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May 23, 2024 - 6:15pm
The Russell Group, the collection of 24 elite UK universities, has issued an apology today after grouping “gender critical” ideas alongside unlawful forms of speech in a memo to the Office for Students.
The original memo asked that the OfS provide “examples of unlawful speech which universities would be expected to take steps to restrict, including antisemitic, Islamophobic or gender critical speech”. This was part of a list of requests aimed at addressing “ambiguities” in the guidance and helping student groups balance free speech values and legal restrictions on speech. But the OfS regulatory advice to which the Russell Group was responding explicitly acknowledged that gender critical views were protected speech.
Following a swift backlash online, the Russell Group walked back that portion of the memo. “We apologise for an error in our original submission to the OfS free speech consultation, which incorrectly listed ‘gender critical’ speech as an example of unlawful speech, in place of ‘transphobic’,” it claimed in an online post. “This was a genuine mistake and we have now republished our corrected summary.”
Gender critical views — the perspective that one can not change one’s biological sex, as opposed to hateful views towards transgender people — are considered protected speech under the Equality Act, as the result of a 2021 court case brought by a woman who lost her job after criticising gender self-identification policies. Maya Forstater, a tax expert at a think tank, was let go after tweeting that males could not change their sex, but a panel ultimately found that this was a protected philosophical belief.
“Just as the legal recognition of civil partnerships does not negate the right of a person to believe that marriage should only apply to heterosexual couples, becoming the acquired gender ‘for all purposes’ within the meaning of GRA does not negate a person’s right to believe, like the claimant, that as a matter of biology a trans person is still their natal sex,” the judge ruled. “They are beliefs that are and must be tolerated in a pluralist society.”
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SubscribeWhat has happened to academia is the inevitable result of a society which has abandoned reason in favour of metaphysical beliefs and delusions.
But I guess it counts as progress of a sort that they weren’t so stupid as to double-down.
Using the terms “gender critical” and “transphobic” interchangeably just shows what they really think. Lots of people would have signed off on that letter. Striking that “Islamophobic” and “gender critical” speech were specifically called out, but racist or slanderous speech for example were not. Very politically loaded.
Yes, as someone who works in a British university, I can absolutely confirm that they have been captured by illiberal progressivist forces. Their interpretation of ‘gender critical’ as unlawful was no mistake. Many people would have looked at and discussed this communique before it was issued, that fact that no one identified this as a ‘mistake’ tells you all you need to know. Academic administrators and HR bods live in a parallel, rainbow-coloured universe.
As someone desperate to get out after 30 years, I concur. This is totally true – and in Canada also
Perhaps – but I’m tempted to think that what is happening in academia is a consequence of over-production. We simply have far too many academics competing for attention with ever more ludicrous ideas. A cull is long overdue. Let’s invest those resources in genuine skills training instead.
Yep with you here HB, although I think slightly different if we are talking about the area of science and technology. I think I read somewhere Sichuan province in China had 37k science graduates last year. Obviously proportionately they’ll have more, but you’ll grasp the point about where we have to keep up.
Agreed. Also, we need to extend the skills training into every level of education. I don’t want my kids learning about gender theory when they could be learning not just IT skills, but how to cook a healthy meal, grow a fruit tree or re-wire a plug.
as opposed to re wiring a human being.
Also true. Bring back trade colleges
The term ‘gender critical’ was probably dreamt up by Stonewall or some totalitarian group wanting to control speech and thought.
It beggars belief that they did not know. We are talking about the Russell Group! It made me laugh but it is tragic, unfortunately.
And look who runs the Russell Group.
And they should not. “Gender critical” views are exactly as much hate speech as claims “whites only” signs should have stayed up.
Oh dear. Maybe you should concentrate your energies elsewhere. I’m afraid that here you’re on a hiding to nothing.
No, the child abusing Herd here needs the truth thrown in their face.
What is your definition of ‘gender’?
Are you actually referring to ‘gender identity’?
I’ll give you my definitions then you tell me where yours differ.
Sex – biological sex that is (in humans) only male or female; determined by gametes, chromosomes, and reproductive organs; determined in utero; immutable; in humans, adults are called men or women, children are called boys or girls; variations of sex development (aka intersex conditions) are within each sex, not across or both or neither.
