addest impact for me as a university teacher is the impact on my female students. Female bodies and biological sex have become the new 'unmentionables'. In their written work, students avoid using the word 'sex' – they might use it when quoting from a document – and use other textual strategies to hide the fact that female people exist. We have created a new cognitive burden that disproportionately impacts women students. Those that are gender critical conceal their true thoughts, and those that try to be trans inclusive tie themselves in knots in order not to upset a group whose interests they regard as more important than their own. We have failed our students as feminists and we should hang our heads in shame.
And again:
I've been precarious in academia since finishing my PhD over ten years ago (and I don't expect that change). I've always worked on feminist theory but I teach across a range of areas. The creep in gender ideology has increased since I began my PhD/ teaching career and accelerated over the last couple of years. I'm frightened that my publications and teaching are going to lead to my vilification as a 'transphobe' and put my livelihood in jeopardy because I don't have a secure contract. I won't stop writing and talking about sex as a material condition of women's lives, I won't indicate my pronouns, and I won't pretend to be on board with the idea that sex is somehow not real, but I also haven't 'come out' as gender critical (which feels far more difficult than coming out as a lesbian). This causes me anxiety and acute guilt because I'm letting other – braver – women fight a backlash that threatens women's rights.
My university is trans-focused and the discourse is that 'TERFs' are evil. Senior academics on Twitter and in public events use the term easily and uncritically, and I've got to the point where I worry about who I follow on Twitter and certainly wouldn't indicate engagement with gender critical material. The ironic thing is that I follow some male academics who do explicitly talk about sex-based rights and face none of the backlash experienced by the few women who do speak out. I know a small number of academics who are in exactly the position I'm in but it's taken time to get to the point where we've been open with each other about our views. I panic about the day a student asks me directly what my position is (I'm astonished that hasn't happened yet) because I won't lie.
In short, I haven't had the horrible experiences that I've seen reported by other academics but that's only because I haven't been brave enough to directly and publicly enter the argument. The university environment where I can't even voice an opinion feels oppressive, frightening, and downright sexist.
Plenty more on the same lines. It's like reading Soviet-era samizdata smuggled out to the West.
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