https://www.economist.com/international/2021/06/05/a-backlash-against-gender-ideology-is-starting-in-universities

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InternationalJun 5th 2021 edition

Let's talk about sex
A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

Academics are speaking up against the stifling of debate

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Jun 5th 2021

WASHINGTON, DC

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HOURS BEFORE Jo Phoenix, a professor of criminology at Britain's Open
University, was due to give a talk at Essex University about placing
transgender women in women's prisons, students threatened to
barricade the hall. They complained that Ms Phoenix was a
"transphobe" likely to engage in "hate speech". A flyer with an image
of a gun and text reading "shut the fuck up, TERF" (
trans-exclusionary radical feminist, a slur) was circulating. The
university told Ms Phoenix it was postponing the event. Then the
sociology department asked her for a copy of her talk. Days later it
told her it had voted to rescind its invitation, and would issue no
more. Ms Phoenix says she was "absolutely furious and deeply upset"
about both the damage to her reputation and to academic freedom.

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Essex University's vice-chancellor asked Akua Reindorf, a lawyer who
specialises in employment and discrimination law, to investigate.
Eighteen months later, in mid-May, the university published Ms
Reindorf's report on its website. It said Essex had infringed Ms
Phoenix's right to freedom of expression and that its decision to
"exclude and blacklist" her was also unlawful. It advised the
university to apologise to Ms Phoenix and to Rosa Freedman, a
professor of law at Reading University whom it had excluded from an
event during Holocaust Memorial Week "because of her views on gender
identity". (Essex in the end allowed Ms Freedman to attend.)

Ms Reindorf's report marks a challenge to the transgender dogma that
originated on American campuses and has spread to universities around
the English-speaking world. Its proponents hold that gender
identity--the feeling that one is a man or a woman--is as important as
biological sex and that trans people should in all circumstances be
regarded as the gender with which they identify. This has
increasingly influenced policy-makers: several places allow trans
women into spaces that were once reserved for females, from sports
teams to prisons and shelters for victims of domestic violence.

The opposing viewpoint, which is often described as
"gender-critical", might once have been considered mainstream. It
argues that, since biological sex is unchangeable, even with
hormones, surgery or any other form of treatment, the conviction that
one has been born in the wrong body should not be dispositive. Gender
critics argue that biological differences between the sexes make the
continued provision of female-only spaces necessary. Trans activists
say that trans women should have access to those places, too. "The
emphasis that so-called gender-critical women place on what they
describe as threats to women ignores the fact that trans women are
overwhelmingly those who are threatened in single-sex spaces," says
Lisa Miracchi, an assistant professor at the University of
Pennsylvania who has signed open letters disapproving of
gender-critical feminists.

The arguments the two sides put forward, in other words, are complex
and debatable. But many trans activists think that any disagreement
is tantamount to hate speech and try to suppress it. Some
universities with policies that reflect the belief that trans women
are women have acted on complaints about people who do nothing more
than express a contrary view. In May, after students at Abertay
University in Dundee reported that a student had said at a seminar
that women have vaginas and men are stronger, the university launched
an investigation.

In some cases, academics who have objected to "gender ideology"--the
view that gender identity should trump biology--have been removed from
professional posts. In April Callie Burt, an associate professor at
Georgia State University, was fired from the editorial board of
Feminist Criminology. She was told her presence might deter others
from submitting manuscripts. The problem appears to have been her
criticism of the conflation of sex and gender identity in proposed
anti-discrimination legislation. Last June Kathleen Lowrey, an
associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, was
removed as the chair of an undergraduate programme after students
complained they felt unsafe. She says she reckons gender-critical
posters on her office door were to blame.

Yet the most worrying effect is likely to be invisible. An unknown
number of university employees avoid expressing their opinion for
fear it will damage their career or turn them into pariahs. The
report about Essex says witnesses described a "culture of fear" among
those with gender-critical views. This is unlikely to be limited to
one university. The report also argues that expressing the view that
trans women are not women is not hate speech and is not illegal under
British law, whatever university policies might suggest.

The fight back

The report is likely to embolden gender-critical academics in
Britain, at least, where they are already more outspoken. There are
signs that a backlash to gender ideology is building elsewhere, too.
In February, when Donna Hughes, a professor of women's studies at
Rhode Island University, published an article critical of gender
ideology, petitions sprouted calling for her to be fired. Her
university denounced her and warned that the right to free speech was
"not boundless". Ms Hughes, who is a co-founder of the Academic
Freedom Alliance (AFA), which was launched in March, says her
university encouraged students to file complaints. She hired an
"aggressive" lawyer. In May the AFA announced the university had
dropped its investigations into Ms Hughes and affirmed her right to
speak.

