Professor Alice Sullivan
@ProfAliceS
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Professor of Sociology @UCL @UCLSocRes, runner @ChasersLDN.
Joined September 2016
It's interesting that the @UKLabour Shadow minister for Women talks about the "parenthood pay gap". It's an example of how de-sexing the language leads to inaccuracy. There is a motherhood pay gap. Fatherhood has actually been linked to a pay premium.
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Male violence against women and girls is not a "both sides" issue. There are simply no examples of feminists issuing these kinds of violent threats. Every time women organise to discuss our rights we are faced with abuse. It shouldn't be hard to condemn that unequivocally.
@hogotheforsaken @shularises @AyoCaesar @novaramedia Advocating violence against others is wrong & this is no exception. But as you’ll be aware violent language and actions are not unique to one side on this issue. That doesn’t justify the above in anyway, but it does require we acknowledge the general toxicity & step back from it.
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A school has removed the name of a female writer because she expressed her opinion about women's rights. What message does this send to girls at the school? Or to anyone who values critical thinking? #IStandWithJKR
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1/ Thanks to @BBCr4today for having me on to discuss data collection on sex and why it matters. This follows the extraordinary claim by Scotland's Chief Statistician, Roger Halliday, that sex should typically not be asked unless there is a medical reason.
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"The health service has been ordered to stop issuing new NHS numbers to under-18s who want to change their gender, following a damning independent review".
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Please read Almut Gadow's crowdfunder statement. It is jaw-dropping. She is bringing a case against the Open University for unfair dismissal. She was dismissed for questioning gender ideology. The details are horrifying.
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Why are so many politicians keen on gender self-id when the polling shows overwhelming public opposition?.Opposition to self-id is the majority view among supporters of all parties. It feels like politicians are in a strange bubble on this.
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Did you realise that one in every 67 Muslims is transgender?. Superb piece on the @ONS 2021 Census from Michael Biggs @SociologyOxford .
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This is what happens when a journalist who has done her homework and understands the issues asks the chair of #Stonewall some gentle, probing questions. He simply can't answer any of them. A real sign of progress for Stonewall to face this informed public scrutiny.
Watch live as @BethRigby interviews the chair of Stonewall @iain_w_anderson about what it's like being caught up in a culture war, and if he thinks he’s winning. 📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
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A professor of chemical engineering at the University of Edinburgh has won an employment tribunal claim. The tribunal found that she was victimised for raising issues of sex discrimination.
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Letter in the Times today from quantitative social scientists. "We are on the brink of losing robust, high quality data on sex in the UK. Once gone, we may never get it back".
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"The Office for National Statistics “hugely overestimated” the number of transgender people in the UK, Whitehall sources have claimed, as the body admitted it could have carried out “additional probing” before releasing the controversial data".
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No-platformed by Canada's Department of Justice. I was due to give a talk to mark International Women's Day. The topic was "Why do we need data on sex and gender identity?".
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Between 2012 and 2018, 436 individuals prosecuted for rape in England and Wales were recorded as women.
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Some students at Clare College Cambridge are trying to get a college porter fired, purely because he has expressed support for women's rights in his role as a Labour Councillor. The class politics of gender identity extremism laid bare for all to see.
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Jonny is a member of academic staff.
Johnny here freely admits he's no idea what's in the book he's protesting about. Just that people have said the women who wrote it are bad people. This must be the most ignorant, ill-informed social movement of all time.
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One to bookmark for the next time someone tells you that no-one is denying the reality of biological sex.
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"Following a period of debate within our community and careful consideration of the issues, UCL has now taken the decision that we will not re-join Stonewall’s Diversity Champions Programme or make a submission to the Workplace Equality Index."
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There are three ponds on Hampstead Heath, women's men's and mixed. The 'third space' has always been there. The decision to allow males to self-id into the women's pond was therefore purely ideological. And it means that some women can no longer swim. @CityCorpHeath.
This weather reminds me of when I used to be able to swim at Hampstead Heath Ladies Pond. Now as a Muslim woman I’m excluded by @cityoflondon trans inclusion policy.
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Congratulations Jo. This judgement is hugely important for UK higher education. Bullying, harassment and discrimination are not OK. And they come with legal risk attached. I know this has come at great personal cost to @JoPhoenix1 You have done us all a huge service.
have received the Tribunal’s judgment in my case against the OU today: I won! The Tribunal found that I was discriminated against and harassed because of my gender critical beliefs, and that I was constructively dismissed.
