Cummings, Gove and intelligence

The outburst of hysteria by education un-expert Dominic Cummings about how genetics are the only determinant of intelligence is itself so ignorant that it beggars belief that this man got a degree at a respectable university himself. The senior management team at Durham must be wondering how they can counter the negative publicity of being associated with such an unintelligent and uninformed diatribe.  It is scary that Cummings, who appears not to believe in education, should have been employed by Gove at the Department for Education.

Cummings completely ignored recent research which clearly demonstrates how exposure to stress inhibits many important mental functions, I suspect this is something we will find out more about as more research is carried out in this area. However this research drives a coach and horses through his genetic determination of intelligence theory, and that is just for starters.

He also, unintelligently, argues that there are very few excellent teachers in the UK. In effect this is just an unsupported assertion, because he bases this idea on absolutely no data whatsoever. Again this is neither intelligent nor educated. Any fool can say something like that, but until he does so in a convincing way, with reference to actual hard data, he might as well be making caveman “ug” noises for all the validity his utterances have. Either the PGCE course on which I teach produces pretty much all the excellent teachers in the UK or he has based his figures on pure guesswork. Again, not a very bright thing to do.

But his doctrinaire and extreme right-wing educational obsessions pose a serious problem for Gove. Gove and his department have, over the last 18 months been engaged in what has amounted to a crusade to impose performance-related pay on teachers. But if one of his main advisers is telling him that teaching, in effect does not matter, that children’s intelligence is determined by genetics, then that seriously undermines Gove’s case for performance-related pay for teachers. If any given child’s educational performance is pre-determined from birth then teachers can do very little to change this, their performance has no bearing on educational outcomes. If this is the case then performance-related-pay is never going to deliver any improvements in education at all, ever.

The fact that Gove has not repudiated Cummings’ views suggests that he does not disagree with them, so we have to ask why, in that case, has he introduced PRP, when it cannot work?

There are two possible answers to this; firstly that PRP is not designed to improve educational standards for children, as we have been told; it has some other purpose (such as divide and rule, cutting the amount teachers are paid, giving heads a tool with which to control and manipulate teachers, etc). The second is that Gove is, apparently like his adviser, ignorant of the contradictions within his own ideology.

Silencing TERFs.

TERFs persist in childish accusations that trans people are silencing them, but exactly who is silencing who? The answer may surprise you...

The subtle violence of TERFism has in many ways intensified in recent years. Making use of the panoptic effects of the internet they trawl the web attempting to find ways to out and harass trans people. Outing transguys who use video, harassing trans women on dating sites, outing trans people to employers, outing trans children to their schools, attempting to bully trans children by proxy through the parents of other children are but a few of their cowardly tactics. Some TERF academics have even threatened to deliberately introduce transphobic elements into their Gender Studies courses, something that most students are likely to be able to see through, but also something worth monitoring…

Yet in spite of all this in the topsy-turvy universe of Planet TERF, where everything is the opposite; the myth that trans people are attempting to ‘silence’ them is still propagated. Their use of the panopticon, their lies, their threat to indoctrinate students, their myths of silencing are all they have left.

The reality, of course is quite the opposite. Harassment of trans people who argue against TERFs is common, and recently they have used legal threats to try and silence us and our friends and supporters. Prosperous, white, cisgender, secure, middle-class TERFs using their positions of privilege to silence and intimidate trans people from much less privileged backgrounds.

Yet TERF attempts to silence trans people have not stopped there; some are now attempting to deny trans people the language we need to articulate, describe and make sense of our circumstances. TERF efforts to argue that “TERF” (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) is an insult or a discriminatory word are matched in their dishonesty by their attempts to convince that dwindling group of people who will listen to them, that “cisgender” is supposed to be an insult rather than a simple descriptor of people who are not trans; no more of an insult than “heterosexual”.

Violence can be overt, covert, tacit, abusive, subtle or indirect, but the ideology of TERFism now requires its use. As its core ideology has failed it cannot exist without becoming more abusive, violent, and complicit in atrocities perpetrated by groups that are the enemies of feminism. TERF arguments against the existence of trans people have all been comprehensively discredited, and remain so no matter how often they are restated. Once you strip away the veneer of argument and discredited justifications, all that remains is the raw hatred. This is what TERFism has become.

