Author: bomp123

Categories
Academics and researchers

I am a social scientist and bad questionnaires make me very cross

I am a social scientist, and bad questionnaires make me very cross. In 2018, became aware that Edward Lord of the City of London corporation was doing a survey to consult on their ‘Gender Identity Policy’. I wrote to the Camden New Journal as follows:

“Speaking as a survey researcher, the questionnaire being used for this consultation is perhaps the most poorly designed I have ever seen.  The first few questions give you the general flavour. Do you agree or disagree that:

  1. A person may come to feel that their gender is different from that assigned to them at birth.
  2. A person who consistently identifies in a gender which is different to the one they were assigned at birth should be accepted by society in their stated gender identity.
  3. A person who consistently identifies in a gender which is different to the one they were assigned at birth should be able to access services commonly provided to the gender with which they now identify.

These are leading questions, designed to guide the respondent to give a pre-determined answer. They are also written in purest gobbledegook.

Imagine trying to respond to this survey if you were a recent immigrant with strong religious views, but without the benefit of a degree in cultural studies.

Can the corporation explain why a supposed consultation on ‘inclusion’ is being carried out in such a blatantly exclusionary way?”

 (The CNJ ran a story rather than my letter – tellingly, they had had no idea before I wrote to them that the consultation was taking place).

I soon realised that what was happening at the City of London was happening everywhere. Policy was being developed under the radar, and without democratic consultation. And people who believe that sex is a real and socially significant category were being silenced and called bigots.

I was astonished. I found the fact that so many people were willing to profess to believe in nonsense deeply unsettling.

I have written about the threats to academic freedom and to sex-disaggregated data collection. I signed a letter to the Guardian from academics supporting academic freedom to discuss sex and gender. I have banged on about what is happening on social media. I have given talks, including at my local Labour party branch.

I am one of the founder signatories to the Labour Women’s Declaration. I took a motion supporting academic freedom to my union congress (which, shockingly, was narrowly defeated). I am one of the founders of UCL Women’s Liberation, which co-organised a conference at UCL with WPUK in February 2020. I have alerted my fellow quantitative social scientists to the threat to the sex question in the 2021 Census, and  co-ordinated a letter from eighty social scientists to the census authorities.

I published a paper “Sex and the Census: Why surveys should not conflate sex and gender identity” in the International Journal of Social Research Methodology.

Everyone who signed the letter to the Guardian on academic freedom in 2018 was targeted with online death threats from a Facebook page run by an anonymous person and followed by a number of enthusiastic students.

I reported this to the police, but they said there was little they could do. This was frightening of course.

Following UCU congress in 2019, myself and other women who put a motion supporting academic freedom to support sex and gender faced defamation from an academic at another university who falsely accused us (on twitter) of advocating violence, including sexual assault, of a junior female academic. The man who made these extraordinary and absurd allegations is an increasingly prominent figure in the union. His branch exec supported him, and a complaint to UCU against him was not upheld.

A small number of academic staff at UCL tried to shut down the UCL Women’s Liberation/WPUK (Woman’s Place UK) conference. While only 10 UCL academics signed a letter to the provost demanding the conference be shut down (for context, UCL has over 7,000 academic staff), six of these had EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) roles, and they succeeded in creating time-consuming administrative problems for us.

I was de-platformed from a research methods seminar by Natcen (National Centre for Social Research) for asserting the value of sex-based data. I never believed such a thing could happen within quantitative social science. This was a huge shock, and I agonised about going public. But I am very glad I did. If we don’t speak openly about these things, most people will remain genuinely clueless about the idiocy and authoritarianism of the genderist movement.

Alice Sullivan, Professor of Sociology, UCL

Categories
Others

Women are united by their female biology

I care because I can’t stand to see scientific reality be dismissed like this for the feelings of a minority. Sexism still exists, and to imply that women are only women because of their identification or “women’s brains” totally erases it. A woman can have any brain, any personality, but women are united by their female biology.

So far I have only discussed this with tolerant friends and on social media (not under my own name).

I have faced a lot of online abuse.

