economist - "HOURS BEFORE Jo Phoenix, a professor of criminology at Britain’s Open University, was due to give a talk at Essex University about placing transgender women in women’s prisons, students threatened to barricade the hall. They complained that Ms Phoenix was a “transphobe” likely to engage in “hate speech”. A flyer with an image of a gun and text reading “shut the fuck up, TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist, a slur) was circulating. The university told Ms Phoenix it was postponing the event. Then the sociology department asked her for a copy of her talk. Days later it told her it had voted to rescind its invitation, and would issue no more. Ms Phoenix says she was “absolutely furious and deeply upset” about both the damage to her reputation and to academic freedom. Essex University’s vice-chancellor asked Akua Reindorf, a lawyer who specialises in employment and discrimination law, to investigate... Essex had infringed Ms Phoenix’s right to freedom of expression and that its decision to “exclude and blacklist” her was also unlawful. It advised the university to apologise to Ms Phoenix and to Rosa Freedman, a professor of law at Reading University whom it had excluded from an event during Holocaust Memorial Week “because of her views on gender identity”. (Essex in the end allowed Ms Freedman to attend.) Ms Reindorf’s report marks a challenge to the transgender dogma that originated on American campuses and has spread to universities around the English-speaking world... The arguments the two sides put forward, in other words, are complex and debatable. But many trans activists think that any disagreement is tantamount to hate speech and try to suppress it. Some universities with policies that reflect the belief that trans women are women have acted on complaints about people who do nothing more than express a contrary view... In some cases, academics who have objected to “gender ideology”—the view that gender identity should trump biology—have been removed from professional posts... Callie Burt, an associate professor at Georgia State University, was fired from the editorial board of Feminist Criminology. She was told her presence might deter others from submitting manuscripts. The problem appears to have been her criticism of the conflation of sex and gender identity in proposed anti-discrimination legislation... Kathleen Lowrey, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, was removed as the chair of an undergraduate programme after students complained they felt unsafe. She says she reckons gender-critical posters on her office door were to blame. Yet the most worrying effect is likely to be invisible. An unknown number of university employees avoid expressing their opinion for fear it will damage their career or turn them into pariahs. The report about Essex says witnesses described a “culture of fear” among those with gender-critical views. This is unlikely to be limited to one university. The report also argues that expressing the view that trans women are not women is not hate speech and is not illegal under British law, whatever university policies might suggest. The report is likely to embolden gender-critical academics in Britain, at least, where they are already more outspoken. There are signs that a backlash to gender ideology is building elsewhere, too... when Donna Hughes, a professor of women’s studies at Rhode Island University, published an article critical of gender ideology, petitions sprouted calling for her to be fired. Her university denounced her and warned that the right to free speech was “not boundless”. Ms Hughes, who is a co-founder of the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA)... says her university encouraged students to file complaints. She hired an “aggressive” lawyer... the university had dropped its investigations into Ms Hughes and affirmed her right to speak. Ms Hughes’s example is striking because in America, where concerns about free speech in universities tend to focus on racial sensitivities, gender-critical views are rarely expressed publicly... America’s political polarisation makes it harder yet to debate such topics. Trans activists often portray gender criticism as a far-right cause. Though it is becoming that, too, it is a topic on which leftist feminists and social conservatives find agreement. In Britain most outspoken gender-critical academics are left-leaning, atheist feminists. Some in America are, too. Their chief concern is the preservation of female-only spaces... Holly Lawford-Smith, a professor of philosophy at the University of Melbourne, launched a website which invited women to describe their experiences of sharing female-only spaces with trans women. It is not a research project and its reports are unverified. Most describe a feeling of discomfort rather than any form of physical assault. Soon afterwards, around 100 of her colleagues signed an open letter claiming the website promoted “harmful ideology”. It called for “swift and decisive action by the university”. Ms Lawford-Smith kept her job, but there have been at least two marches at the university decrying that. “I think people quite enjoy having a nemesis on campus,” she says. How did an ideology that brooks no dissent become so entrenched in institutions supposedly dedicated to fostering independent thinking? Pressure groups have played a big part. In Britain most universities and many public-sector bodies have joined the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme, which means they have drawn up policies that reflect the group’s position on trans identity. The report about Essex said the university’s policy “states the law as Stonewall would prefer it to be, rather than the law as it is”, and could cause the university to break the law by indirectly discriminating against women. It recommended that Essex reconsider its relationship with Stonewall. Several bodies, including the government’s equality watchdog, have since left the Champions scheme. The influence of pressure groups exemplifies the other big reason trans ideology has gained a foothold in academia: its elision with the rights of gay people. Many organisations established to defend gay rights have morphed into trans-rights groups... Students increasingly express gender-critical views. This year a group of feminist students in Cambridge ran a “replatforming” event for gender-critical scholars who had been excluded from academic events (Ms Phoenix was among the speakers). Sophie Watson, one of the organisers, says she has lost friends over the issue. “There’s so much fear over using the wrong language—to disagree with the line that trans women are women is really considered hateful”... Gender-critical academics hope that as more of them speak out, others who share their concerns but were afraid to express them will feel emboldened. When Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at Sussex University and one of Britain’s most prominent gender-critical academics, was given a government award for services to education last December, hundreds of academics from around the world signed an open letter denouncing her. More than 400 signed a counter letter in her defence. But many people, she says, prefer to express their support privately."
