Thread by @Challenged_Uni

1. Gender-critical academics in Stonewall-sponsored universities, trying to organise research events, often face requirement that events be “balanced” (often combined with fact no one from “other side” will accept).
Yet here’s selection of recent events within UK universities.

2. Do these look "balanced" to you?

First up: a recent event at Oxford Brookes, scene of @RachelAra no-platforming:

“Changing Tides: Trans Journeys together, as parents, allies, advocates”. A conversation with CEO of @Mermaids_Gender, Susie Green (plus informal tea beforehand)

@rachelara @Mermaids_Gender 3. Next, "Stalled!" at UCL:

at which “speakers.. will critically explore and creatively extend the subject of gender-neutral public bathrooms in the UK and Europe.” ucl.ac.uk/events/events/…

@rachelara @Mermaids_Gender 4. At Bristol University, we have two events.

First, “(Re)Thinking Trans Healthcare”, in partnership with the Trans Equality Legal Initiative (TELI) and Mermaids. Note the focus on reaching policy-makers, and on increasing access to trans medical care, including for children.

@rachelara @Mermaids_Gender 5. Second, also at Bristol University, a guest lecture from Johanna Olsen-Kennedy, Medical Director of “the largest transgender youth clinic in the United States”.

The lecture is titled: “Medico-Legal Responses to Transgender Children: Towards a Model of Gender Affirmation?

@rachelara @Mermaids_Gender 6. On to University of Roehampton, for “Transversal Transfeminisms”, whose CFP sets the tone nicely, describing “rampant transphobia in UK feminist circles arising from the recent consultation on the Gender Recognition Act” and calling rival views as “a divisive threat”.

@rachelara @Mermaids_Gender 7. (For a description of what it was like to attend this conference as an academic delegate with gender-critical views, see this piece by Susan Matthews medium.com/@susanmatthews…)

@rachelara @Mermaids_Gender 8. And now to University of Leeds, for special workshop on the Gender Recognition Act consultation, called “Stand Up For Trans Rights”. Learn how “the proposed changes are merely administrative” and about “the importance of getting a largely positive response to the Consultation”

9. Finally, let’s stop by University of Brighton, for “Gayness in Queer Times”. The CFP asks how we might make “gay spaces” – including “bedrooms” – more “trans-inclusive” (i.e. how gay people can be encouraged to sleep with people of opposite sex).

10. The fact these recent conferences can - without hint of embarrassment - promote such obviously political agendas is perhaps bad enough. The combination of that fact with effective prohibition on “unbalanced” gender-critical research compounds the damage on academic freedom.

11. Stonewall policies allowed this imbalance to come about. They've hidden the inherent ideology within such events, under guise of vague ideas about inclusivity, rights, and social justice, and made it very difficult for academics to question without being considered bigoted.