S

Categories
Academics and researchers

I don’t hate trans people at all, and don’t want them to be discriminated against

I care about this issue because even though I am very sympathetic to the persecution and harassment that trans people experience I am concerned about the loss of speech and legal categories to advocate for the distinctive issues women face. The confusion of sex and gender reinforces the idea that being a woman “means” something culturally specific that can be “acquired”.

I am really afraid of speaking out publicly on social media platforms and at work. I have had conversations with friends and family, but want to learn how to be more open about my views. The problem is that even someone as nuanced and sensitive as JK Rowling gets lambasted on social media, and I don’t want to be misinterpreted as a “trans-hater”. I don’t hate trans people at all, and don’t want them to be discriminated against. I just feel angry that their care and protection comes at the expense of women – and also clear logic and biological facts!

I haven’t been brave enough yet. I want to try harder!

JF

Categories
Academics and researchers

Everyone I have spoken to about it in person finds the whole thing bonkers

I’m a female athlete so I first became aware of the issue of transwomen in sport when it was brought up in news articles reporting the Caster Semenya case. It was completely obvious to me that males shouldn’t be allowed to self ID into female sports from personal experience.

For example, I frequently finish in or near the top 3 women in competition but male friends who would be nowhere near the same level in the men’s category can beat me easily, or come very close even with relatively little training.

From following a few people who spoke about that issue, I read articles about the impact self ID could have in other areas of life and found myself getting more and more frustrated with the lack of consideration for women’s rights.

I have talked to numerous friends and family about the issue. I follow many GC people on twitter and like tweets but find myself too scared to retweet or comment publicly.

I’m nearly finished a PhD and I’m worried about how publicly holding these views would affect my career prospects.

Everyone I have spoken to about it in person finds the whole thing bonkers. Often other people bring up the males in women’s sports issue with me because they find the whole thing so crazy.

HG, PhD candidate and athlete

Categories
Academics and researchers Healthcare

The promotion of absurdities by policy makers is a gift to political ‘anti-elite’ extremists

I recognise and agree with the concerns of feminists and parents of ‘GNC’ (gender non-conforming) children, but the greater concern for me is the abandonment of the most fundamental principles of rational analysis, normal considerations of responsible policy- making, standards of debate, consistency in ethical judgements and simple recognition of banal facts, in favour of respect for the subjective claims of one particular group (with no rationale given for privileging this group).

Consistent principles, grounded in objectivity and rational enquiry are what project minorities and the powerless from the whims of those with power. Meanwhile, the promotion of absurdities by policy makers is a gift to political ‘anti-elite’ extremists and populists. (It’s extraordinary that this needs to be said in the 21st century.)

I have donated to crowdfunders, signed petitions and written responses to UK and Scottish government consultations. I’ve had very carefully chosen conversations privately. I’m silent on social media, beyond liberal use of the like button.

I’ve mostly acted anonymously. My employer is very proud of its trans-friendly policies, I have a family to support and I don’t think the risk-return calculation merits raising my (obscure) voice.

D, University employee

Categories
Parent

I am appalled that my three daughters may grow up with fewer rights than I had as a teenager and young woman

I care about it as I am horrified to see the misogyny that has existed since time began cloak itself with a progressive cause to undo women’s rights and take away so much of what we have fought for. I care because I am appalled that my three daughters may grow up with fewer rights than I had as a teenager and young woman.

I have been speaking up on social media since 2015 and tentatively speaking about in person from that time, I started attending events in 2018.

I have lost many friends who have unfriended me on Facebook. My relationship with my brother in law and his wife has been permanently soured as he has accused me and my husband of being transphobic. I know that a number of colleagues past and present view me as bigoted.

C, Feminist and mother

Categories
Others

I believe women are being bullied and silenced

I care about the physical safety and dignity of women and girls and I think this is jeopardised by self ID and I think it is wrong that we are  being asked to take this risk to appease trans women.  Single sex spaces should be preserved. 

I care about fairness for women in all fields and consider that women and girls face a loss of opportunity in sports and perhaps at work and in education if their places are being taken by males who identify as women.