But the tide is turning, and it is the activities of the TERFs, which are now centre stage. So TERFs now regularly delete or conceal their own material from the internet as it is used by trans people to demonstrate to others exactly what they are like.  I recently needed to explain to a neutral journalist about the TERF problem, all I had to do was point him in the direction of a couple of TERF hate-sites and lend him my copy of The Transsexual Empire. He called me the next day saying “I see exactly what you mean, I had no idea!” They claim trans people are silencing TERFs, yet the truth is that TERFs are now silencing themselves as trans people use TERF material to expose their hate.

So let the TERFs speak, (although they should still be no-platformed, which is different from censorship) they condemn themselves by their own utterances. Some of the material published in faux-radical online magazines this year has been particularly valuable for exposing TERFism, especially when used in conjunction with other elements of their output. Exposing TERFism has rarely been so easy.

But in a sense TERFs are right, trans people do silence TERFs, but not in the way they would have others believe; we silence them by getting up every morning, we silence them by interacting with others everyday online, in our social lives and at work, we silence them by marrying or living with our partners, we silence them by bringing up our children, we silence them by telling our stories, we silence them by walking the Earth as trans people have done for centuries before us, we silence them by our very existence. 

Good News: Success in Thessaloniki...!?

I have just received this email via TGEU from a transactivist in Greece;

"As a follow up of the situation of last months in Thessaloniki (systematic pogrom against trans women from police), we would like to give you some info.

 

Until 21st of July that we managed to have a meeting with the head of police of Thessaloniki, the pogrom have stopped. We had only sporadic persecutions (at the beging of September) of 2 trans women, but it was not in the systematic way of massive detentions, and the attitude of the police has totally changed.

 

Also yesterday, two representatives of Greek Transgender Support Association had a meeting with Mayor of Thessaloniki, Mr Boutaris.

 

We had a totally agreement with Mr. Boutaris about the persecutions of trans women. He said that it is not accetable, and that he will talk with head of police of Thessaloniki.

The other subject was the discriminations and exclusions that transgender people face - mainly in work and employment.

He promised that he will do his best in this directions, and also, he promised that he will do everything he can for the employment of trans people in Municipality (to be more specific he told us word for word: "I will employ a trans person in my office as an example of good practice to be followed").

At the end he told us that he wants to have the open speech of our TDoR event that we will do for first time this year in Thessaloniki, and that he is determined as long that he's a Mayor to be advocate to transgender issues, and to start a constant contact with us.

 

We hope that Mayor will keep all his promises."

This goes to show that, in many cases, the best trans activism is the quiet transactivism. Talking to people is usually better than shouting at them.

Chelsea Manning - Cisgenderism at Wikipedia

In a few weeks time I will be publishing the first of a number of academic papers about what I have termed "cultural cisgenderism".

Distinct from transphobia, cisgenderism is a culture which

• erases trans identities, 
• views gender as entirely binary, unchangeable and fixed at birth and 
• something which should be imposed on others from outside. 

It is a culture, however which, although prevalent throughout Western society, is almost entirely tacit; this means that it is a culture that is not expressed in language and which is communicated without language. It is just something people know, without having to talk about. The great French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called this sort of thing a "doxa". In other words it is a culture (or ideology, these concepts are closely linked and overlap) to which people are largely unaware they are adhering.

Cultural cisgenderism is the problem at Wikipedia. Although Sue Gardener's blog excellently explains some of the internal problems at Wikipedia over the way the decision to change Chelsea Manning's entry back to Bradley, it does not explore the wider cultural influence of cisgenderism which has also had an influence on Wikipedia. Here we see all three main features of cultural cisgenderism at work. Wikipedia, by changing Chelsea's name back, has, in effect, erased her identity, it has viewed her identity as unchangeable, but mostly it is engaging in the external imposition of gender.

