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It was so, so wonderful to co-host the Trans Histories panel @CGIS_Oxford yesterday!
I'm so grateful to the speakers & fantastic audience, and want to be transparent about some issues we faced with anti-trans campaigners which ended up with the Vice Chancellor involved.
I'm so grateful to the speakers & fantastic audience, and want to be transparent about some issues we faced with anti-trans campaigners which ended up with the Vice Chancellor involved.
We'd tried to put robust safeguarding in place to prevent anti-trans interference. As organisers, we know from experience that UK trans academic events are often subject to harassment and shut down.
This was not taken seriously or anticipated by the history faculty.
This was not taken seriously or anticipated by the history faculty.
An anti-trans campaigner and staff member registered to attend at the last minute. We were told by the faculty he must be allowed to attend. I was concerned about safeguarding attendees, esp. my students, and we considered cancelling the event 30 min before go-time.
This may sound extreme, but this guy is an influential policymaker with a history of harassing trans women + singling out individual staff members and students. There's been no institutional accountability for this behaviour.
This led to a panicked last minute conversation with the faculty chair escalating to a phone call from the VC who was insistent that we go ahead with the event.
Their concern was v much 'We don't want a story in the Daily Mail-'
Their concern was v much 'We don't want a story in the Daily Mail-'
'This will be bad for the university AND for trans people', and, funnily enough, 'We mustn't bow to transphobia'. HMMM!
The University's position was that the anti-trans attendee must be allowed to come for free speech reasons, esp. as an employee.
The University's position was that the anti-trans attendee must be allowed to come for free speech reasons, esp. as an employee.
For ppl who don't recognise this, he was using a common strategy to get himself ~de-platformed and whip up a media frenzy, which is often spun as snowflake student hysteria to make actual acts of transphobia like advocating for an end to trans healthcare seem trite.
As a trans graduate student and early career researcher, I've never been given this level of institutional protection. I've never felt comfortable speaking publicly about how transphobia at my institution has impacted my mental health, healthcare access, teaching, PhD, + career.
So I want to apologise to the panelists and audience for the lack of safeguarding + clarity. This is something I should've pushed harder on. At the same time, I feel strongly it was not my primary responsibility as a precariously employed trans person to do so.
We ended up going ahead with the event because they panellists agreed that's what they wanted, and I'm really glad we ended up having a wonderful event despite this person being present (and some people needing to leave or anonymise themselves as a result).
I want to stress that the event's success was absolutely down to the efforts of my co-hosts and the patience and courage of the panellists. The faculty and Vice Chancellor's response was panicked, unprepared, and completely focused on avoiding press backlash.
If @OxfordHistory wants to avoid a Daily Mail story that makes them look bad, may I direct them to this week's Daily Mail to follow up on these concerns! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9265193/Oxford-professor-says-universities-dismal-failures-free-speech.html
You get the point here, but I'm just really angry + tired, we've organised for years to push Oxford even to acknowledge that it funds and gives organising space to transphobia. https://cherwell.org/2020/12/02/trans-exclusionary-group-womans-place-uk-received-20000-consultancy-fee-from-university/
I know very well that Oxford has no interest in 'challenging transphobia' despite how often it's been an issue for the institution at the highest level. Maybe the incident was embarrassing enough for them to sit up this time,
but I think it's important for ppl to know what happens behind closed doors.
This is boring old news for trans people in the UK! We deal with much worse shit than this constantly. But this stuff is gonna get worse w/ the govt's new free speech proposals.
This is boring old news for trans people in the UK! We deal with much worse shit than this constantly. But this stuff is gonna get worse w/ the govt's new free speech proposals.
Colleagues are going to need to get uncomfortable, informed, and *publicly* vocal to challenge it. Step up!
Profound solidarity and gratitude as always to the LGBTQ staff and students who speak up about and endure this! And a massive thank you again to the speakers - this was such an important, meaningful event and I hope the first of many!