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Tell me again that no one is denying the existence of sex.
There's a movement among some archaeologists to stop identifying human remains as "male" or "female" because we don't know how they identified:
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I can only applaud Primavada Gopal's extraordinary change of heart regarding free speech. Only last year she signed an open letter to the board of Advance HE denouncing them for allowing me to speak for 15 minutes at a 1-day conference in Birmingham.
This is so powerful from @PriyamvadaGopal. We shouldn’t underestimate our enemy. But they shouldn’t underestimate us either.
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Well done @OUPPhilosophy for standing up to the bullies. I hope other publishers will watch and learn.
I talked to Holly Lawford-Smith for @Telegraph. Her book Gender Critical Feminism is published by the OUP this week.
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1/ Nancy Kelley, CEO of Stonewall likens "gender critical" beliefs to anti-Semitism. The core tenets of the beliefs that she objects to are that sex is real and that it matters. The only motivation for this crass comparison is to justify #nodebate
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I've been thinking about the failure of leadership at the @OpenUniversity . Any large organisation will contain bullies. Leadership means standing up to them. Uni leadership teams draw serious salaries. Blackman £270k So where were the grown ups?.
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Ann Cryer:. "What male MPs from similar areas to Bradford and Keighley would say to me was, 'Oh, you're so brave taking up these issues' – either forced marriages or grooming of girls. I would think, 'Well, it wouldn't need so much bravery if people like you would support me.' ".
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This is a distressing interview. Kathleen Stock discusses the bullying, led by academic colleagues, that she experienced at Sussex over a period of several years. I struggle to understand how anyone thinks that what Kathleen has gone through is OK.
Listen now: In an exclusive interview, Professor Kathleen Stock @Docstockk speaks to @Emmabarnett about resigning from her post at the University of Sussex, her experiences while still at the university and the concept of academic freedom
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1/ The BBC @BBCNews really need to start doing due diligence on activist stories before reporting. They claim that 100 Oxford academics signed a letter claiming that de-platforming @Docstockk is not a free speech issue. No link to the letter, which made me suspicious.
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I hope @ClareCollege will show some backbone and some decency and support Kevin Price. These privileged young people trying to get a worker fired should be utterly ashamed.
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1/Caroline Noakes MP says she has no idea why we would want to know someone's sex. There are lots of reasons. Sex has systematic effects on physical health, and is linked to wide-ranging socio-economic outcomes.🧵.
@BBCr4today @Marthakearney Thanks for quoting our director Dr Nicola Williams in interview with Caroline Nokes MP. She dismissed the point about not being able to know someone's birth sex with "Why on earth would we want to?". Pls have Dr Williams on to explain why we want to.
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This is what gender identity activism looks like. Threatening, intimidatory, entitled. No thought for those who will have to clear up the mess. Can you even begin to imagine female protesters behaving in this way?.
Trans activist pours urine over "herself" outside EHRC office in protest against women's rights.
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The Observer editorial on sex and gender data.
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Apparently the Gower Street branch of @Waterstones, which is effectively the UCL bookshop, refuses to stock @hannahsbee Time to Think. Given the UCLH connection, I think people around here are likely to be particularly interested in the story. What is your policy @Waterstones ?.
Congratulations to @hannahsbeec @_SwiftPress & @tobymundy. Pleased to see Time to Think in the bestseller chart. Especially since I went to 6 central London major bookshops on Friday & couldn’t find a single copy. Imagine how many it might have sold if they were stocking it well?
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How did this get past Manchester University's ethics process @OfficialUoM ? Masturbating to images of children and writing it up for public consumption does not seem ethical to me. This is hugely disturbing.
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"The health secretary said on Thursday: “It’s completely wrong that children’s NHS numbers can be changed if they change gender.".
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Why was a professor of Feminist and Queer Legal Studies invited to a meeting of rape survivors?
Evidence from the employment tribunal involving Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre shows that a service designed to help traumatised women appears to have forgotten its core purpose, writes @JoanMcAlpine
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Michael Biggs, a professor of sociology at Oxford, said the university “is supposed to be governed democratically by its academics, and yet here is an outside lobby group ordering the administration to change its policies without the normal scrutiny”.
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ONS failed questionnaire design 101. Questions need to make sense to the whole population, not just a subset.
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"Staff were initially supportive but, after complaints from other sixth formers, ended up apologising for not maintaining a “safe space” in the sixth form." The same utter failure of leadership in the face of bullying we have seen across so many organisations.
