BTW: I have *FINALLY* changed my email address! I am very sorry for having dragged my feet on this. I'd thought that perhaps I'd not attracted any new "friends" - sadly, this was not the case, but as I'd only had nasty threats sent to an anonymous & firewalled account (which was mercifully NOT linked to my identity 🤞) I decided to just jettison my original email address but not my name here.
Hello! No need to be sorry - You are being very sensible, I understand! Sorry to hear about your troubles too, it's dreadful. We'd like to invite you to a safe meeting place, if you are interested though. A similar group of like-minded people to the last place, if you follow me - but very safe! Do please feel free to contact me - for example on Twitter - and I can send you an invitation, should you wish me to. But please only do what you feel comfortable with of course... My Twitter name is the same as this one, oddly enough! I hope you will join us!
Thank you - I shall see if I can formulate a bit of a throwaway Twitter handle! [I did have my former account shredded by our delightful Overlords at Twitter HQ but I'm not exactly GC Public Enemy No 1, so I should be able to create one without too much hassle!]
Thank you so much, Graham, for discussing this really important area, and for linking to the Mumsnet thread where, as usual, a lot of good sense was posted. There was one particularly poignant plea from a student:
"I realise this board isn't for me as I'm a student, but I wanted to come and say that from a student's perspective, it's very reassuring to see staff who are GC. Not so much because that's what I am, but because when you have a lecturer or tutor who you know (either cos they've said it or their online profile) say that biology isn't real, it totally undermines what you're being taught both by them and the other faculty members who aren't openly GC. Obviously it shouldn't, but if you had a lecturer telling you the Earth is flat and anybody who says it's spherical is a) a bigot and b) behind in understanding basic science, then they teach you about some new research/topic you don't know much about, you don't know whether to believe them. It makes learning really hard because you wonder if they're trying to indoctrinate you about something else, but you just don't know what yet. While we can all go and check research etc there simply isn't time to investigate everything you're learning.
It also impacts how we write essays, because clearly not even the most basic of things can be assumed in certain departments and you don't want to have someone marking your work who thinks you're a bigot.
So (apologies for long post), it really matters that those teaching us and producing research around us are shown to know basic science.
So thanks for anybody able to speak out.
(I shall disappear from this thread now and leave you alone!)"
She was invited very warmly to STAY on the thread, I'm glad to say!
What an utter shitstorm in academic life!
My son went to New College, Oxford, where one of the young men in his student digs was pretending to "change sex" or be "gender fluid", I can't remember. My son introduced him to me, seriously, with a female first name. My son didn't blink. I felt shocked at this 20 year-old's confusion, but I was of course polite. He left quickly. They all spent their time in a library so it didn't really matter at Uni, but it sure will matter later. I hope that he recovered his grip on reality.
That clown image will haunt me for days...
Yes! Clown images generally haunt me as it is...
BTW: I have *FINALLY* changed my email address! I am very sorry for having dragged my feet on this. I'd thought that perhaps I'd not attracted any new "friends" - sadly, this was not the case, but as I'd only had nasty threats sent to an anonymous & firewalled account (which was mercifully NOT linked to my identity 🤞) I decided to just jettison my original email address but not my name here.
Hello! No need to be sorry - You are being very sensible, I understand! Sorry to hear about your troubles too, it's dreadful. We'd like to invite you to a safe meeting place, if you are interested though. A similar group of like-minded people to the last place, if you follow me - but very safe! Do please feel free to contact me - for example on Twitter - and I can send you an invitation, should you wish me to. But please only do what you feel comfortable with of course... My Twitter name is the same as this one, oddly enough! I hope you will join us!
Thank you - I shall see if I can formulate a bit of a throwaway Twitter handle! [I did have my former account shredded by our delightful Overlords at Twitter HQ but I'm not exactly GC Public Enemy No 1, so I should be able to create one without too much hassle!]
Or would you prefer to email me? I could put my email address here briefly - and then delete it after you've copied it!
Yeah, that might be better - twitter declared me a "security threat" and demanded my phone number etc
*I just mean it froze my access to my new account
Thank you so much, Graham, for discussing this really important area, and for linking to the Mumsnet thread where, as usual, a lot of good sense was posted. There was one particularly poignant plea from a student:
"I realise this board isn't for me as I'm a student, but I wanted to come and say that from a student's perspective, it's very reassuring to see staff who are GC. Not so much because that's what I am, but because when you have a lecturer or tutor who you know (either cos they've said it or their online profile) say that biology isn't real, it totally undermines what you're being taught both by them and the other faculty members who aren't openly GC. Obviously it shouldn't, but if you had a lecturer telling you the Earth is flat and anybody who says it's spherical is a) a bigot and b) behind in understanding basic science, then they teach you about some new research/topic you don't know much about, you don't know whether to believe them. It makes learning really hard because you wonder if they're trying to indoctrinate you about something else, but you just don't know what yet. While we can all go and check research etc there simply isn't time to investigate everything you're learning.
It also impacts how we write essays, because clearly not even the most basic of things can be assumed in certain departments and you don't want to have someone marking your work who thinks you're a bigot.
So (apologies for long post), it really matters that those teaching us and producing research around us are shown to know basic science.
So thanks for anybody able to speak out.
(I shall disappear from this thread now and leave you alone!)"
She was invited very warmly to STAY on the thread, I'm glad to say!
What an utter shitstorm in academic life!
My son went to New College, Oxford, where one of the young men in his student digs was pretending to "change sex" or be "gender fluid", I can't remember. My son introduced him to me, seriously, with a female first name. My son didn't blink. I felt shocked at this 20 year-old's confusion, but I was of course polite. He left quickly. They all spent their time in a library so it didn't really matter at Uni, but it sure will matter later. I hope that he recovered his grip on reality.
Thank you for sharing this - very interesting indeed.