Follow these 8 thousand simple rules
Kathleen Stock juxtaposes academic freedom and UK universities’ policies on The Trans Question:
The Education Reform Act 1988 describes the need “to ensure that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institutions”. Most UK university statutes contain a similar clause.
Keeping that in mind, consider those policies.
Leeds for instance:
“Think of people as being the gender that they self-identify as.”
Er – no. A university might as well tell its staff to think of people as being the nationality or species or profession or celestial body that they self-identify as. People’s individual private hidden unverifiable personal thoughts about themselves are just that, and it can’t be anybody’s business to tell us to share those thoughts, because it’s impossible. We’re all locked into our own heads. We can’t verify other people’s thoughts about themselves for them, and that’s all there is to it. The expectation that we can and that we must be told to do so is grotesque.
“A person should be addressed and referred to using the pronouns which make them feel comfortable. This could be he, she, they, per, hir or other pronouns. If you are uncertain, either listen to what pronoun others are using or politely ask what they prefer, for example “Hi, I’m xxx and I use the pronouns he and him. What about you?” Encourage others to use these pronouns too and if the wrong pronoun is used, apologise quickly and move on.”
This is grown-up professionals telling other grown-up professionals to do this nonsensical conversation-clogging absurdity. In a university.
“If a trans person informs a staff member that a word or phrasing is inappropriate or offensive, then that staff member should take their word for it, and adjust their phraseology accordingly”
I can’t see how that could go wrong at all.
“Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of their own gender and what feels right for them. This might be male, female, non-binary, genderless, or some other gender identity. All gender identities are equally valid” [NB: bold is theirs].
This is a university policy, for the staff – not a game for children. It’s baby talk, but it’s official policy.
There’s a lot more. It’s all just bonkers.
Damnit, one of my old universities.
Can’t say I disagree with that one.
What would an “internal sense of one’s own gender (by which they mean ‘sex)” be based on? Not biology, obviously. And they’ll keel over blue before they outright admit it’s stereotypes and sexist beliefs concerning what’s “masculine” or “feminine.” It would seem to come down to essential nature ala God. God is not A being, He is Being Itself. I am not woman-like, I am Womanhood Itself.
That’s exactly the sort of received wisdom which ought to be questioned and tested, I would think.
Essex is astonishing.
HOW?
No, really. How? How can one identify as an infinite number of genders, or as a gender that is currently unknown? Did nobody stop for a moment and read that back to – *ahem* – xirself? And if they did, did they not think, “Hang on a mo’. That makes the square root of no sense at all?” And if they didn’t think that, how did they not think that?
It is truly, truly, bonkers.
I know. I saw that one and fell back unnerved.
You’ve got to admit, it’s very Marlon Brando-esque:
Q; “What gender or genders are you?”
A: “Whaddaya got?”
“My pronouns are legion”
My name is Legion: for we are many. My pronouns are infinite in number: in name: in colour: in flavour: and are beyond current and future knowledge. You are compelled to use them properly and in the right order. There is no right order and their order is infinite: you must order them correctly. They are unknowable: you must know them. They are unpronounceable: you must pronounce them correctly. Their names do not exist and they exist to infinity: you must use their names correctly. Their words have no colour and their colours are infinite: you must see their colours correctly. They have no flavour and their flavours are infinite: you must taste their flavours correctly. OR ELSE!
My gender identity is Vulgar. My third person singular subject, object, possessive, and reflexive pronouns are:
-Fuck
-Hell
-Damn
-Chrissake
Sentence example: “Hands off damn beer. Fuck wants it chrissake. Give it to hell!”
My gender identity is God. My pronouns may not be spoken. My third person singular subject, object, possessive, and reflexive pronouns are indicated by, in order:
-Gesturing surreptitiously at the sky
-Opening hands broadly with palms up
-Folding hands and bowing head; and
-Cringing with hands over eyes.
Warwick University is an interesting case. It “identifies” as being in Warwick, but in reality it’s in Coventry (much less classy). It’s as if a university in Oakland named itself San Francisco University. I gave a series of lectures there once, substituting for someone on sabbatical.
A literal order to think a particular way. An official thoughtcrime policy.
It all sounds so easy. Just be polite to people who declare themselves to be ___. And that could be a workable policy, except that the set of ‘people declaring themselves to be women’ includes a minority of MRAs, narcissistic stalkers, etc. Its as if the Gay rights movement had been overturned by NAMBLA in 1970.
Someone should work a journalist or a school bureacracy by arranging a set of pronouns that changes every third sentence; I say I’m a woman and you have no right to ask anything about what I mean…Oh, that was TWO sentences back, now I’m a Ukrainian Orthodox priest, and if the wind shifts to the west I’m an Aboriginal Tasmanian.