The external imposition of gender is one of the most significant features of cultural cisgenderism, not merely because it disempowers trans people and hands the power to decide someone's gender to other people, but because it is largely viewed as unproblematic by those who are doing it. As such the individuals at Wikipedia who consider that they have a right to vote on Chelsea Manning's gender, clearly do not view their actions as in any way unreasonable. Yet they have clearly decided that they know better than Chelsea Manning what her name and what her gender are.

Of course there are transphobes who deliberately misgender people as well, and one of the things to remember about cisgenderism is that it often has the same effect as transphobia. This apparent isomorphism should not blind us as to the causes. It is entirely possible that some people in Wikipedia are transphobic but it is unlikely that a large number are, so this needs to be put down to cisgenderism,  and dealing with cisgenderism is different from dealing with transphobia.

As anyone who has had any dealings with TERFs (Trans Exclusionary "Radical" "Feminists") knows, their transphobia is an individual prejudicial attitude, which, like racism, rapidly descends into verbal violence and name-calling, and is based on an irrational fear and hatred of trans people. This is something which cannot be reasoned with. You can no more have a reasoned discussion with a TERF than you can with a White Supremacist, their prejudice is based on nothing more than emotional hatred.

But cisgenderism is something which, when discussed in a reasoned and non-accusatory way, and a way which seeks to educate rather than blame, is possible to overcome because it is not based on an emotional hatred in the same way transphobia is.

It is important to realise that everyone is affected by cisgenderism, it is a culture to which we are all exposed, whether transgender or cisgender, from early on in our lives. It is a culture we internalise without realising it. It is one of the reasons trans people have so many problems in coming out, in being ourselves and in fitting into society. It is also the reason why Chelsea Manning was not able to come out as herself when she was 5, and it may have been one of the reasons that she chose to join the army.

Because cultural cisgenderism is a tacit culture/ideology which is rarely expressed or communicated in words, the goings-on at Wikipedia have thrown up a rare opportunity to observe cultural cisgenderism manifested in langauge. As such it is important that their discussions are recorded and made available to analyse this phenomenon and illustrate its functioning and its effects.

ACTION: Transphobia in Schools

The Tories have deliberately excluded trans children from its inclusion statement for the final draft of the National Curriculum. This appears not to be an oversight but a deliberate decision.

In the February 2013 the draft National Curriculum document included "gender identity" as part of its inclusion statement;

https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/National%20Curriculum%20consultation%20-%20framework%20document%20(2).docx (Page 9 section 4.2)

The Final version, published in July excludes "gender identity" entirely, it has quite simply vanished;

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/210969/NC_framework_document_-_FINAL.pdf (Page 8 section 4.2)

As such it must be assumed that this is a deliberate exclusion rather than what trans people have become used to, being excluded through thoughtlessness. As such it is difficult to come to any conclusion other than that it is deliberate transphobia. The category "gender reassignment" is enshrined in the Equality Act 2010 and by excluding it as a conscious act, the DfE appears to be attempting to harm the interests of transgender children.

I have just made the Freedom of Information request to the DfE;

"The final version of the new National Curriculum, published in July, in its "Inclusion" section on P 8 (section 4.2) excludes "gender reassignment" whereas this aspect of diversity was included in the Feb 2013 draft version. Please could you send me the minutes of the meeting at which the decision was made to exclude this protected characteristic and please could you also send me a copy of the Equality Impact Assessment made prior to the exclusion of this protected characteristic. Please also send me copies of all emails, memos, discussion documents or protosals in which the exclusion of "gender reassignment" was discussed, mentioned or proposed."

If anyone can think of anything to add their FOI page is here;

https://www.education.gov.uk/help/contactus/dfe


I would suggest everyone to write to their MP and as him or her to ask Michael Gove. Secretary of State for Education why he has excluded "gender identity" from the final version of the National Curriculum inclusion statement, and if he will ensure that it is re-included. You can write to your MP here;

http://www.writetothem.com

This does not appear to be an oversight but represents a deliberate act of transphobia, we cannot allow trans children to be excluded from school life, it is vital that they are included in everything to do with schools.

The most chilling newspaper editorial ever written.

