Near-total control
A hot topic for today: a piece by Laura Favaro in the Times Higher about the tyranny of gender idenniny.
Warnings that the field was risky for an early career researcher to investigate came from scholars on all sides – from “gender-critical” feminists, who described being vilified and ostracised for stating that sex is binary and immutable, to those who saw that position as callous bigotry, or, moreover, “a genocidal project” (including journal editors thus endorsing censorship).
Some people warned of vilification and ostracism, others vilified and ostracized.
More than two years ago, I set out to find whether the warnings about entering this domain were justified, or, as others suggest, spurious claims made by those keen to spark a phoney “culture war”. It led me to interview 50 gender studies academics across many disciplines, including sociology, psychology and education, most of whom worked at English universities, to learn about their views and experiences of the dispute.
…
It was clear that the “gender-critical” feminist academics I interviewed had faced negative repercussions for years for expressing their view (now protected in the UK under the Equality Act 2010 following last year’s tribunal ruling that a thinktank researcher, Maya Forstater, had been unlawfully dismissed for tweeting that women could not change their biological sex). Among other experiences, my interviewees described complaints to and by management, attempts to shut down events, no platforming, disinvitations, intimidation, smears and losing career progression opportunities, including being blocked from jobs.
How did this situation become so entrenched so fast? There was certainly nothing like it in connection with feminism and its critics, was there? Opposition and emotion, yes, but surely not such systematic and intense vilification and ostracism? (Shall I call it V&O for short?) I don’t think feminism has ever had that kind of power or invoked that kind of loyalty.
From these [gender-critical] scholars’ perspective, the supporters of what is often called “trans-inclusive feminism” held near-total control in academia, deciding what was discussed in departments or included in scholarly journals.
But did trans-inclusive feminists see themselves as holding this powerful position? I spoke to 20 such academics to understand their heterogeneous, often ambiguous and contradictory constellation of ideas and to explore whether they recognised the accusations of unfair “gatekeeping” made against them.
Ha. Pretty sure that’s a No.
Despite its conceptual diversity, genderism coheres around the push for gender (identity) to replace sex in most – if not all – contexts. Unlike feminism, its political subject is not female people but rather all those subjected to gender oppression – a concept that is redefined to emphasise lack of choice and affirmation relating to gender identity.
Lack of choice is an interesting thing to emphasize. We don’t have a choice about a lot of things. We don’t choose to be humans, or animals, or alive; we don’t choose to be tall or short, born in Pakistan or Peru. We are thrown into the world, as the existentialists said. Choice is a luxury. It’s good to expand it, but it’s not always good to be enraged at its absence.
For many, the urgency of recognising this societal injustice could not be overstated. “Trans-exclusionary radical feminists” (Terfs), as they frequently labelled them, are part of nothing less than a “colonial [and] ultimately an eliminationist project” against people who identify as transgender or non-binary, some believe, as explained by Alison Phipps in her 2020 book Me, not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism.
Alison Phipps took to Twitter to object to this article and its writer today. To object to it and throw around accusations about it.
On the issue of “no platforming”, some interviewees ridiculed the idea that gender-critical feminists were victims of it, echoing influential writers such as Sara Ahmed, who in 2015 discredited claims by feminists about silencing at universities being “a mechanism of power”, even while conceding that she was “aiming to eliminate the positions that aim to eliminate people”.
“There is no such silencing, but I plan to assist it.”
Others, however, openly embraced the “no debate” position on the basis that gender-critical feminism is “hate speech” or even “rhetorical violence [that] actually does have real-world aims”, equivalent to movements such as fascism and eugenics. One interviewee who identified as a trans woman described the current situation in academia as “a political battle over an institutional space”, clarifying that: “My political bottom line is – I don’t concede to people who are interested in the eradication of me and everyone like me in the world because I consider that a genocidal project.”
In other words they lie. Systematically and often. We object to the concept of “gender identity” and to how it’s playing out, and they call that eradication and genocide. We are not seeking the eradication or genocide of anyone.
This view, together with the belief that “cis women have more power than trans people”, led genderist academics to refrain from forthrightly denouncing some transgender activists’ aggressive tactics towards feminists. These include threats and ideations of extreme violence, which, as well as being pervasive on social media, appear to be increasingly condoned at universities. For example, last year, a London School of Economics postgraduate student conference paper described a scene in which feminists critical of genderism “scream for mercy”. The paper then described the potential threat: “I hold a knife to your throat and spit my transness into your ear”, concluding: “Are you scared? I sure fucking hope so.”
