I used to consider myself lucky to be able to point to two alma mater, both fine universities. First, The University of Edinburgh, the first post-Reformation university and a prominent established university with a great tradition and then the University of Sheffield, pre-eminent among the ‘red-brick’ universities and source of a disproportionate number of Nobel Prize winners. I studied biology at Edinburgh where the eponymous Darwin Tower marks a short period of study there by the great man himself. I then studied biochemistry at Sheffield and worked in the same laboratories as Hans Krebs of the Krebs cycle—the process that lies at the heart of metabolism. I also had the privilege of returning to both as a teacher. But both are now engaged in processes of such abject jiggery-wokery that I wonder if I should not ‘do a Beatles’ and return my degree certificates.
Most recently, Edinburgh has issued a list of ‘microinsults’ that may not be used by lecturers, especially with reference to transsexuality. But more of these later. This enforced Orwellian ‘newspeak’ began in the UK at the University of Sheffield, and how we laughed. Under the description of ‘microaggressions’, Sheffield suggested that complimenting someone on the cuisine from their country (eg ‘I just love Mexican food’) or even cooking non-UK food (cultural appropriation) could be considered a microaggression. Saying to a West Indian student that you thought plantain was a green banana was stepping over the line; notwithstanding the fact that plantain is indeed a type of banana…and it’s green. Telling a young lady from China that she had lovely straight black hair was another one. I work regularly in China and it’s true, some Chinese women have lovely straight black hair; others look like they’ve stuck a fork in a toaster. It is not cultural or aggressive—however ‘micro’—it is individual. When the laughter died down, a more serious and equally Orwellian truth arose which was that the university expected students overhearing an alleged microaggression to report it. This was a distressing synergy between 1984 and Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
Just when you thought it might end there, Edinburgh jumps into the fray with its own selection of the unsayable. Already ‘up there’ with its own list of spurious microaggressions it has more recently issued guidance with specific reference to Trans and/or non-Binary students. I am sure that I share the same starting premise as most people in thinking: ‘why on earth would anyone, in this day and age or those gone by, wish to be offensive to or exclusive of anyone?’ And, indeed, some of the advice at Edinburgh is perfectly reasonable, for example, not using abusive descriptions such as ‘Tranny’ (they said it, not me!). They also include not practising ‘avoidant behaviour such a (sic) moving away or leaving out of a group’ and not displaying ‘anti-trans posters, stickers, leaflets, particularly in toilets’—has that even happened? And does the qualifier ‘particularly in toilets’ mean that it is more acceptable if it is done in a student dining room? Also discouraged is ‘intrusive questioning about intimate details’. What on earth have we come to if we think people need to be told not to do that? All the above is reasonable, but some of the rest is unfathomable. There exists a concept, apparently, called ‘misgendering’ which involves ‘saying ‘he’ instead of ‘she’ or ‘they’’. How is this to be avoided when confronted with a large person with a beard, dressed in a suit who wishes to be identified as a woman? How would you know, in advance, what to say and how easily is any unintended offence corrected by a simple apology and the proper use of a person’s preferred pronoun? Hardly an issue in my book but, admittedly, my book may be an early edition.
And then comes the pièce de resistance, described as ‘excess focus on anatomical sex markers, most usually reproductive organs’. When and under what circumstances? How often do we overhear people over coffee exchanging views on their genitalia? How often do we ever speak to anyone about our or their genitalia? That’s right—never. Except I do. My career in academia has been spent teaching biology to nursing students and writing several textbooks on anatomy and physiology. Of necessity the reproductive system crops up from time to time. If anyone can tell me how to teach reproductive biology and secondary sexual characteristics in a way that is sensitive to transsexual people, then I’m all ears. Until further notice, men will continue to have one of these and women will continue to have one of those.
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