And yet, some trans-skeptical people get very upset when I point out that trans mania has piggybacked on gay rights, even when I point to examples such as a gay rights organisation proclaiming after gay marriage got rammed through the US courts that it was pivoting to trans issues (another example of the "myth" of the slippery slope)
Kathleen Stock is the real victim of hate here - "Stock put out a statement to be read out on her behalf in which she details the ‘campaign of harassment’ she has been subjected to at Sussex. What began with ‘stickers all over my building talking about the “transphobic shit that comes out of Kathleen Stock’s mouth”‘ morphed into ‘posters that named me, defamed me and demanded I be fired’. The Times reports that ‘one social-media user shared a picture of a man with a gun and the invitation “Kathleen Stock rest your weary head”. Another post described her as “on the wrong side of history” and said she would die alone.’ In response, the police have advised her to stay off campus and to fit security cameras outside her home. They have also given her a dedicated telephone number to call if she feels threatened. How has it come to this? How have we arrived at the point where a mild-mannered academic philosopher simply doing her job – thinking critically, raising questions and challenging new orthodoxies – faces death threats and poster campaigns calling for her to be sacked?... Over several decades notions of ‘hate’ and ‘violence’ have been relativised and misconstrued to such an extent that they have become untethered from reality. In the eyes of activists, it is Stock’s work that is hateful – and insults, defamation, harassment and intimidation are presented as perfectly reasonable responses to it. It is Stock’s tweets that are considered ‘violent’ and so death threats are an appropriate way to push back... almost everyone now takes for granted the notion that words inflict psychic harm and threaten the safety of oppressed groups. One student told The Times that ‘it should not be acceptable for a professor to say things that might hurt someone but might also invalidate someone’s identity and persona and who they are’... It is widely assumed that to make people question their sense of themselves is dangerous, but this is exactly what philosophers, like Stock, are supposed to do. Today the definition of violence extends so far into the psychological that Stock’s words are presented as a physical threat to transgender students. One poster targeting Stock states, ‘It’s our safety on the line’. The ‘Anti-Stock Action’ statement talks of the ‘damage’ Stock is causing and claims she is ‘harmful and dangerous to trans people’. 'We are not up for debate’, the statement reads. ‘We cannot be reasoned out of existence.’ In this brave new world, issuing death threats shows you are a morally good person while stating biological facts, such as ‘only women have a cervix’, is an act of violence. Calling for someone to lose their livelihood is acceptable but engaging in a philosophical discussion about what it means to be a woman is dangerous. This is being driven by the creation and weaponisation of victimhood. Transgender people are presented as the most vulnerable group in society. They are supposedly traumatised from the moment they have their sex ‘assigned at birth’. They then supposedly face a hostile world in which they are oppressed by biology and – even worse – socially constructed binaries that compel them to choose between being ‘male’ and ‘female’. Yet rather than celebrating a society in which people are free to dress how they want and call themselves any name they please, transgender people find that the more they claim to be suffering the more they are applauded for bravery. This applause is not an act of kindness – it is exploitation. Woke activists are appropriating the struggles of transgender people in order to fuel their own moral purpose. Activist students have not invented this perverse moral logic. They take their lead from others. Take for example the outrageous statement issued by Sussex UCU – the trade union meant to represent university lecturers, but which clearly has no intention of defending Professor Stock. Incredibly, when a colleague is facing death threats and calls to be fired, the UCU chooses to offer support to ‘trans and non-binary communities at Sussex’. It claims that ‘UCU will always fight for safe and secure working environments’, but in a complete and wilful inversion of reality it does not see Stock as being in need of defending. Instead, it points to ‘public discourses’ that ‘regularly devalue the lives of trans and non-binary people’ as the biggest threat to campus safety."