Girl ‘driven out of school for questioning trans ideology.’. "she was surrounded by up to 60 girls who shouted, screamed, swore and spat at her. She escaped and said she collapsed, unable to breathe properly.". This should start a national conversation.
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Can @AucklandUni confirm that this sociology examination paper is real?. This is perhaps the most blatant example of indoctrination I've seen in a university setting.
Take a gender critical view at @AucklandUni and you will be failed. No discussion. No debate. This isn't education. It's indoctrination. Questions below taken from a sociology examination paper. @chrishipkins @EricaStanfordMP @dbseymour @NZFreeSpeech .#nzpol
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UCL Academic Board (of which all UCL professors are members) has voted decisively against re-joining Stonewall schemes. The decision ultimately lies with Management and Council, but they will have to take on board the clear view of Academic Board.
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1/ I was de-platformed by a research methods seminar after speaking out about proposed guidance on the sex question on the 2021 Census which suggests respondents can answer in terms of their identity where this clashes with their sex.
Top social scientist @ProfAliceS tells @thesundaytimes about being ‘silenced’ amid controversy over how to answer key question in 2021 census. Story @thesundaytimes @Transgendertrd @SafeSchools_UK #academicfreedom
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2/ In fact, those of us who use quantitative data overwhelmingly believe that sex is important. It matters across a wide range of domains: education, wages, crime, political attitudes, religion - you name it, sex is almost always a big predictor!.
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On trans day of remembrance, let's remember that alarmist rhetoric encouraging trans people to fear for their lives is completely unjustified and irresponsible. #TransDayofRemembrance.
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Good news. DfE @educationgovuk will no longer be conflating gender identity and sex in data collection.
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1/ Last year the LSE Gender Studies department published a defamatory open letter demanding that the OU withdraw institutional support from the Open University Gender Critical Research Network (OUGRN). This attack on scholars who believe that sex matters was led by Jacob Breslow.
Academics demand apology from @LSEnews for hostile environment for gender critical staff. Open letter to Minouche Shafik @LSEnews from @ProfAliceS @Docstockk @JoPhoenix1 @runthinkwrite and others .
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Queer theory is all about 'queering' normative boundaries. The association with paedophilia is a feature, not a bug.
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I'm looking forward to going up to Edinburgh University today. We cannot let the "no debate" bullies win. It is disappointing that @selina_todd.and I have had no response from Sir Peter Mathieson.
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"University College London has become the first university to formally cut ties to the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, saying its membership of Stonewall’s programmes could inhibit academic freedom and discussion around sex and gender."
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My submission to the Scottish Parliament Petition "Accurately record the sex of people charged or convicted of rape or attempted rape" has hit a nerve. This document corrects some falsehoods which have been circulated in reaction to my submission.
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4/ This is a remarkable claim, but it is a testable claim, if we collect data on both sex and gender identity. If we can't collect the data, then we will never be able to test this hypothesis. And perhaps that's the point.
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You cannot just take off your master and senior tutor hats when sending a message to the college. You remain in post. This implies a corporate view on sex and gender from the institution. This messaging produces a hostile environment for gender critical staff and students.
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This is huge. Employers take note - doing what Stonewall tells you to exposes you to a risk of successful litigation.
1/The Employment Tribunal found that Garden Court Chambers discriminated against me because of my gender critical belief when it published a statement that I was under investigation & in upholding Stonewall’s complaint against me. #AllisonBaileyWins.
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And this is what it all boils down to. You cannot discriminate against someone because they believe that sex is real, important and immutable.
have received the Tribunal’s judgment in my case against the OU today: I won! The Tribunal found that I was discriminated against and harassed because of my gender critical beliefs, and that I was constructively dismissed.
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“The notion that the way to counter a scientific report is to vote against it shows a total lack of comprehension of the scientific method. It is sad to see a union which is supposed to represent academics opposing evidence-based medicine” #CassReview .
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The people hounding women like J.K. Rowling believe themselves righteous. It's a dangerous drug.
Last Friday, my family’s address was posted on Twitter by three activist actors who took pictures of themselves in front of our house, carefully positioning themselves to ensure that our address was visible. 1/8.
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Edinburgh UCU @ucuedinburgh have demanded that senior management prevent a book launch for "Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader" from being held at @EdinburghUni. They've written to thousands of staff denouncing the book and its authors.
