Background:

THE University of Edinburgh has once again been accused by a trade union of hosting an event which “contests the legitimacy of trans people and their rights”.

On Wednesday (October 11) the university is set to host a launch event for an anthology of essays titled ‘Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader’ published by academic publisher Routledge. 

However, the Edinburgh branch of the University College Union (UCU) has sent an e-mail to principal Peter Mathieson and senior management staff condemning the event and calling for it to be cancelled.

In the e-mail, which was also sent to all members of UCU Edinburgh, the union accuses university management of failing to protect transgender staff and students from transphobic abuse and harassment by allowing the event to take place. 

Some “union.” They might as well be campaigning for the rights of scabs.

In April, a second attempt to screen the film Adult Human Female on campus, organised by the group Edinburgh Academics for Academic Freedom, was thwarted after a small number of activists unconnected to a protest endorsed by UCU blocked the entrance.

Oh yes, so they did. No wonder they did the same thing yesterday! Gotta keep those Karens from plotting amongst themselves right?

The e-mail criticises two of the book’s contributors – Jo Phoenix and Jane Clare Jones – who also appeared in Adult Human Female. 

The UCU also criticise Shereen Benjamin – a founding member of Edinburgh AFAF and a senior lecturer in primary education at the university.

They say her framing of transgender people and their rights as “gender ideology” seeks to delegitimise their existence.

The e-mailed continued: “It [the book] also includes Shereen Benjamin, who continually uses the strategy of framing trans people and their rights as ‘gender ideology,’ with the fait accompli that trans people’s existence – like any ideology or theory – can be ‘debunked.’

This is the “strategy” email we saw yesterday.

Clumsy use of “fait accompli” there.

But to the point: if the existence of trans people is not an ideology why has it taken us so long to discover it? If it’s just a cold obvious uncontested fact, why haven’t we always known it?

“This persistent attempt of the book at dehumanization and reducing trans people to an abstract anomaly or sinister cabal whose existence can be debunked or exposed not only represents a form of harassment in its implication for trans people’s legitimacy but goes against the recognition by human rights organizations such as the European Court of Human Rights (2002) as well as the U.K.’s Equality Act (2010) that trans identity constitutes a legally recognized and protected characteristic with fundamental rights.”

So they’re hinting that the book is or should be illegal.

The co-editors of the book, Alice Sullivan and Selina Todd, have written to Mathieson and accused the UCU of making libellous allegations against Phoenix, Jones and Benjamin.

They said: “This is an astonishing demand which suggests that opponents of pluralism, rigorous scholarship, and open discussion at the University of Edinburgh have been pandered to and emboldened.

“The letter from Edinburgh UCU has also been sent to the entire branch mailing list, which we are told covers over 2,000 people. The letter makes libellous allegations directed at the authors of the book as a whole, and also singles out named individuals: Shereen Benjamin, Jane Clare Jones and Jo Phoenix.

“These libellous allegations of transphobia and denying trans people’s existence constitute harassment and contribute to a hostile and discriminatory environment for staff and students at the University of Edinburgh who have the protected characteristic of gender critical belief, which can be summarised as the belief that sex is real and sex matters.

“The allegations against Professor Jo Phoenix are notably idiotic and indefensible.

“We appreciate that the university does not control UCU communications. Nevertheless, the university has a duty of care to staff and students.

“It cannot be acceptable to allow staff to send mass defamatory emails which are intended to prevent academics from organising events and from expressing factual and evidence-based views. It cannot be acceptable that staff face no consequences for such unlawful and bullying behaviour.”

But of course they will face no consequences.