The "tolerant" and "anti-hate" brigade strike again
The hounding of Kathleen Stock and what it means for our freedom of speech - "So, they’ve got her. Kathleen Stock, professor of philosophy at Sussex University, resigned from her university position this week after a campaign of intimidation by trans rights activists... she doesn’t think that gender is all in the mind and has said that when it comes to “law and policy”, biological gender trumps “gender identity” (the view that if you think you’re a woman, you are). Until about a decade ago, most people would consider this a simple statement of fact; actually, most still would. But it’s not enough nowadays to save you from the trans activists and their supporters in the universities. It’s not even enough to guarantee you the support of your university... she didn’t refuse to teach trans students and was respectful of them and their right to live as they wish. But it wasn’t enough... Universities are always going to be places where young, self-righteous and opinionated people shore up each others’ views; in the 1970s, it was Marxism that dominated intellectual debate, but at least Marxism had ideological rigour. Back then, opposition and controversy was visible; now it’s not. Most of the hostility towards Stock was expressed online. Without Twitter, this probably wouldn’t have happened. And how do universities deal with groups who operate under the cover of anonymity on Twitter? They could investigate online accounts themselves, or report egregious offenders to the police, Online harassment is the new and sinister aspect of contemporary intolerance at universities. Ivor Gaber, professor of political journalism at Sussex University, who has taught at Sussex since 2014 and has expressed support for Stock, says: “I haven’t seen any of the leafleting on campus. Apart from the demonstration last weekend, there has been no sign of it on campus at all. It has all taken place virtually. In my day when there was student agitation you couldn’t move for leafleters and pamphleteers.” In the case of Stock, the student campaign against her came to a head three weeks ago when it took the form of posters and graffiti (“Stock Out”) calling for her dismissal; by and large it was anonymous. But it wasn’t just young LGBTQ students opposing her. Hundreds of academics signed a protest letter when she was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s honours list; they condemned academics who use their status to further gender oppression” and said they opposed “transphobia in all its forms”... The campaign against Stock was largely anonymous – as ever, on social media – but an LGBTQ group at the university has claimed victory after her resignation; its online statement should give us pause. “This is a monumental victory for trans and non-binary students…And it f-----g worked. Direct action gets the goods, and trans and non-binary students are safer and happier for it.” If “direct action” in the way of intimidation and abuse works, what next? Or rather, who is next? The Stock case has implications beyond the whole issue of trans rights, and the current culture war between feminists and trans activists. It is about the academic freedom to express reasonable opinions with which others may disagree. Without that freedom, academics would operate under totalitarian conditions, whereby dissent is not allowable on given topics – at least, not if you want to keep your position... Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics and international relations at Kent University, believes the case is “a watershed moment in the country’s debate over academic and intellectual freedom and I think it is a watershed moment in the global debate about the threat to intellectual freedom in the west. Kathleen Stock’s case underlines the critical point that it is simply no longer credible to argue we don’t have a serious problem with attacks on freedom of speech in our universities. “Her case has pushed that argument out to the open, and everyone can see what happens to non-conformists in UK universities when they violate these new sacred values.” Goodwin’s position is established; but what about smaller fry who agree with him? Chantelle Burton, studying for a Masters in Conflict, Security and Development at Sussex, says that she’s been troubled by the treatment of Stock: “The ongoing de-platforming of women is a growing concern. It sends out a clear message to students like me that we must toe the line and not deviate from mainstream perspectives or face an onslaught of abuse. It is also a concern that there are staff at the university who have supported the ‘Stock out’ campaign.” Burton says the events have had “a chilling effect” for her on choosing the topic for her own dissertation. “I originally wanted to explore feminist perspectives on the safety of women and which factors lead to insecurity for women in the UK. Recent events at Sussex have highlighted just how dangerous it is to do this.” The culture of “calling out” non-approved opinions – and there is no more pernicious phrase in the contemporary lexicon – has been going on a long time, with the tacit approval, or connivance of universities. Remember when Jordan Peterson, the Canadian academic, had his invitation to spend a term at Cambridge’s Divinity School withdrawn because he was photographed with a supporter wearing an anti-Muslim T-shirt? That was done by a university faculty. Cancel culture is a new inquisition, except that the actual Inquisition had a proper legal process. Now, academics can be driven from their jobs because someone, some identity group somewhere, has asserted they’ve been disrespected. Right now, the Government is attempting to address the issue. The Higher Education (freedom of speech bill) is currently making its way through Parliament, which would effectively legislate for freedom of speech at universities. But universities shouldn’t be obliged by law to protect dissenters like Kathleen Stock. It’s pretty shameful that it’s come to this."
