Category: Academics and researchers

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Academics and researchers

Women fought for sex-based rights for good reasons

I care because women fought for sex-based rights for good reasons.  I feel strongly that the degree of vitriol, diminishing of voice and violence and is frightening. And I want to stand up to it.  But I am scared.  And then cross with myself for being scared.

I have spoken out on Twitter in support of key figures and ideas I believe in (e.g the protection of single-sex spaces; the ‘right’ (!) to talk about our experience as a sex class)

On Wednesday 10th June 2020 I tweeted in support of JK Rowling and was absolutely TAKEN DOWN (called a cunt; had obscene content posted on my feed; told to shut up and sit down TERF etc.). I am yet to see whether my employer wades in against me.  Watch this space!

B K Long

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Academics and researchers

I saw a TRA threaten a 15 year old girl with rape & choking her with his ‘girl-dick’ because she said girls don’t have a penis

I care because my daughter is a butch lesbian & I saw a TRA (trans rights activist) threaten a 15 year old girl with rape & choking her with his ‘girl-dick’ because she said girls don’t have a penis. I don’t want my daughter, that 15 year old or any other woman or girl to be forced or coerced to accept penis or be threatened with rape.

I care also as the victim of rape, both as a child and adult. I know abusive men when I see them & they want easy access to women & girls.

I started to tweet under my own name & was quietly warned by a friend at work to be careful. I was all of a sudden required to attend diversity training in person, not the usual online kind.

I questioned why sex was absent from the protected characteristics & stated why it was important. The equality lead assured us sex & gender were the same thing and they ‘just want to pee.’

I opened an anonymous twitter account and shut my own down so I can continue to tweet but I have to be careful still. I attended WPUK (Woman’s Place UK) Conference in London & heard you (among others) speak. I completed the GRA (Gender Recognition Act) consultation response. I speak 1-2-1 with other women at work about the issues to sow the seeds & raise awareness. I cross out any survey ‘gender option and hand-write SEX-FEMALE. I financially supported your claim (and will continue to) FairCop, Safe Schools Alliance (thank God for them!) and others.

I had to close my professional account. I was made to attend two equality training sessions within a few weeks, probably because I spoke out at the first & this was followed by an online diversity module 80% of which related to trans issues & which couldn’t be passed unless you answered with gender ID language (calling a trans identified man a woman for example.)

My workload & responsibilities have been doubled, making research & writing impossible & most of my targets also impossible without working a 60-80 week. I know they want me out & I’m looking but its almost impossible with this workload.

Students have nominated me for awards but these were not even put forward for consideration until a savvy student noticed & complained.

Needless to say, only that nomination went through. It is now untenable & I’m so grateful we are working remotely.

Anonymous Academic

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Academics and researchers Healthcare

I am concerned about the erosion of women’s rights to single sex spaces

I am concerned about the erosion of women’s rights to single sex spaces, and about gender non-conforming children and young people being directed to hormones and surgery.

I have expressed gender critical views on social media and discussed the issue with friends and family.

I was anonymously reported to my employer for alleged transphobia.

Kate, Adult human female

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Academics and researchers

I am being given labels which I don’t want to use

It’s important to me because as a female I feel as if I’m being erased. I am being given labels which I don’t want to use (such as cis), my identity as I know it is being forced to become something else.

I now have to tell people my pronouns, I am female, you can see it. I don’t need to tell it to you. I’m not invisible. I am also an Asian person, I can’t change the way I look and neither can I change the way that I look female. (This is not to say that a person cannot change to being trans) – but being female is an innate quality of me. Don’t take it away from me by making me use other descriptors.

I’ve talked about it to colleagues. I’m too scared to do it publicly. There will be a backlash. I see how other people are treated for talking up. By talking up it suggests that you’re transphobic (I can’t say whether I am or not because I grew up in a system and a community where LGBT was not accepted. I’ve tried to be inclusive and be aware of my innate bias)

I’m cautious. If I speak up, I probably would be shunned from my networks and disciplined within my workplace.

Eggy, A person who believes in women’s rights

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Academics and researchers

A post-hysterectomy woman who doesn’t feel excluded by the word ‘woman’…so stop using me in your facile arguments

I’m a woman of the adult human female kind, a survivor of male sexual abuse from a line of survivors of male sexual abuse with friends who’ve experienced male sexual abuse and colleagues who’ve experienced male sexual abuse.

Single sex spaces and sex based rights and protections make our lives outside of our homes possible. And because gender is absolute nonsense – regressive, patriarchal nonsense. They think I’m a TERF? I think they’re a narrow-minded bigot from the 1950s.

I have started a huge row with a colleague (male) who shouted at me that I was a disgusting person for suggesting trans women are not women.

We are both criminologists. Criminologists. I cannot stress that enough.

Yeah, see the above. I yelled back twice as loud but frankly it scared the shit out of me that an intelligent colleague with a professional interest in, y’know, intelligent, nuanced analysis and good science, could behave toward me in that way and seem to think it justified. It has kept me (professionally) quiet.

The Mo, A post-hysterectomy woman who doesn’t feel excluded by the word ‘woman’, or discussions of menstruation; so stop using me in your facile arguments, you TRA morons – I’m a woman, an adult human female!

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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