“True” solidarity
Yet more poisonous bullying from people who fancy themselves comrades:
He’s president of Edinburgh UCU. His “little something” explains why it’s good for a union to throw a member to the wolves.
When is it right for a union to support dismissal?
Transphobic philosophy professor Kathleen Stock recently resigned from her position at the University of Sussex, shortly after tweeting that the Sussex branch of UCU ‘effectively ended’ her career by releasing a statement in solidarity with trans and nonbinary communities at the university. Stock has not been a UCU member for some time. Before her resignation there would have been a clear case for the union to support her dismissal even if she were a member.
First word of the piece he calls her “transphobic,” which is a lie, and in the circumstances an evil malicious harm-doing lie.
In the furore that has followed students at the University of Sussex protesting against transphobic philosophy professor Kathleen Stock, UCU has come into the firing line from Stock supporters.
She’s not “transphobic.” Poisoning the well is cheating.
UCU is unequivocally inclusive. Our policy has been developed via numerous motions, particularly since 2017, and is detailed here.
“Inclusive” of what? Or whom? What is that supposed to mean? UCU is obviously not “inclusive” of Stock. Is UCU “inclusive” of racists? Of racism? Of violence and people who perpetrate violence? Of bullying and bullies? If you’re trying to make an argument you need to do better than using a buzzword that needs defining. If you look at the url in the “here” you’ll see that it spells out trans inclusion. Why didn’t Buttars? Maybe because he was helping himself to some extra cred by appearing to be for a sweeping embracing humanitarian incloooosion of all the world, in order to contrast himself and UCU with the evil You Know Who.
Stock meanwhile, as a Trustee of the transphobic hate group LGB Alliance and as a signatory of the Women’s Human Rights Declaration (WHRC), which calls for the ‘elimination’ of ‘the practice of transgenderism’ as well as the repeal of the Gender Recognition Act, has a position that is completely at odds with this.
The LGB Alliance is neither a hate group nor transphobic.
I’m so sick of these people. They don’t have a real case so they intensify the lying and name-calling, even of a feminist woman who just got bullied out of a job she loved. I’m sick of them.
His conclusion:
As socialists and trade unionists we must side with the oppressed – always. That is solidarity.
Except when they’re feminist women.
This just floors me. A union writing this letter has ceased to fulfill their function. Unions are supposed to help us protect academic freedom, and while that has limits (I don’t think it would be accepted for profs to ask students to heil Hitler, for example), this is…is…disturbing. When a union can write something like this, times are indeed upside down.
I thought it was bad when my union refused to support some of our members attempting to file a grievance about unequal calculations of workload and salary. At least in our case you could find some justification, as that workload was written into the contract they signed. But THIS? No justification, not even a weak one.
You know the author cannot really defend their position, when their argument involves using a case of a man publically professing a defence of hebephilia as a comparison to the situation in discussion!
bascule,
Yes. He attempted to defend the union’s not supporting Stock by saying that there are circumstances under which it is proper for a university to fire a member of staff and the one he picks to illustrate this asked his students about their sexual fantasies and favourite sex positions and made statements like:
But while he describes that guy’s case in immense details, he suddenly decides he doesn’t have time or space to write about Stock’s case, even though that is what the article is about. Funny that. And he links to an article by GRACE LAVERY to do it for him.
Then he makes a comparison between the cases which doesn’t go any way toward damning either of them or suggesting why it should be OK for a university to sack either. Which, again, is what the article was supposed to be about.
I know you already touched on this, Ophelia, but damn me if it isn’t a perfect example of the empty-headed, platitudinous rhetoric that characterizes the genderist movement. It’s as obviously self-contradictory as saying that there’s no such thing as objective truth. Somehow, the obviousness of the rebuttal is taken as evidence of the rebuttal’s weakness, much like we’ve all seen with respect to Christian attitudes toward things like the Problem of Evil. The fact that people have been pointing out inconsistencies for over two millennia is perceived as proof of the religion’s strength and veracity.