GC Academia Network

We are a group of academics working in higher education. We are concerned about the ongoing erosion of women's sex-based rights in law, policy and practice.

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

Nailed it.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

If you believe free speech is for you but not your political opponents, you're illiberal.

If no contrary evidence could change your beliefs, you're a fundamentalist.

If you believe the state should punish those with contrary views, you're a totalitarian.

If you believe political opponents should be punished with violence or death, you're a terrorist.

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@BoyGeorge @DavidMc38984768 @theleftbible There’s actually something wrong with you.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue.

I often wonder whether the signatories of such letters have to quieten their consciences before publicly boosting a movement intent on removing women's and girls' rights, which bullies gay people who admit openly they don't want opposite sex partners, and campaigns for the continued sterilisation of vulnerable and troubled kids. Do they feel any qualms at all while chanting the foundational lie of their religion: Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men?

I have no idea. All I know for sure is that it's a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They're not repeating it because it's true - they know full well it's not true - but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you're one of the Godly, and an exorcist's weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.

Some argue that signatories of these sorts of letters are motivated by fear: fear for their careers, of course, but also fear of their co-religionists, who include angry, narcissistic men who threaten and sometimes enact violence on non-believers; back-stabbing colleagues ever ready to report wrongthink; the online shamers and doxxers and rape threateners, and, of course, the influential zealots in the upper echelons of liberal professions (though we can quibble whether they're actually liberal at all, given the draconian authoritarianism that seems to have engulfed so many). Gender ideology could give medieval Catholicism a run for its money when it comes to punishing heretics, so isn't it common sense to keep your head down and recite your Hail Mulvaneys?

But before we start feeling too sorry for any cowed and fearful TWAWites who're TERFy on the sly, let's not forget what a high proportion of them have willingly snatched up pitchforks and torches to join the inquisitional purges. Call me lacking in proper womanly sympathy, but I find the harm they've enabled and in some cases directly championed or funded - the hounding and shaming of vulnerable women, the forced loss of livelihoods, the unregulated medical experiment on minors - tends to dry up my tears at source.

History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable. As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable.

Court losses are starting to stack up. The condescension, overreach, entitlement and aggression of gender activists is eroding public support daily. Women are fighting back and winning significant victories. Sporting bodies have miraculously awoken from their slumber and remembered that males tend to be larger, stronger and faster than females. Parts of the medical establishment are questioning cutting healthy breasts off teenaged girls is really the best way to fix their mental health problems.

One seemingly harmless little white lie - Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men - uttered in most cases without any real thought at all, and a few short years later, people who think of themselves as supremely virtuous are typing 'yes, rapists' pronouns are absolutely the hill I'll die on,' rubbing shoulders with those who call for women to be hanged and decapitated for wanting all-female rape crisis centres, and furiously denying clear and mounting evidence of the greatest medical scandal in a century.

I wonder if they ever ask themselves how they got here, and I wonder whether any of them will ever feel shame.

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

I know I have a rep for calm serenity but the closer we get to sanity, the more I feel need to wreak vengeance, raze buildings, salt the land and take down every Establishment or celeb muppet that ever fell for gender nonsense, till they are all in outer reaches of the D-list.

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

I never do a long post but first time for everything. Lots of lively comment on my "they are just quite thick" explanation of Establishment transactivism capture (proposed hashtags #itsthestupidstupid #makeidiocymortifyingagain).

Also, some alternative explanations being proposed. I suppose my conclusion is: it doesn't matter if they really ARE thick, or just pretending/left-brained/lost in a cult/cosseted from the consequences/ smart in a way that makes them susceptible to motivated reasoning.

Having spent best part of six years (FML) arguing patiently with these people, a) I am not convinced of the more charitable explanations for notable characters, and b) either way, I don't care any more. If it walks like a moron, talks like a moron, it is – for all relevant purposes– a moron, and we should say so.

So for instance (just a small selection from timeline today):
- if you think transwomen (men) are to women what step-parents are to their children YOU ARE A MORON (think it through to the end: when was the metaphorical marriage? wtf is "womaning" as a verb? Wearing kneesocks?)
- If you think you can't know your own sex because you haven't seen your chromosomes YOU ARE A MORON (if that is the burden of proof, how do you personally know you have a brain?)
- If you think that the Supreme Court should have "consulted trans people" about their "lived experience" while interpreting existing law YOU ARE A MORON, this is not what courts do; and for good reason - how would it be workably scaled up?
- If you base your glowing view of trans ideology on what your daughter at private school and all her mates tell you (it doesn't affect us, Dad, why can't they just be kind?), then YOU ARE A MORON. What kind of general epistemology is that, exactly? You seem to be confusing having 360 degree insight into the intersection of law and social reality with them being able to use the remote better than you can.

I see so many people on here trying to shame the likes of Maugham, Campbell, Stewart, Harman (insert your most annoying establishment shill for transactivism here) on the grounds of their ethical failures and inability to empathise with vulnerable or respect basic fairness norms. It is hopeless. These people are utterly convinced of their moral rectitude, they automatically take disagreement as a sign of the limited mindset of their opposition.

We should forget all that, and hit them where it hurts: in the ego. THESE PEOPLE ARE JUST A BIT THICK. They are promoted way above their station, have blustered through on their accents, educations, and connections, and now the tide is going out, we can truly see who is naked. Let's learn from this, and never trust their so-called expertise on any other matter again.

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@DrJoGrady It would be better if you focus on the shit show that is HE atm where thousands of academics are at threat of losing their jobs. Anybody GC thinking about rejoining UCU has had another reminder of why they shouldn’t. You are a walking disaster.

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@GerryHassan For somebody who claims to be a ‘thinker’, you’re not doing a very good job at it.

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@sally_hines Quote tweeting a colleague then dismissing her field. How nice of you.

Oral health is considerably more important than <checks notes> ‘gender studies’.

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@Aja02537920 @CaolanRob @JuliaHB1 @jk_rowling @terfasaurus Sounds like a posh Scot to my ear.

[Angela Eagle DBE @angelaeagle]

Labour will:

🌹 Legislate for a trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban
🌹 Make anti-LGBT+ hate crime an aggravated offence
🌹Modernise Gender Recognition processes
🌹 Appoint an international LGBT+ envoy

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

Prize for the most stupid tweet of the day (and there have been a few).

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@robhind @Kataklysm_1312 @RossMcCaff Well according to a lot of blokes on this thread, yes!

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@dare99 @TonePoemTweets @RossMcCaff Lying? How do you know what other people’s motivations are?

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@PhilipSwallow2 @RossMcCaff Srsly. All this nonsense about it being a bit of fun and only racing against yourself. It’s infuriating.

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@ChapelGuilt He plays 5-a-side but not to score goals against the other team, just to have a bit of fun.

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

All the sporty men commenting on this thread making out they aren’t competitive against other sporty men. Must think we were born yesterday …

[Ross McCafferty @RossMcCaff]

"Parkrun must protect women runners from transgender rivals" is one of the stupidest sentences I've ever read.

What do you mean protect? And what rivals? Parkrun is very pointedly not a race.

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@RossMcCaff @talentedfergal

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@RossMcCaff @talentedfergal

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@robhind @Kataklysm_1312 @RossMcCaff But apparently it’s not about holding records or getting a better place it’s about self-improvement and having a bit of fun …

[GC Academia Network @network_gc]

@w4tchmen @stephenwhittle Like what, what?