A strange union
Janice Turner mentioned a union in her Times piece on gender indoctrination in the civil service:
The head of the union says nuh-uh:
But what counts as “exclusionary” or “discriminatory”? That’s the issue, isn’t it. Trans dogma defines “exclusion” as “not including men in the category ‘women’.” We don’t agree that that’s a reasonable definition. It’s not “exclusionary” to exclude salmon from a recipe for chocolate cake, and it’s not exclusionary to exclude men from definitions of women. That ought to be obvious, but in the real world we are accused of being evil exclusionizers for not including men in our definition of women. That’s what unions shouldn’t be supporting.
But he seems to think it’s exclusionary to ask him to define “exclusionary.”
Good point except for the fact that “transphobic” is not comparable to racist or misogynist. This is the whole point. Trans proselytizing and ideology are parasites on older social justice movements, stealing their categories and vocabulary for a very different and non-progressive brand of politics.
That’s it. We’re called transphobic for saying that men are not women. This doesn’t work for us.
My cat says that salmon should be included in every recipe, including chocolate cake. I disagree. She says I am icthyphobic.
Seriously, a union that rejects standing up for academic freedom. Academics isn’t about inclusion or exclusion; it’s about what we have learned and have reason to believe is likely true. One of these things that is true is that men are not women.
We don’t teach that horses are cows, or dogs are birds, because those are not true, and we know they are not true, even if the words we use for them are arbitrary. The animals themselves are not arbitrary; they are separate species that live in different ways and do not interbreed naturally. If we called them glosks and plomes, it would not make any difference to what they were. The words are there to communicate with each other, and if we started to describe cows as “animals that provide beef” and horses as “animals that run fast and we ride”, it would be clunky communication, so we say “cows” and “horses”.
There’s a sense in which academics, or at least academic life, is about inclusion and/or exclusion. Higher education is of course the great entry portal into many good things in life. Sometimes (perhaps often, perhaps too often) it’s not an entry but a turnstile or a locked door, one that keeps most people out. It is reasonable to campaign for universities not to filter out poor people, women, people of color, children of immigrants, and so on.
That’s an institutional matter. Academic subject matter is a different kettle of fish, although some academic fields can be needlessly narrow.
The full text of the motion mentioned in Janice Turner’s article is here. A notable passage is this one:
It strongly implies that “colleagues with gender critical views” are a threat, or at least a potential threat, to the “safety” of “trans colleagues and clients”, to such an extent that restraints (“boundaries”) need to be imposed; however, the obvious question, “making people unsafe how, exactly?” is left hanging in the air. Perhaps because there is no persuasive answer.
How “cis” is not discriminatory language is beyond me.
Emperors must be protected from those who might be inclined to point out their nakedness. Haven’t unions always been on the side of emperors?
Expected to define each word that would be considered racist? No. Expected to define the list itself of words to be proscribed, as opposed to the words on that list? Yes, absolutely. Expected to be able to provide a coherent definition of racism consistent with common usage? You’d better goddamn believe it. If you’re going to curtail fundamental liberties like speech, then you are obliged to provide a full account of who, what, when, where, and why. I can define racism, sexism, misogyny, antisemitism, and homophobia in clear terms. I can define the extent and bounds of behavioral restriction I believe appropriate for any given context. It should be easy, and you should welcome the opportunity to clearly establish what constitutes transphobic behavior.
But y’all mah’f-kz won’t do that, because you can’t do that. You can’t, because your ideology is nonsensical, apophatic, self-justifying, self-negating, utterly incoherent bullshit. You can’t, because you know that definitions are inherently limiting, and having a fixed definition would mean being unable to deploy conflicting ones in rhetoric. You can’t, because clear definitions are easily communicated, and you can’t let normal people get a clear picture of your ideology’s tenets.
You can’t, because you’re lying liars who lie. God damn, this “I shouldn’t have to define my terms” routine is seriously craven.
Nullius in Verba @6
*applause*
Nullius, I second Lady Ms applause, and upgrade to a standing ovation. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t give standing ovations lightly. The last one I participated in was only because the people in front were blocking my view and the performer was doing things we wanted to see on his way out.
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Oh, why thank you. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m quite fond of applause.
Your secret is safe with us.
The sad thing is, Nullius is that there are many people who believe that what is racist is just obvious and thus requires no elucidation. When the boundaries of what counts as racist change as they inevitably will, they will consider the new understanding to also be just obvious (and probably conveniently forget that they ever thought differently).