That’s plucky and admirable; feminist women saying men can’t become women is pure evil.
Gatekeeping was also suggested in the responses by another 11 interviewees who held principal editorship roles at feminist, gender and sexuality studies journals. All confirmed that genderist perspectives dominate these publications, in the sense that “on the editorial board, none of us would describe ourselves as in the gender critical camp”. Editors additionally pointed to the preferred perspective of authors, readers and publishing houses. For some, it was a matter of scholarly values, with gender-critical feminism described as “wrong-headed”, “outdated” or “completely delegitimised”. Others, however, acknowledged that “the objection is a political one”.
Feminism is wrong-headed, outdated, and completely delegitimized. Back to the kitchen, wims.
Genderist academics reported personally imposing bans from academic networks and events, along with language policing of colleagues as well as students. “If students write ‘female’ in their essay, I’ll cross it out,” a sociologist told me, because “what matters is gender [identity]”.
So what matters is not the potential to get pregnant? Not the smaller less muscular body? Not expectations of child-bearing and kitchen work and submission? None of that matters any more?
Gimme a B
Gimme an I
Gimme a T
Gimme an E
What does that spell?
CULT!
I was going to ask where those bullet points came from, but then I saw the link. Good article. I agree with your assessment.
Pardon me if I fail to believe you. First, I have grave doubts about your ability to distinguish “abuse” from “criticism.” It’s a natural response to the transperbolic claim that “misgendering” is “actual violence,” and that your critics are hell-bent on trans genocide. Please. Second, the whole “far-right allies” thing is an immediate indication that yours is not a good faith appraisal of your critics, many of whom are left-leaning women.
You’re trying to hide the striking asymmetry between the actions of feminists and genderists. How many trans meetings have been harassed by threatening mobs of feminist activists? How many genderist professors have been hounded out of their teaching positions by feminist students and their allies? How many public gatherings of genderists have been greeted with bullying, intimidating feminists dressed in black, barring access to their chosen gathering place? None. How do I know this? Because I would have heard about it. We all would have. If even one of these counterfactual things had transpired, it would have been reported worldwide by captured media outlets. It would have been a front page, first item story if feminists had even once been half as threatening and intimidating to genderist gatherings and academics as trans activists have consistently been to women defending their rights and boundaries. Instead the actual threats, intimidation and violence have all been in the other direction. You’ll spin this as legitimate self-defence of a terrorized, embattled, marginalized community in the face of imminent genocide. Besides, those women are all evil, far-right bigots on the wrong side of history, so they get what they deserve. Right?
This. This still blows my mind. Women have never been able to get the police to take rape seriously, but they’ll go all out against limericks.
But how is this supposed concern for “all those subjected to gender oppression” working out in real life? Again there is a striking imbalance in how all this high-falutin’ theory is applied in society at large. Also a striking imbalance in who it is that bears the burden and pays the price of this application of gender ideology.
We’ve all seen examples posted here on B&W of the ongoing, concerted erasure of the word “woman” in a broad range of organizations and institutions. All in the interests of “inclusivity”. But is there an equivalent, concerted effort to erase the word men in all those same arenas? No. Only women are subjected to this treatment.
At the same time that “woman” is being banished from institutional vocabularies, women’s single sex spaces have effectively been turned into mixed sex spaces. Toilets. Prisons. Rape crisis centres. Hospital wards. Sports teams. Human sexually dimorphic physiology means that men, on average, represent a physical threat to most women in a way that does not happen in the reverse direction. The cover that gender self ID provides to potential sexual predators is one that endangers women disproportionately, if not exclusively. If we replace “sex” with “gender” as the exclusive locus of legitimate concern, than this lopsided cost and damage are rendered invisible. The underlying explanation of sex discrimination is no longer available or allowed under a regime of gender primacy. If the category of “woman” is redefined to include men, then the concept of women being a sex class with its own needs and interests becomes incoherent, and can no longer be used as the basis for defending anything exclusively “female.”
