More whining
The Telegraph on the worked-up “controversy” over Simon Fanshawe.
In 2019, Mr Fanshawe signed an open letter accusing Stonewall of undermining “women’s sex-based rights and protections” and “demonising” anyone who dissented from its gender policies as transphobic.
Transgender rights campaigners at the university are attempting to drum up support for an open letter calling on the university to axe the appointment and find “a true advocate of equality, accessibility, diversity and inclusion” instead.
They claim Mr Fanshawe’s appointment “creates a hostile environment for the many trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming students studying at the university”.
No it doesn’t. The presence of people who have thoughts that are different from yours does not create a hostile environment for you. If that were true then all environments would be hostile and nobody could do anything. News flash: everybody has thoughts that are different from yours, just as you have thoughts that are different from other people’s. 100% agreement on all subjects is not possible. Cope.
While Mr Fanshawe was not a co-founder of the LGB Alliance, which was set up by two lesbians and is critical of transgender ideology, he has supported the organisation and spoken at its events.
Jonathan MacBride, a staff member at the university and an officer at its staff pride network, told STV News that Mr Fanshawe, who now works as a diversity consultant, had an “excellent history of supporting gay and lesbian rights.”
But he added: “But he speaks negatively and just offensively, to me and many people I know, about trans people. That is upsetting that the University of Edinburgh feels like this is someone suitable to have as our Rector.”
Show us. Show us on the doll where he speaks offensively. Until you show us I’m going to decline to believe that claim.
Mr Fanshawe, who won the Perrier Award for Comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe in the same year he founded Stonewall, has responded to criticism of his appointment by offering to meet with those who are unhappy.
He said: “I am delighted and honoured to have been named Rector. I will do all I can to advance the university and its staff and students and fearlessness in the exchange of ideas.”
It is a university after all, not a church or a nursery school.
As I alluded to in my comment on yesterday’s post, Shockingly reasonable, Fanshawe’s appointment was the result of an uncontested election. If Team Trans wanted a “true advocate of equality, accessibility, diversity and inclusion” they had every opportunity to nominate a candidate to run against him. It is not up to the university to fix their mistake for them. They’re supposed to be adults; they need to be told that they and they alone are responsible for their own actions – or lack thereof. They missed the boat and all they can do now is wait for the next one.
But this is where the asymmetry of trans “rights” comes into play, because if “transgender rights campaigners at the university” succeeded in installing “a true advocate of equality, accessibility, diversity and inclusion” it would create “a hostile environment for the many female students studying at the university,” not to mention faculty and staff.
But it’s so much more fun to torpedo the one you missed boarding, if you can’t commandeer it after the fact.
I’d be interested to know *why* they didn’t put up their own candidate. Was the post just uninteresting until the “wrong sort” submitted their application?
That’s what’s puzzling me. I can only assume that they were happy to let Fanshawe go uncontested on the basis that being “a diversity consultant [with] “excellent history of supporting gay and lesbian rights”’ they thought were leaving the way clear for one of their own, and it was only after his appointment that someone discovered that he was a signatory to the problematic open letter to Stonewall, and so the wailing and gnashing of teeth began in earnest.