Is this progress? Student society invitation to Helen Joyce results in a scolding rather than a cancellation

[DrudgeJedd]

This feels like progress to me, what do others think?
Durham Union Society have invited Helen Joyce to speak (not clear if it is part of a debate or an address), the SU reaction seems quite moderate. Bit finger-waggy but nothing like the hyperbolic responses of a few years ago.

Looking at their list of previous speakers they get quite decent guests. I wonder how many have provoked a response like this from the SU?

https://dus.org.uk/about-us/

With such a ghastly intro the SU are surely risking the Streisand effect here?

One source says they were controversial because historically up to 70% of guest speakers have been male

How could they possibly tell?!

'Provocative' eh? Ooh er missus.

I love a good Streisand effect. Sunderland Minster are currently doing well on that....

'Attack' their rights by protecting women's rights - it's so bloody tedious. How often do they expect women and homosexuals to listen to the attacking of their rights, and in this, to be scolded and told how unacceptable it is to resist this? The hypocrisy and boreishness of it all is getting ridiculous.

Helen will no doubt have to deal with the tantrums and poor behaviour rather than being heard in any way anyway.

She's much cleverer and more articulate than any of them, and unflappable, she'll be grand.

It's a shame, Durham used to be a good university back in the day.

It seems to me that if the trans folk of Durham University "won't want to go near an event where they have to sit and listen to a speaker attack their rights", nobody is going to force them to do so.

If they did turn up, of course, and had sufficient couth and courtesy to shut up for a bit and listen to someone who doesn't agree with every word they say, they might discover that Helen Joyce doesn't in fact attack trans rights, she defends the rights of women and the truth about biology.

I think the muted reaction is quite a good sign that Durham students aren't taking the 'most vulnerable' stuff seriously now.
Students who wish to show solidarity with their trans friends will either stay away from the debate or join them in whatever self-soothing session the SU provides as an alternative to listening to HJ's wrong-think

All those "addresses from reactionary individuals in the past" and yet the world didn't come to an end. 😮 I don't suppose it will after HJ's talk either because 'trans' isn't the world ending topic they think it is, who'd have thunk. 😁

It does seem that the response is some what muted from past reactions, hopefully it means the Uni's are getting back on track to be what they should be, bastions of free speech, we'll have to wait and see what sort of reception HJ gets on the day to know for sure though.

Hopefully they'll just have a big hugging, cry fest instead of the usual shouty, screamy cringy fest.

Isn't this as likely to be the chane in policy re free speech at universities.

Presumably this applies not to the University administration but student unions as well.

Hence the attempt at emotional black mail.

'Many of our trans friends won't want to go to an event....' and?

Trans people do not have to approve every little fucking thing everyone else does.

They're such babies.
There's countless things I don't want to go to, I manage fine by not going.
It's really quite simple.

Incidentally, this silliness is not new. I remember a visiting speaker (his name was Eysenck) being violently driven off a university campus in the early nineteen-seventies because his views about race and intellectual ability were unacceptable to a vocal minority of the students there. But I feel that may have been a more worthy cause to get hot under the collar about, even though I would not have joined in: I would have preferred to go to his lecture and argue against his views.

How dare they?! What about the rights and dignity of their female students?
What about learning, debate and freedom of speech?

What a pathetic, snivelling little response. Like that would put Helen Joyce off!

This is definitely progress! And yes, badly thought out and written from the SU. Hopefully this is the 'clash of ideas' stage where good ideas drive out the bad.

Surely the trans community can simply stay away, rather than exposing themselves to the utter trauma of hearing a viewpoint that don't agree with?

Or can they not bring themselves to miss an opportunity to wave a rainbow flag, hold up a wee placard about human rights, and do their best sad face?

Oh dear. Given some trans behaviour, "wee" is an unfortunate word to use in a sentence about them!

That's true! I meant small obviously, but on reflection it could easily be the other, knowing the predilection some of the blokes have for expressing their sadness in that way 😂

Gave me quite a turn, just for a moment before I saw what it actually said.

Clearly I need either more sleep or more caffeine. It's been one of Those days.

Apart from when Jolyam went there. Perhaps the calibre of some of the students wasn’t always so great back then either

One of the things I have always slightly wondered about the fox botherer is that he said he battered the fox to death with a baseball bat.

Why did he have a baseball bat lying about to do it with? I don't know anyone living in England who has one of those in their umbrella stand.....

Durham has had quite the reputation for posh boy misogyny (if you remember the ‘who can fuck the poorest girl’ challenge that led to expulsions).

www.palatinate.org.uk/the-problem-of-durhams-lad-culture/

I like the idea of the alternate event they suggest holding. One where people with delicate sensibilities can gather and be pandered to, safe in the assurance they won’t hear anything they don’t agree with.

Posh boy misogyny you say? I think you're on to something there

Posh boy misogyny used to be based on knowing exactly what a woman was....