Sexuality – determined by the sex of a person and the sex or sexes that person is sexually attracted to; in humans, as there are two sexes there are three possible sexualities heterosexuality (attraction to the other sex), homosexuality (attraction to the same sex), bisexuality (attraction to both sexes); ‘asexuality’ is the preference to not participate in sexual activities, it is not a sexuality in itself.
Gender – externally imposed and sometimes internally accepted limitations on opportunity and expectations of behaviour based on stereotypes of sex.
Gender identity – a person’s personality based solely on stereotypes of sex; defined by a regressive attitude that behaviour and will (rather than biological reality) are the determinants of whether one is male/ a man or female/ a woman.
Over to you.
Don’t feed the trolls.
She’s correcting the record, in an eloquent, succinct & civilised way. There’s a lot of nonsense in this feed about what GC is; Jessica has captured the real position brilliantly.
No she hasn’t.
She’s just presenting the radfem/second wave view as opposed to the trans activist view. Both are ideological. This is clear from both the gender and gender identity definitions, and from the fact she draws a clear line between sex and gender, and sees gender as “imposed”.
Not feeding so much as declaring terms of engagement. I usually find this the best deterrent for trolls.
She is the troll, asserting illogical impossibilities.
If you are gender critical, then you are a troll — one asserting transgender children deserve to be abused by you and the laws and policies you favor.
I think you are allowing your own ideology to creep into your definition of gender identity. My understanding is that this is simply the gender you identify with. I’m a man and I identify as such. A trans person identifies as a gender other than their biological sex.
I don’t think there’s any mystery in trans people tending towards stereotypical dress and behaviour. Passing as the opposite sex isn’t easy. Why would you wear ambiguous clothing etc.
You seem to be uncomfortable with my definitions. That’s fine.
But instead of responding with a comment that quite clearly doesn’t use my definitions perhaps you could give your own definitions.
I’m happy for the sake of argument to use your definitions of the terms but you’ll need to provide them.
Not sure any of these concepts divide up in reality as neatly as they do in the abstract. Gender does not divide up from sex, and sexual orientation can have trans elements (though not always). Clearly there is something trans (in a broad sense) about masculine presenting lesbians and effeminate male homosexuals.
Im also inclined to think there is something in the gender identity idea. Some behavioural differences between boys and girls are clearly innate. But I struggle to believe there is an innate preference for pink amongst girls. They seem to take their cues from others of their sex – that is, the sex they identify with. They do this in spite of parental attempts to stop it.
In part the trans phenomena might be due to this not happening, or happening with the opposite sex. So a boy takes his cues from girls and women rather than men and boys. He identifies with them.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘divide up’ – I’m defining things.
If you reread your own comment and apply the definitions I gave then you might see that those definitions hold.
And, as is my intent, clarify the confusion.
“Gender – externally imposed and sometimes internally accepted limitations on opportunity and expectations of behaviour based on stereotypes of sex.” <– Horseshit.
Gender is the biologically induced need and the anatomy producing that need, to perceive from among those you are growing up, those also of your gender so you can signal your gender by emulating them. “Limitations” has nothing to do with it.
The “soft sciences” know and care to know nothing real about it — the “soft sciences” are still in the grip of the “Heroic Age of their disciplines.
And I might better say pseudo-disciplines.
https://americanmind.org/salvo/genital-mutilation-for-the-masses/
Balderdash with no supporting evidence is all Salvo has to say.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. Or anywhere else for that matter.
You seem to be arguing with your own extremely flawed interpretation of what I actually wrote.
Perhaps if you actually read what I write before replying, your comments would actually be responses, rather than very poor Butler impersonations.
Or do you identify as a Butler impersonator?
No, I’m sure they probably don’t. All zealots are guided by virtue. Therefore they ‘know’ that they are right and that any objectors are ‘evil’.
I would presume that Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot were probably guided by virtue initially, before power distorted their objectives horribly.
Just to add that zealots are guided by a misguided presumption of their own virtue, not virtue per se. A distinction that can’t be made often enough, in my opinion.
Just as those who ‘virtue signal’ are signalling only their own presumption of being on the side of virtue, and their wish to be seen as virtuous, rather than any actual virtue. Often quite the opposite.
I agree and suspect that many do not know the meaning of virtue.
They know they are not right but are shamefully opportunistic.