Kathleen Stock says there’s ‘real pressure on lesbians to accept that trans women can be lesbians’ - "Kathleen Stock, who has an OBE for her contribution to higher education, had faced calls to be fired over her stance on gender identity... Stock's resignation came as she has received support from academics and senior government ministers, with Kemi Badenoch MP, the equalities minister, stating that Stock's views were probably “in step with the majority of the population”. “Nobody should face bullying or harassment in the workplace,“ Badenoch told Sky News. ”I don’t think she should lose her job. I think that she has every right to hold the beliefs.”... “There’s real pressure on lesbians to accept that trans women can be lesbians and that has made us lesbians aware of this in a way I think straight people aren’t necessarily as aware because there isn’t the same pressure on straight women or straight men.”... “There’s a narrative that’s emerged partly through some academics and also through lobbying groups like Stonewall that trans students and trans people generally are the most vulnerable group in the UK and that moreover, the only way to protect them is to affirm any claim they make about their own identity and that any dissent from that must be transphobia.” She went on to describe her views as “pretty moderate”, adding that they “always insist on affirming legal protections for trans people and that they should absolutely be free of any discriminational violence”. Elsewhere in the interview, Stock spoke about some of the backlash she faced at the University of Sussex that led to her decision to resign from her role as a professor. “I don’t know that the student activity would be there if the colleague activity hadn’t already been there,” she said. “There’s a small group of people who are absolutely opposed to the sorts of things I say and instead of getting involved in arguing with me using reason and evidence, the traditional university methods, they tell their students in lectures that I pose a threat to trans students.”... Describing the way she was treated on campus, Stock recalled seeing a wall near the university’s main entrance where every poster had her name on it, with many calling her a transphobe while others campaigned for her to be fired. Stock described the impact as “some sort of surreal terrible anxiety dream” and also referenced a protest that took place at one of the university’s open days when hundreds of students held placards calling for her to be fired... Stock’s comments regarding dating as a gay woman follow the publication of a BBC article that interviewed lesbians who said they felt pressured into sex by some trans women. The article was widely discussed on social media and prompted more than 20,000 people to sign an open letter to the BBC criticising its publication."
Liberals hate bullying - unless it's bullying "bigots"
'Stop pandering to students', universities told after trans-row professor Kathleen Stock quits - "Students should be told during Freshers’ Week that universities are not there to protect their feelings, academics have said as they call for change in the wake of a professor’s resignation... Prof Michael Biggs, an expert in sociology at Oxford University, told The Telegraph: "Instead of endlessly pandering to the students, universities need to make it very, very clear in the inductions, in Freshers’ Week, that the institution exists to uphold academic freedom. And if they are unhappy about that, they need to leave."... Prof Sullivan said vice-Chancellors need to “stop pretending there is no crisis of free speech and start paying attention to the problem and trying to solve it”. She went on to say that universities are worried about criticising students who, through their £9,250-per-year tuition fees, are a major source of income... In the wake of the threats she faced from transgender activists, Prof Stock was advised by the police to have CCTV installed at her front door and put a marker on her phone so that if she dials 999 there is an automatic call-out to her house. Sussex University’s vice-chancellor, Prof Adam Tickell, has made a series of statements in recent weeks in support of Prof Stock, which made clear that "threats" to academic freedom will not be tolerated. But some academics claim that this was “too little, too late”, given that Prof Stock has already spent three years being harassed over her view on gender. Prof Rosa Freedman, an expert in international human rights law at Reading university, said there should have been “much clearer statements from the university from the outset, saying it is never ok to harass anyone on campus including staff”. By failing to take a robust stand at an earlier stage, it “almost legitimises certain behaviour and makes students think that it is ok for them to act in that way”"
This suggests the perils of applying market logic to everything