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4/ This hateful tactic of smearing women who argue that sex matters as fascists, Holocaust-deniers and anti-Semites has consequences. It is intended to monster these women in order to justify taking any means to silence them.
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This is good news, but the female category must be protected in community sports too.
🔺 NEW: World Athletics is likely to follow swimming in imposing a ban on transgender athletes from elite women’s races, with its president, Lord Coe, stressing that “biology trumps gender” when it comes to fairness in competition.
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We're often told that "both sides" are to blame for the toxicity of the debate on sex and gender. Grace Lavery gave an invited lecture at UCL recently. No one objected or tried to have it cancelled.
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"South Yorkshire police knew exactly what was happening. They knew the girls, they knew the men, the places they were taking these children to and they shrugged their shoulders and did nothing.".
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"Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else." Please read this. #IStandWithJKRowling.
TERF wars.
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Good to see this clarity from @The_MRC "every cell has a sex and male and female cells have different characteristics and responses to experimental conditions."
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Great news! Police ordered to record the sex of criminals.
Police forces told to stop recording male crimes as female. /1.
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As hilarious as this is, I can't quite get over how guys like Jonny have been pandered to by people who should know better for so long. Not just at @EdinburghUni , not just across Higher Education, but across our public institutions as a whole.
We spoke to Johnny, who was protesting the book launch. He said this:. (Unfortunately the video was corrupted, but we still captured audio.)
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Not just a PhD in wanking, but a peer-reviewed paper on masturbating to images of young boys. Published in "Qualitative Methods".
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3/ Claiming that a letter has been signed by a certain number of academics when in fact most are not academics, or by a certain number of experts in a given field when most are not, is a standard activist technique. What kind of journalist doesn't check the facts?.
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According to Dr Eric Lybeck, asserting that sex matters and should be captured in surveys, is on a par with holocaust denial. Clearly not a man who takes the holocaust very seriously.
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". enabling people to change their legal sex through self-ID could in practice have significant consequences for . female-only spaces, on sex discrimination and equal pay cases, and on data collection."
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2/ Recall that Nancy Kelley was involved in no-platforming me for arguing that sex should be measured accurately in the 2021 Census.
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This is a body blow for intellectual integrity in our universities and for gender-critical academics in particular. I hope that Bridget Phillipson will speak to affected academics before making any final decisions.
I’m surprised & shocked that @bphillipsonMP has announced that the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 won’t come into force on 1 August & may be repealed. The Act was not perfect, but it’s quite evident that free speech and academic freedom are in peril in universities
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"This is the first time that data from the decennial census – the backbone of British statistics since 1801 – has been downgraded.". By Michael Biggs @SociologyOxford.
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"There are two sexes in mammals, and that’s that.". Thank you @RichardDawkins . I hope this news won't come as too much of a shock to readers of @NewStatesman.
New Statesman is Britain’s leading left-wing weekly. Somewhat to my surprise, they commissioned this article on “What is a Woman” from me.
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1/ Some good press coverage on my evidence on sex and data at Holyrood yesterday "SNP's pro self-ID argument 'demolished' by expert witness called in at last minute"
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Maya has sacrificed so much, and shown such courage. A heroine for civil liberties and women's rights.
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5/ Ciaran also claimed that is has been proven that post-transition MtF transwomen earn the same as was frustrating not to have a chance to challenge this claim, which I find implausible. I'd be very interested to see the research referred to @dr_ciaran.
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My copy of the book they failed to ban has arrived 😁
Well done @OUPPhilosophy for standing up to the bullies. I hope other publishers will watch and learn.
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@women_outspoken @polblonde @JoPhoenix1 Disturbing that @FT would insist on the insertion of a false claim. Spreading alarmism about the trans murder rate is irresponsible.
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Why are @BritAthletics yet again consulting with only one side on a contentious issue?. When will they consult properly with the whole athletics community, including women?.
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1/ The idea of non-binary passports could seem trivial. But this is part of a campaign to remove sex as a category in law and data collection. This was clear in the recent battle over sex in the census. i https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f728d27a-e28b-11eb-a821-58982b1c936d.
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"Sex matters when it comes to data collection. This is not controversial; tis the mainstream view".
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"As predicted, those who speak English ‘not well’ or ‘not well at all’ were most likely to be counted as transgender: 2.2 per cent of them, compared to 0.4 per cent of those whose main language is English (or Welsh in Wales). Adults whose main language is not. ".