The term ‘gender critical’ irks me. Surely it applies more to those who criticize men and women for acting according to their nature, rather than those who express doubts about gender-bending children?
I think you are conflating the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ and ‘nature’.
Also, ‘gender-bending’ is the opposite of claiming a ‘gender identity’.
Gender bending is the refusal to accept the stereotypes of gender being assigned to one’s sex.
Gender identity is the notion that accepting the stereotypes of the other sex will actually make one the other sex.
The only acts that a human does that is ‘according to their nature’ are those related to reproduction and the feeding of babies. Everything else is externally imposed.
I am a man. It’s not an identity, just a fact.
Strange that you somehow read my comment as me saying that ‘man’ was an identity when I think it’s pretty clearly not what I said.
Well said.
Dear Jessica, can you explain me what the word “identity” means?
In most cases it just means ‘personality’. When people claim to have a ‘gender identity’ it usually means they think the stereotypes of female and male behaviours, interests and preferences are actually how one’s sex is defined.
For example they think that liking pink and dolls, and wearing dresses is what makes one a woman, as opposed to biology.
Jessica, I agree with pretty much everything you say except for “Everything else is externally imposed.”
Have we forgotten about ‘personality’? And our own desires and inclinations? These are not externally imposed (although I do understand the role that can be played by society in ‘encouraging’ stereotypical choices and directions).
I just think the whole notion of gender as applied to people is spurious and unnecessary – we have a biological sex and a personality and innate skills and talents. The concept of gender belongs to the world of grammar in which there are three – masculine, feminine and neuter (he, she and it).
And let’s just dump the whole idea of ‘identity’ altogether.
Along with the idea of applying the word ‘gender’ to people.
Thanks – I was responding to the comment about ‘nature’ which – to me – implied that there is such a thing as a ‘female nature’. I thought the commenter was conflating that with a stereotypical ’feminine’ nature (I took his reference to ‘nature’ to mean personality).
Regarding ‘identity’ I agree with you and I believe that it is nonsense. In particular that it is used in a deliberately vague manner.
Personally I don’t care what anyone identifies themselves as. Where I object is the demand that I also consider them that thing.
Regarding personality I will copy part of another comment I’ve made here:
Gender identity – a person’s personality based solely on stereotypes of sex; defined by a regressive attitude that behaviour and will (rather than biological reality) are the determinants of whether one is male/ a man or female/ a woman.
Nobody really says that anymore. What is clear is that there are significant, general average differences between the sexes – most accurately represented as a series of overlapping normal distributions.
More colloquially we could say that women tend on average towards a female nature – rather than being rigidly determined by it.
What you are expressing here is a feminist claim, not an established fact. And research is running in the opposite direction. Research into the influence of DNA on personality and behaviour is ongoing, but it’s already clear this influence is significant. There’s really no case anymore for blank slate ism.
In gender critical views, gender is seen as a hierarchy in which adult human males (men) are the privileged caste who exert control over adult human females (women) in order to control their reproductive capacity. Gender crits see the recognition of biology as a real material fact as essential to opposing the harm caused by the hierarchy. Hence they think single sex spaces for women are essential as a way of alleviating that harm.
Gender crits criticize and attack what they see as laws and norms upholding that hierarchy. Thus, they tend to have a strong allergic response to males who say things like “I am a woman – I’ve always known I was one because I like high heels and pink.” The gender critical view is that you can wear whatever clothes you like because masculine or feminine stereotypes should not define anyone, and it definitely doesn’t make you a woman if you as a man pursue stereotypical female behavior, because you still have male privilege, even as a trans-woman.
So, gender crits have no issue acknowledging biology makes a difference between men and women, but at the same time think expecting that people should conform to masculine or feminine stereotypes is bullshit. This confuses the hell out of lefties who hear them talking about biology and think “aha! you are really right wingers who think biology is destiny and all women are meant to be barefoot and pregnant.” It also confuses righties who hear gender crits talking about single sex spaces and think “aha! it is all your own fault for denying that biology separates men and women.”
Oooooh mate! Wrong wrong wrong. The whole point of the GC viewpoint if that you don’t recognise gender! It’s certainly not “seen as a hierarchy”?
The point is to recognise biological sex as a material reality & gender as an ideology. That’s it.