What does Kathleen Stock, alleged ‘transphobe’, actually believe? - "In second-century debates on the Holy Trinity, you were more certain of being damned if you misspoke than of what exactly you were speaking about. Yet medieval debate over whether a unitary God consisted of three essences, three roles or three persons, and how, was stringently delineated. Not so our modern puzzlement over how exactly sex differs from gender, whether they are identical, combined or separate, and, if so, which should rightly trump which... Accused of transphobia, she is said to be threatening the very existence of trans people – but if only someone would explain how she is doing so. What Stock actually does, in Material Girls, is chart how we arrived at “gender identity theory”, isolating key stages along the way. The first, in 1949, was when Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex argued that the concept of gender – socially-constructed sexual roles – is lopsidedly applied. It makes “man” the generic archetype of the rational human being, transcending mere biology; while “woman” is seen as “the Sex”, a side-issue to “man”. Because it has been constructed round her species-serving, child-bearing function, her gender ties her to biology... Stage two followed in the 1960s, when paediatrician John Money pronounced that “gender identity” (private experience) and “gender role” (the public manifestation of it) are more important and essential than biological sex. Money had been involved with the “sex reassignment” of a male baby, who, after a badly botched circumcision, became Brenda, and was surgically reconstructed with a vagina. Stock is too kind to mention this, but, as a child, Brenda was constantly made to simulate sex in a female receptive position with her identical (male) twin. Money was thereby testing his nurture-over-nature theory – but Brenda failed to prove it. Deeply troubled, she identified as male aged 15 and took her own life in adulthood. (So, not surprisingly, did her twin.) In the late 1980s, Anne Fausto-Sterling, a professor in biology and gender studies at Brown University, claimed that there are at least five sexes, that each of us is sexed in various layers, and that sex exists along a spectrum. None of these (inconsistent) claims had experimental backing, as Stock explains, while Fausto-Sterling’s estimate that 1.7 per cent of humans are intersex is exaggerated: 1.5 of us have (usually undetectable) chromosomal anomalies and only 0.018 per cent (1.8 in 10,000) are hermaphrodites. As Stock points out, neither Judith Butler’s famous contention, in her 1990 book Gender Trouble, that sex is merely performative, nor Julia Serano’s in the following decade that no one is “really” biologically male or female, can have any pretensions to being empirically testable – yet today, they are often taken as gospel... Stock begins her book by declaring it imperative that trans people should have rights and respect. But she shows that rights rely on boundaries, and that trans rights, if exorbitant, can infringe those of women (and perhaps, though less so, men’s). Rebutting Judith Butler’s indictment of “womanhood” as a “normative” and “exclusionary” category, Stock argues that concepts are determined, not by “some snooty, perfectionist committee somewhere” but by currently common usage and utility. “Man” and “woman”, like “duck and drake, hen and cock, queen and drone”, are helpful for demarcating “already existing real divisions in the world”. Can “non-prostate-owner” usefully survive? “People can’t literally change sex”, concludes Stock. “Living in the acquired gender” seems mostly to mean dressing in stereotypically female or male clothes, perhaps undergoing surgery and hormone treatment. It is a fiction, but one that those who disbelieve in its literal truth would be courteous to co-engage in. Unfortunately, as a result of saying such things, Stock has suffered far worse than the sort of “literal violence” that she has been accused of perpetrating."
Cambridge University ‘Terf-spotting’ guide condemned as a ‘witch-finder’s charter’ - "The women’s officer of Cambridge University’s Students Union has been condemned after issuing a guide on how to spot "Terfs". Students have been advised to "keep an eye out" for those who think biological sex is binary and that only women can experience misogyny... The document, published among resources on housing and exams advice, was drawn up by Milo Eyre-Morgan, the elected women’s officer, who goes by the pronouns he/him or they/them and vows to represent "marginalised genders". The new Cambridge guide, promoted by the women’s officer on Monday, lists several "signs of a Terf". The guide goes on to say that "some people who experience misogyny are not women", and urges students to be "allies" by "keeping an eye out for this way of thinking" in any feminist works they study... The core characteristics of Terfs are a conservative, binary, essentialist conception of sex as the be-all-end-all, and a deep hatred for trans women, couched in the language of feminism and feminist theory." James Orr, assistant professor in philosophy of religion at Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity, compared the document to a guide on "how to spot a witch". "It’s an attempt to set out a witch-finder's charter and it's driven by ideology not reason," he said. "This is an extremely sinister development and is effectively incentivising behaviour among students that is wholly opposed to the flourishing of any serious intellectual culture. "These are perfectly plausible and defensible positions to hold, not immoral and not even close to being unlawful, and should be able to be expressed freely - especially if you think they are wrong. How long before people wake up to this crisis?"... Dr Arif Ahmed, a reader in philosophy at Cambridge, said: "The current persecution of Kathleen Stock has contributed to an atmosphere in higher education where one side of a very important public policy debate feels unable to speak out and in some cases probably is... "Freedom is not a natural state of humanity, it is something we always have to protect." The Equalities and Human Rights Commission has made clear that gender-critical viewpoints on the trans debate are lawful and deserve to be heard. The University of Cambridge said it "supports lawful debate and freedom of expression for all members of its community, including the discussion of controversial or unpopular opinions and ideas"."