The Times (the London one) reports:

Academics at Edinburgh University claim they are teaching in a climate of fear with some lecturers allegedly “hunted down” because of their failure to comply with the “unchallengeable orthodoxy” of gender identity theory.

Contributors from Edinburgh to a new internet forum have complained of bullying and repeated personal attacks on social media if they are open about their opinions while others fear students are being indoctrinated “with fixed mindsets on gender identity”.

No surprise there.

Scores of academics, many claiming to be from the Russell Group of leading universities, shared their anonymised experiences on GC Academia. One part-time lecturer at Edinburgh said a sense of intellectual freedom had been supplanted by a culture of fear.

The lecturer wrote: “It is as though academic colleagues believe there are some trans/trans ally students who are monstrous toddlers, ready to throw a strop if they should hear anything that invalidates their ‘true self’ and report the offending tutor. The effect is that the extreme version of gender identity theory has to be taught as though it’s an unchallengeable orthodoxy.”

In other words it’s Pharyngula writ large, Twitter but more expensive.

One critic of the university wrote scathingly of the “authoritarian bullies of the Staff Pride Network,” adding: “The postmodern thought and language police are very active in my subject area.”

They added: “Their latest is an instruction to check our course materials for ‘cis-normative’ [a gender identity which matches their biological sex] assumptions and monitor ourselves, our students and each other for ‘micro-invalidations’.”

This was a reference to guidance published by the university to help staff recognise and counteract “microaggressions against trans and/or nonbinary people”.

It urges staff to refrain from using phrases such as “all women hate their periods” and “all people think about being the opposite gender sometimes”.

But what if you think it’s likely that all people do think about being the opposite gender sometimes? And you think it’s relevant and of interest? Do the people of gender get to declare a monopoly on the word “gender” now? Why would that be?