As for the rest of your post… WHERE did you find this nonsense? Might be an idea to read though some of the other posts on here.
Probably reading too much Julie Bindel or Jane Clare Jones.
Yes! Unless she’s changed her mind, Julie Bindel is a second wave feminist, and gender critical feminist and holds a social constructionist view of gender. These views tend to come as a package.
John, you appear to be confusing ‘gender critical’ with radical feminism. Not all those who hold gender critical views (which is simply that sex is real and immutable and that there is no such thing as ‘gender identity’) are radical feminists.
This is true. Listen to Louise Perry or Mary H. perhaps John
Mary H. is always interesting, but tends to have such a singular take of her own on things, I think of her as more sui generis than any specific label. I haven’t read Louise Perry, although I have heard or her.
Exactly. I have a group of male and female friends, all on the Left, who are gender critical and definitely not radfems!
And I myself am a gender critical moderately right wing cultural conservative.
Fair. The gender critical women I’ve mostly read all tend to be radical feminists, so there has been some bleed over in my mind. I tend to think of acknowledging “sex is real and immutable and there is no such thing as ‘gender identity'” as just having as solid grip on reality, no further philosophical positioning or labelling needed.
Yes – and congrats on taking on board what people said without getting defensive. Shouldn’t be rare on Unherd, but it often is.
And it is instead the flat denial of reality, because in reality gender identity is also real and actually immutable by any current technology — but as the HRT and surgery you complain about proves, the mere sex of a person can be changed quite a lot.
Yes, I think you are spot on. The two often go together, but not always.
I also assume there are younger radical feminists who are pro trans.
This is a bit muddled. More accurately you could say that many gender critical feminists are second wave feminists, and that second wave feminists tend to hold the views you describe.
I get what you are saying. Gender critical is a bit misleading. I feel the same about “gender theory”, which should surely refer to the (feminist) theory that gender is distinct from sex, only contingently attached to it, and in no way determined by it.
Some of the comments here show the great confusion over the meaning of ‘gender critical’. Of course, no two philosophers will agree the same definition, and no ordinary person can possibly understand the jargon generally used to explain definitions. It’s all part of the joy of post-modern thinking and the offshoot known as critical theory, which is obviously entirely uncritical of its intrinsic contradictions, circular arguments and meaningless vocabulary.
Gender critical feminism has got nothing to do with “critical theory.” They stress a view of biology as objective material fact and reason from there. Very much not pomo.
Though many are born again biologists. Biological approaches to sex related behaviours were very much in the cross hairs before the trans issue came along. Evolutionary psychology was then the enemy. So the cosying up to biology is selective and opportunistic.
It doesn’t need philosophers to agree – the definition has been established in law (Forstater ruling). Gender critical belief is simply the belief that biological sex is immutable, important and not the same as gender identity. Pretty simple for any ‘ordinary person’ to understand as that is what the majority of us believe.
So long as biology doesn’t say anything about innate differences between the sexes in terms or personality, brain function, behaviours and roles.
So they apologized because they “incorrectly listed ‘gender critical’ speech as an example of unlawful speech, in place of ‘transphobic’”
In other words, the blue-haired DEI crackpot who wrote the original was too clumsy. Now the Russell Group university DEI head honchos have more cleverly rephrased, by framing ideas critical of their own as a “phobia”. Much better.
I just don’t get it… We must all live with our limitations and with the reality that many things in life are not as we might prefer. We may do all we can to mold our lives into what we would like, perhaps just as we should, sometimes we may even have some tangible, meaningful, success, and sometimes not…
Along these lines, shouldn’t people deeply committed to a gender identity different from their sex simply do what they can and will to present and live as the gender they feel while accepting the reality that technically their biological sex is as it was (ok so what)…Apart from some practical limitations such as sex segregated elite sports teams, the reality that one cannot birth a baby or initiate a pregnancy (as the case may be), and one should not try to erode our language or grasp of basic scientific truth… So long as they receive equality under the law (eg rent an apartment/ flat) and are treated decently and considerately. What’s the problem…
I suspect many old school transgender folks would not have a problem with this reality based approach and likely live it… It’s the young activist attention seeking children that cause any reasonable and rational approach to be thrown over for slogans and extremism…
Matt, I get that you don’t get it! And if the trans lobby were fighting for “Trans” people to be able to quietly live their lives without interference, as you describe, I’m sure there’d be no argument – as with so many ‘old school’ folks over decades. Only that’s not what’s actually happening. That’s not what the ‘new’ Trans lobby want. They want men/ boys in every women’s/ girls space, taking their jobs, stealing their trophies, etc etc etc . Today, across the country, there are biological men in women’s hospital wards, pool/ gym showers, prisons… you name it, they’re there. Only a tiny % of men who ‘transition’ chop their bits off, so the vast, vast majority are fully intact. Any it’s not just elite sports. I’ve played on a local hockey team with a 6′ bloke, against school girls. It’s just not safe, nor is it fair. It’s hard enough to get girls engaged in local sports without facing this. And if there’s no local sport, what the chance of having decent elite athletes? They all start at grassroots, so the playing field must be level at grsssroots. The negative impacts of this ideology are so widespread it’s almost impossible to measure. And our ‘leaders’ are refusing to listen to the rational, reasonable people who are trying to raise the alarm.