I am worried that health issues arising from biological sex ie pregnancy and birth, ante and post natal depression, menopause etc may be impacted when male bodied people identifying as women access services designed for females. I believe women are being bullied and silenced, and asked to “be kind” at best. This is unfair. It is important that we are allowed to defend our sex-based rights. Without a recognition of our biology we may lose these rights which is what concerns me most of all.

At the moment not a great deal but I have talked to family and friends and I have started to make my views known on social media. It feels dangerous.

I have been criticized in twitter. A follower of mine whose son is a trans man said something very unpleasant about how I should worry that my husband was raping my daughters if I was so concerned about sharing bathrooms with men.

LAK, For women and  girls

Categories
Parent

As a new mum I want my child to grow up expressing himself however he likes

I care because I’m a woman who sees women’s rights being eroded due to this irrational unscientific belief the only definition of womanhood is ‘someone who identifies as a woman’. It’s ludicrous. Furthermore, as a new mum I want my child to grow up expressing himself however he likes, pursuing the interests and hobbies which fulfil him, without feeling that because he may like something stereotypically ‘feminine’ then he has been ‘born in the wrong body’.

I have commented anonymously on articles and social media posts online, posted on forums, and emailed my local authority regarding their removal of ‘sex’ as a protected characteristic on their website.

I have received backlash online.

R, Author

Categories
Others

You absolutely cannot understand what it means to be female if you have been raised and socialised as a man

This matters to me because I am a feminist who believes in equality.  You absolutely cannot understand what it means to be female if you have been raised and socialised as a man.  You cannot understand what makes a female feel vulnerable around male bodies.  Male entitlement.  Male strength.  Male power. 

I have been raped more than once.  Sexually abused from childhood.  Controlled, belittled, groped, patronised, objectified by men.  Being a woman is not a costume, it is a lifetime of looking over your shoulder.  Being born and raised as a male will give you no insight into that underlying fear.

I have done very little.  I’m too scared to put my thoughts out there.  I’ve seen brave women who have spoken out and have been attacked and abused for their beliefs. 

I have lost a good friend.  She has been in an abusive relationship for years, and left it to go into another.  She is a good person and has been raised to “be nice”.  She is nice to her abusers and blames herself.  That is what female socialisation does to you. 

Doris, I am a woman.  An adult human female

Categories
Academics and researchers Healthcare

I have an abhorrence of totalitarian belief systems and dogma

Because I am a feminist and have an abhorrence of totalitarian belief systems and dogma.  I felt I could not stand by in silence while other women were bullied and persecuted simply for stating facts and for refusing to sign up to an ideological system. I am also deeply troubled by the developmental harms and confusion being caused to children, especially gender non-conforming children, by the way this ideology has infiltrated schools and other educational spaces.   

I have been a signatory to several letters in the mainstream press. I have taken motions to my union at local and national level. I have organized a major feminist conference at my university. I have co-authored a blog on an educational website. I have written to my MP. I have submitted responses to government consultations. I have written letters to university vice-chancellors, editors and other senior academics to protest the treatment of feminist scholars within their institutions. 

I have spoken to the staff and headteacher at the school where I am a governor about their PSHE resources. I have attended several demonstrations and events by WPUK. I  was a founding signatory of the Labour Women’s Declaration. I have shared resources, material and opinions with women in my academic and social networks. I have written to the organizers of an event where a feminist was attacked for distributing material.  I have co-authored pieces in the press. I have used feminist materials in my teaching.  I have joined a local activists’ network …..   

I have been asked to step down from an international editorial board because of my feminist views (after publishing a piece on academic freedom on sex and gender).

SeveraI people in my academic network, some of whom were close friends, no longer speak to me.   I am no longer welcome in some of these network events.

I have had student activists post my name on lists of dangerous “TERFS”, calling on all trans students to avoid my classes because they are unsafe.  I have had defamatory posters, showing my photo and calling me a fascist, displayed on the walls of my workplace. I have been referred to on social media as a bigot and a transphobe – although I am not even on social media myself (partly because I do not have the stomach for all the bullying).   I have been named in defamatory articles by student journalists.   I have been insulted by fellow activists in my union branch.

J, University lecturer