Ms Hughes's example is striking because in America, where concerns
about free speech in universities tend to focus on racial
sensitivities, gender-critical views are rarely expressed publicly.
This is partly because there is no federal legislation that
specifically protects trans (or gay) people from discrimination,
which lends a particular urgency to LGBT activism. Jami Taylor, a
professor of political science at the University of Toledo and a
trans woman, says she has experienced "transgender-related bias"
throughout her career, from being called "it" by students and a
colleague to being guided to the men's bathroom.

America's political polarisation makes it harder yet to debate such
topics. Trans activists often portray gender criticism as a far-right
cause. Though it is becoming that, too, it is a topic on which
leftist feminists and social conservatives find agreement. In Britain
most outspoken gender-critical academics are left-leaning, atheist
feminists. Some in America are, too.

Their chief concern is the preservation of female-only spaces. In
February Holly Lawford-Smith, a professor of philosophy at the
University of Melbourne, launched a website which invited women to
describe their experiences of sharing female-only spaces with trans
women. It is not a research project and its reports are unverified.
Most describe a feeling of discomfort rather than any form of
physical assault. Soon afterwards, around 100 of her colleagues
signed an open letter claiming the website promoted "harmful
ideology". It called for "swift and decisive action by the
university". Ms Lawford-Smith kept her job, but there have been at
least two marches at the university decrying that. "I think people
quite enjoy having a nemesis on campus," she says.

How did an ideology that brooks no dissent become so entrenched in
institutions supposedly dedicated to fostering independent thinking?
Pressure groups have played a big part. In Britain most universities
and many public-sector bodies have joined the Stonewall Diversity
Champions scheme, which means they have drawn up policies that
reflect the group's position on trans identity. The report about
Essex said the university's policy "states the law as Stonewall would
prefer it to be, rather than the law as it is", and could cause the
university to break the law by indirectly discriminating against
women. It recommended that Essex reconsider its relationship with
Stonewall. Several bodies, including the government's equality
watchdog, have since left the Champions scheme.

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The influence of pressure groups exemplifies the other big reason
trans ideology has gained a foothold in academia: its elision with
the rights of gay people. Many organisations established to defend
gay rights have morphed into trans-rights groups. Tamsin Blaxter, a
research fellow at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge and a trans
woman, says that academia has become a lot more welcoming to trans
people, thanks largely to Stonewall. But some gay people disagree
with its new focus. In 2019 some supporters split from the group, in
part owing to concerns that its stance encourages gay people to
redefine themselves as trans (and straight), to form the LGB
Alliance. Similar groups have sprung up around the world.

Students increasingly express gender-critical views. This year a
group of feminist students in Cambridge ran a "replatforming" event
for gender-critical scholars who had been excluded from academic
events (Ms Phoenix was among the speakers). Sophie Watson, one of the
organisers, says she has lost friends over the issue. "There's so
much fear over using the wrong language--to disagree with the line
that trans women are women is really considered hateful," she says.

Campus revolt

Gender-critical academics hope that as more of them speak out, others
who share their concerns but were afraid to express them will feel
emboldened. When Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at Sussex
University and one of Britain's most prominent gender-critical
academics, was given a government award for services to education
last December, hundreds of academics from around the world signed an
open letter denouncing her. More than 400 signed a counter letter in
her defence. But many people, she says, prefer to express their
support privately.

Universities will no doubt watch how the debate evolves outside
academia, especially in the courts. The dangers of eroding free
speech are becoming increasingly apparent as judges rule on matters
from the medical treatment of trans-identifying children to people
who have been sacked after being accused of transphobia. If Maya
Forstater, a British researcher who lost her job because of her
gender-critical views, wins her appeal against the ruling of an
employment tribunal that this was lawful, universities may become
quicker to defend their gender-critical employees.

Regulation may also play a part. In February the British government
announced proposals to strengthen academic freedom at universities,
including the appointment of a free-speech champion. Some (though not
all) gender-critical academics welcome the idea. In America lawsuits
invoking free speech may make a difference. But it would be better if
universities, which owe their success to a tradition of dissent and
debate, did in fact defend it. #

This article appeared in the International section of the print
edition under the headline "Let's talk about sex"

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