This is not an issue of equivalent importance to men, as, traditionally, under patriarchy, they had amassed most power to themselves to start with. Women have had to take power from them. Men were the norm, the standard, the model. Trans identifying females are not a threat to the male power base. The definition of “man” is not on the table. Never has been, never will be. We are not being erased, or colonized. Gay men are not being attacked for “genital fetishism” or “sexual apartheid” to anywhere near the same degree that lesbians are. You never hear anyone make the claim that “we’ve always entered your spaces,” or “women will always force their way to gain access to men.” Yet both “arguments” are made against attempts to retain women’s single sex spaces. Men’s boundaries are ultimately secure against women, and always will be, because of male advantages in physical strength.
In actual practice, women are the clear losers in the gender game. The invasion is unidirectional, and has nothing to do with”equality”, “fairness” and “inclusion.” No amount of gender studies degrees can erase or sugar-coat this truth, whatever statements, petitions, and apologies emanate from these useful idiots in academia. How they see this as “justice” is beyond me. The only way they will be on the “right side of history” is if they’re the one’s writing it.
It occurs to me that there has been a group & ideology which quickly became entrenched & critics then vilified & ostracized: “fragile” children and their extreme safeguarding. Ordinary vigilance isn’t enough. They shouldn’t be left on their own. They can’t be unsupervised. Parents who send their kids to play in the park — a perfectly ordinary situation for generations— risk a visit from the police in many areas of the country, particularly in liberal ones. What’s considered “child abuse” has expanded. And child abusers are lower than low; you really can’t go overboard when expressing how you hate them.
It’s interesting that both sides of the trans debate accuse the other of child abuse: one for “transing kids” and the other for “forcing children to deny who they really are.” But it seems to me that the exaggerated concern & defensiveness over trans identities — the need to protect trans people— feels a lot like mothering. And those who identify as trans seem infantilized. There’s so much they can’t handle, so many relatively mild annoyances that apparently damage them to the core. The framework is Parent-Child and the critics of GC all seem to have gone into Mamabear Mode. Listen to that recent diatribe by Owen Jones. That could be a mother calling out playmates for taking advantage of a helpless child. “You’re just mean…”
Sastra, and like trans, that has worked its way into academia. “You can’t say that, it might hurt someone’s feelings!” So I have students who want to go into environmental science, and are obviously not fit for the field because they can’t comprehend the basic freshman level non-majors class, and I can’t even say, nicely, “You might want to consider a different field.”
Some high schools have no-zero policies, so a student gets 50% no matter what (more if they actually do the work and get it correct). We are told not to grade with red because it shows up how much the student got wrong. If they can’t see the ink right off, it might not hurt their feelings.
We aren’t supposed to discuss any issue that is controversial without allowing that the other side has good points. As a scientist, I do tend to discuss the other side when it is relevant and a reasonable issue. Most of the ones on this front are not.
Innnteresting. I don’t quite see the “fragile children” thing as comparable to trans ideology, because it’s not as politicized or organized or in everyone’s face etc – but the fragility transfer part is very interesting. I guess we’re all supposed to be helicopter parents to fragile trans kids especially the “girl” ones.
Always remember: men are infinitely more fragile than women. You just can’t pad and protect and comfort and coddle them enough. They’re like cobwebs.
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It occurs to me that I *have* seen something to parallel the extremist vilification and internet-mediated pile-ons attacking gender critical feminists: The assaults launched by climate change denialists on climate scientists and anyone who dares ally with them. I was just reading a brief memoir of Stephan Lewandowsky’s experiences when he made himself a target for climate denialists by publishing a paper connecting conspiratorial thinking and rejection of climate science titled “NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science.” Again and again while reading, the similarities struck me: These are the sorts of attacks made by people who cannot defend their position based on reasoning and fact-based arguments, but nevertheless feel certain of their rightness and strongly compelled to defend their position from criticism. The main difference is that the incandescently angry, ultra-motivated hordes of climate change denialists are rightly viewed by progressives, liberals, and even moderates as regressive conspiracist loons on the wrong side of reality. But the very same people who rightly dismiss climate change denialists as nutjobs — at least partly because of their rage-driven attacks on people making perfectly sensible arguments — have somehow come to view genderists (who make exactly the same kind of rage-driven attacks on people making perfectly sensible arguments) as progressives on the right side of history.