The one thing you can rely on with the Tories is that you can always tell what their real policy priorities are by listening to what they say. However it is not quite a simple as it appears; you can tell what the Tories main policy aims are from the opposite of what they are saying.

So when Michael Gove made a speech a couple of months ago against homophobia (but not transphobia) in schools, this was the forerunner of the huge number of his academies adopting homophobic policies. He gave them the freedom to adopt their own policies, so he has to take responsibility when they do so. The silence from Gove on this has been deafening.

When the chancellor, George Osborne tells us "we are all in this together" you know we are definitely not in it together; the rich have become immensely more wealthy since 2010, boosted by his tax cuts and wilful reluctance to collect billinos of pounds in taxes owed to the nation from the wealthiest companies. The rest of us get poorer, the 1% get richer at our expense.

So when David Cameron made a great show of championing a "free press" after Leveson, fighting to allow the billionnaire-controlled propaganda machine to retain its own toothless and biased "self-regulation" system, one had a feeling that there would be more to this than met the eye. It didn't take long for this to be revealed. Today the editor of the Guardian published what has to be the most chilling editorial ever written by the editor of a newspaper. In it Alan Rusbridger described how government agents entered the Guardian's HQ and ensured that hard drives containing data about NSA and GCHQ surveillance of ordinary people worldwide, through the internet, were destroyed. Cameron talked press freedom whilst attacking the Guardian's reporting on how his government is watching us. There can be no greater hypocrisy. Over Leveson Cameron talked press freedom, yet only a few months later he was sending his goons in to destroy the evidence of how his government has talked freedom and "rolling back the state" whilst in fact it has greatly increased state interference in areas where the state should not go; everyone's personal emails, social networking and internet activity. Ask a Guardian reporter or David Miranda whether, as William Hague infamously asserted "The innocent have nothing to fear."

These are important issues concerning freedom and personal liberty and state transparency, things which Cameron was all talk about just before the election. All talk and no trousers apparently. He has made no comment at all about these crucially important issues, indeed all we have heard from him is that his back is too bad to go deer hunting. This is not just a disingenuous silence on his part (have you noticed how Cameron, Gove, Osborne etc never speak about issues like this, they just shut up and ignore anything about which they could be criticised) but a rank cowardice. I said three years ago that Cameron was not the Prime Minister, that view has been greatly reinforced, he is simply a leader of a despotic cabal of the rich and powerful who wish to use state apparatus (while saying they are anti-state) to crush dissent and make themselves richer at our expense.

Translation of articles in Danish about attack on Cecillia Mundt

Translated from original article in EkstraBladet

"Why I hit a transsexual with a hammer"

21 year-old denies hatecrime was a motive for the attack

"Smiling and grinning a 21-year-old trainee chef from Sønderborg in Copenhagen confessed to a magistrate today that he beat the 48-year-old transgender woman Cecillia Mundt down with a hammer in City Hall Square in Copenhagen.

The 21-year-old, who is on parole for assault, met the 48-year-old at the main train station by chance and asked why he (sic) was dressed as a woman. But the perpetrator denied that hatred of transgender people was the cause of the brutal assault.

“I asked why are you like this. I should not have involved myself, and then he (sic) called me a 'møgperker'” explained the 21-year-old to the police magistrate.

He was angry about this and followed the 48-year-old to City Hall:

“I happened to have a rubber mallet in my bag when I moved a few weeks ago, so I hit the back of his head”, the grinning 21-year-old in the told police magistrate.

“You laugh? You think this is funny?” asked senior prosecutor Maria Cingari.

“No, I just got something in my throat”, said the 21-year-old, but continued the rest of the hearing to smile and chuckle as he appeared relaxed in the dock.

Knows gay men

“I want to be accountable for what I've done. It is not acceptable. I have respect for people who dare to be different and I also know some gay men. It's okay that they are as they are”, said the 21-year-old. According to his explanation, he went only crazy because he was called 'møgperker'.

“He spoke rudely to me”, said the 21-year-old of the transsexual.

He beat Cecillia Mundt in the back of the head, so she fell. Then he ran off and threw the hammer away. He went home to Sønderborg, where he goes to the Technical School, and has a room. On Monday he should have been starting two weeks of work experience as a trainee chef at a hotel in Sønderborg.