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Back in 2019, Nancy Kelley (then Natcen now Stonewall) was involved in no-platforming me from a research methods seminar on sex and gender. @ONS were also involved in this seminar and complicit in the no-platforming. We now see the fruits of #Nodebate .
Did you realise that one in every 67 Muslims is transgender?. Superb piece on the @ONS 2021 Census from Michael Biggs @SociologyOxford .
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When a he/him Professor with no expertise in social statistics makes an assertion about the likely direction of error in a statistic, perhaps I should just ignore it. But misinformation and attempts to whip up hate are indeed dangerous, so I will respond.
As a prof of criminal law and criminology working in the field of hate studies, I felt it necessary to respond to what amounts to some very misleading assertions made in this article by @ProfAliceS p/1 via @spectator.
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Without the words and data to describe the issues that women face, we cannot begin to tackle them.
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People who have fallen foul of Stonewall and its allies. 1/ Allison Bailey, black, lesbian barrister taking Stonewall to an employment tribunal for victimisation. Stonewall urged Allison's chambers to get rid of her after she criticised the lobby group.
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6/ the anti-Semitism appears brazen, almost unbelievable. Will Nancy Kelley condemn these abuses, designed to shut women up? It seems unlikely. This is a new low for Stonewall.
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It is disappointing that the ONS have not simply held their hands up and acknowledged that their gender identity question was poorly designed. They acknowledge implausible patterns in the data, but fail to draw the obvious conclusions.
We've been investigating the quality of #Census2021 gender identity data after some unexpected patterns were identified. Our final summary report has been published today to help users in their interpretation of the census results. ➡️
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Amazing crowd for our panel on "Sex and Gender: A contemporary reader" @routledgebooks at #FiLiA2023 @selina_todd @cathydevine56 @lnmackenzie1 . Also beamed live into 2 overflow halls!
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DR joined the SWP while still at Eton. He spied on Allison and reported her private conversations to chambers in an attempt to damage her professionally. An immensely privileged man, trying to bring down a woman who has overcome so many barriers.
AB: no this wasn't private comms. DR is my roommate in Chambers he'd been recording and noting my private convis and reporting to MB. Employer Situ.AH: how.AB: for purpose of EA, GCC is employer and I am employee DR was listening to private convos, making transcript. .
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3/ Sex and gender identity are two different things, and gender identity is not a clarly defined concept. Ciaran McFadden Young (who is not a quantitative social scientist as far as I can see) claimed that sex doesn't matter, effectively it is always trumped by gender identity.
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6/ Finally, a point I didn't get a chance to make: public bodies have changed their data collection practices in response to lobbying by organisations such as Stonewall, who have also lobbied for the removal of sex as a protected characteristic under UK law.
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5/ Analogies which make light of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism always contain an undertone of anti-Semitism. When Jewish women are attacked in this way, as Rosa Freedman was by a lecturer at the University of Essex when she was no-platformed on Holocaust memorial day,.
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How did we reach the point where acknowledging the reality of sex has become such a deep taboo among anthropologists?.
🚨BREAKING: The @AmericanAnthro and @CASCATweet have just issued a statement on their decision to cancel a panel at their annual meeting about the reality and importance of biological sex in anthropology research. The statement accuses the panel of "transphobia," and asserts
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"Out of 439 responses to the consultation, all but one respondent said they did not want trans women to be included in the targets and data disclosures regarding female representation.".
NEW: The FCA has dropped plans to include trans women in new female diversity targets following a backlash from City bosses. Out of 439 responses to a consultation, 438 said targets should be based on sex rather than gender identity.
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First they came for "woman", then "female". Now they want to redefine "pun". Is nothing sacred?.
Yes it’s a pun…. Oh sod it. Will leave the nuance to Ricky gervais in future ….
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A victory for @EdinUniAFAF , won through doggedness, determination and far more hard work than should have been necessary to hold an event at a university. We shall overcome 💜💚🤍.
A loud if not particularly warm welcome to Edinburgh University for the third attempt at screening Adult Human Female. But we’re in and the film will go ahead. A triumph for common sense and free speech - and women!
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Allison Bailey's witness statement contains much insight into the way in which feminists have been discriminated against in the workplace. Speaking personally, I am dismayed to discover the dishonourable behaviour of someone I know. The Stasi walk among us.
My client Allison Bailey @bluskyeallison has commenced giving evidence in the hearing of her Tribunal claim against Stonewall and Garden Court Chambers. Her witness statements can be viewed here:.
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