They are carrion and the only reason the elite support them is to make us believe whatever bullshit comes from the elite. The elite want us to get used to being slaves.
No problem as long they adopt the dictum ‘live and let live’. Do they?
I suspect many of us feel the same way. It’s this “reality must give way” attitude which many of us just can’t accept.
But I think we also have to accept that activists in the past have won many of their successes by being unreasonable.
The push back on both sides of the Atlantic been happening for a while now and about time. More to go yet. There is a sensible balance here between the opposing crackpots and a pluralistic society will find it if sometimes a bumpy road. The recent Cass report in the same vein.
Of course one of the big upsides if we can get to a sensible balance is we can have fewer Articles about all this B/S and more on what really impacts on daily lives.
Nope – the push is all in one direction in Canadian and North American universities….and I see no evidence that this isn’t true in the UK. Baked in for next 40 years with a decade of extremist ultra woke appointments and diversity hires. The universities are broken and can’t be fixed from within
Maoism will always live on in Western universities. Ironically, the only point on which they differ from the People’s Republic of China is on gender, yet the CCP are very happy for them to have their divisive cake and eat it.
Never forget that Germany’s universities were in the vanguard of the Nazi revolution in the 1930s.
The Office for Students ought to respond to all universities that there is no speech which universities should be taking steps to restrict – it is not their job. Their job is to teach people how to think clearly and rationally and not what to think. Part of the learning process must include students being exposed to ideas which maybe considered hateful and being able to work out for themselves whether or not they agree with them.
The Russell group should not be trying to turn itself into a group of woke madrassas.
They should be defunded. And universities completely deregulated.
There are people marching through city streets all over the world publicly screaming their hate for Jews. There are race-baiting grifters unashamedly telling everyone they hate white people. It’s ugly, but I’d rather they be free to do it so we can see clearly who they are and what they think. “Hate speech” laws are straight up censorship.
I want the islamofascists driven off the streets using watercannon, plastic bullets and nasty dogs.
I wonder if Kathleen Stock will be offered her philiosophy professorship at University of Sussex back? Stock may not want it, in view of their disgraceful treatment of her. But UoS is a member of the Russell Group and it would demonstrate a measure of corporate contrition if they did publicly make that gesture.
Agreed, if they publicly apologise to her alongside offering her her job back.
Defund universities; re-establish trade colleges; obliterate fake disciplines – and ban DEI in all public institutions. Even today, if the Tories went hell for leather – they might have a fighting chance
I admire the integrity of British universities. Their collaborators are the Giordano Brunos of modern times!
Just a bit more flexible…
The aggressive left never stops. It is always on the march, is completely intolerant, bigoted and determined to wash away any view which presents any argument to their blind faith. Any argument at all.
Biological Sex is not ‘A protected philosophical belief’. It’s a statement of incontrovertible scientific fact.
Why is transphobia unlawful? Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic so discriminating against such a person is unlawful. But having an irrational fear of trans people isn’t discrimination.
There is no such thing as ‘gender reassignment’. FFS, this is about human beings, not Mr and Mrs Potato Head.
Of course there is such a thing as gender reassignment — its existence is what you are complaining about — that and what you think you know which isn’t so.
No one is trans . There is no gender, just one’s sex.
Of course, the example of David Reimer and only a few tens of millions of others proves you wrong.