Yesterday he called police and turned himself in. He was arrested at 10:10 yesterday.

The 21-year-old stayed at a hotel in Copenhagen when the attack happened. He should have gone home to Sønderborg on Sunday, but chose to stay in Copenhagen to 'get some fresh air'.

Victim in danger

 At the hearing it emerged that Cecillia Mundt was in potential danger. She had a three-way fracture on the right side of the head and a piece of bone of 2.5 times 2.5 centimeters was pressed into the skull, but luckily without bleeding. Moreover, the 48-year-old had abrasions on the hands, face and scalp probably from the fall.

The 21-year-old denies that he struck the 48-year-old in the head more than once.

Prosecutor Maria Cingari doubts that the damage could have been caused by a rubber hammer, but according to defender Peter Giersing also a witness described the hammer as a rubber mallet.

The 21-year-old, who is heavily tattooed on the left leg and in the neck, sat in the police magistrate in short black pants and gray hoodie.

He has twice previously been convicted for domestic violence. In May 2009, he was sentenced to 60 days imprisonment for violence by a court in Sønderborg. In August 2011, he was given four months in prison for aggravated assault, also in Sønderborg and he is on parole with probation until 27 January 2014 with 42 days remaining to be served.

He was remanded in custody for 16 days until 24 June, both for the risk of new violent crime and the interests of the gravity of the pffence and the sense of justice.

“Can I go now?” asked the 21-year-old and was with a small smile on his face and was led out of the police magistrates court.

LATEST: Update, also from Ekstra Baldet

Cecilia's Response: Attacker is full of lies

That's just sickening that he comes out with that. I am not a racist and would not dream of calling someone 'møgperker'.

The 48-year-old transgender Cecillia Mundt is shocked by the 21-year-old violent man's explanation in Copenhagen magistrate today.

Here he claimed that the motive for his brutal assault with a hammer on Cecillia Mundt on the square was not due to that she is a transsexual, but that she called the 21-year-old for 'møgperker'.

The 21-year-old trainee chef claims he randomly met Cecillia Mundt at the main train station and asked 'why she looked like that' on the grounds that she was dressed as a woman.

Cecillia Mundt changed sex when she was 46 years old, and the police magistrate claimed the accused that he was told that “he (sic) hadn’t shaved” and then he was called 'møgperker'. Therefore he followed Cecilla Mundt to City Hall, where he beat her down from behind with a rubber mallet, which he happened to have in his bag.

“I have never spoken to him.”

“It is simply something he has done. I have never met him before or talked to him before. I have no idea what he looks like and no one stopped me or spoke to me before I felt the attack from behind and fell, said Cecillia Mundt to Ekstra Bladet from her sick bed.

She is convinced that the assault is a hate crime due to her sexual orientation, she is upfront about.

If someone asks me, then I explain to them that I am a transsexual. It's not something I hide. My neighbors are of a different ethnic origin and they respect me 100 percent as a woman. I would never call anyone for 'møgperker' says Cecillia Mundt.

Cecillia Mundt had eaten with a friend who is a journalism student and who is writing  a thesis about transsexuals when she went to City Hall and sent a text message along the way. Suddenly she felt the attack in her head and it all went black.

According to doctors, she was in potential danger. Amongst other things there was a large piece of bone pressing into herskull.

“The attacker’s explanation was that he "only" used a rubber mallet, I think he did not.”

“I'm missing a piece of the skull for life. A rubber mallet did not do that, said Cecillia Mundt. Doctors have implanted a titanium mesh in her head instead of the broken skull pieces.”

“I do not know when I will be able to go home. There is enough for a while. I still have severe pain and have an increased dose of pain medication. It is slow sending an SMS message for example”, says the 48-year-old.

But Cecillia Mundt has only compassion for the perpetrator.

“I would like to meet him and ask him why he did it. He must be sick and in need of help,” she says.

The 21-year-old has two previous convictions for violence and was released on parole.

8 June 2013 "

CC) Natacha Kennedy. Translation may be used freely as long as translator is acknowledged.