Goldsmiths college hit the headlines again this week after they decided to replace the word woman with womxn for all their sports teams. Defending the move, a spokesperson said “Womxn is used to demonstrate our commitment to inclusiveness”. Some activists argue the word woman excludes both women of colour and those of diverse gender expressions. Whether this move would allow males to self identify into the women’s sports teams remains to be verified. Appearing on RT today, journalist and campaigner Sonia Poulton lambasted the decision and said the college was at the forefront of a movement that wants to erase the legal definition of woman and remove them from positions of authority in the public sphere.
Named in the interview were direct action campaign group Girl Not Afraid who have targeted the college and the surrounding area in recent weeks with a publicity campaign, calling out institutional misogyny and standing in solidarity with those affected.
We decided to take a closer look.
Maryam Namazie the ‘Anti-Islam Woman’.
Maryam Namazie was born in Iran but had to leave with her family in 1980s after an Islamic religious dictatorship seized power. She later left her Muslim faith and subsequently received numerous death threats. She is a communist who writes about women's rights, free expression, Islamism, and secularism. She has many critics including the Islamic regime of Iran’s media outlets, who have called her ‘immoral and corrupt’ and published an ‘exposé’ on her entitled 'Meet this anti-Islam woman.’
In November 2015, Namazie was invited by the Goldsmiths Atheist, Secularist and Humanist (ASH) Society to give a talk about 'Apostasy, blasphemy and free expression in the age of ISIS'. The night before the talk, an email was sent to the ASH society by the Islamic society’s (ISOC) president Muhammed Patel. He asked them to cancel the talk or be reported to the Student Union for violation of their ‘safe space’ policy. In student politics many see Muslims as a persecuted minority which means they are often backed by other persecuted groups automatically. Defending a previous move by Warwick University Students Union to block her talk, David Shariatmadari summed up this position in a Guardian opinion piece by saying:
'What might lead people to decide they’d rather not give a platform to such rhetoric? Recognising the pressure British Muslims are under – surveilled by the state, victims of verbal abuse, vandalism and arson – could it be that some students felt welcoming a person who believes Islam is incompatible with modern life would be wrong?'
On the 30th of November the talk at Goldsmiths went ahead and claims that Namazie was making ISOC students feel 'unsafe' were somewhat undermined by the atmosphere of fear and intimidation created by ISOC president Mr Patel and his Muslim brothers in ISOC. They heckled throughout the talk, interjecting with words like ‘safe space,’ refusing to leave when asked by security. The behaviour escalated throughout the event. They unplugged the projector, switched off lights and constantly interrupted both Namazie and anybody questioning their religion.
It seems strange that feminists who saw this speech would fail to see the male pattern aggression in the behaviour of those present. Instead, following the talk, Goldsmiths Feminist Society issued a statement in solidarity with ISOC:
Goldsmiths LGBTQ+ Society also chose to stand in solidarity with them, issuing a statement saying:
'In our experiences, members of ISOC have been nothing but charming, patient, kind, and peaceful as individuals and as an organization.'
This statement was issued despite the President of ISOC, earlier that year, sending homophobic tweets and then demanding 'fag lovers get out of my mentions pls' in response to a Channel 4 documentary entitled Muslim Drag Queens.
Patel resigned his post after the tweets were uncovered, following media interest into the Islamic Society triggered by their behaviour at Namazie's talk.
Sara Ahmed and the search for the truth.
Goldsmiths has an interesting history when it comes to matters of sexual misconduct.
In June 2016, Sara Ahmed, Director of the Centre for Feminist Research at Goldsmiths College, resigned her post in protest at an entrenched culture that had led to six inquiries into four members of staff. Writing in her blog she said:
'I have resigned in protest against the failure to address the problem of sexual harassment. I have resigned because the costs of doing this work have been too high....When I talk about the problem of sexual harassment I am not talking about one rogue individual, or two, nor even a rogue unit, nor even a rogue institution. We are talking about how sexual harassment becomes normalised and generalised — as part of academic culture.'
Following her resignation a number of students, concerned about an ongoing cover up started to investigate, publishing their result in a blog.
They found a series of notes on books in Goldsmiths library which named a serial abuser of women, who was allegedly allowed to resign his post before facing an investigation.
Later, in March 2017, an investigation by The Guardian uncovered the fact that £192,146 in compensation had been paid to students who brought complaints of sexual harassment, assault or rape against members of staff in the last six years. Separate sources told The Independent and The Times that students had been impregnated by academics and later offered hush money in exchange for their silence.
According to some sources, Goldsmiths’ culture of sexual abuse has been around for years. These allegations, about a different department, came to light following Ahmed's resignation. Former students said they were groomed as undergraduates. One woman claims she was sexually assaulted by an academic who pinned her against a wall, put his hands under her bra and tried to kiss her. In an interview with the Guardian she said she:
'didn’t even consider reporting this because it just seemed par for the course. The culture of sexual exploitation of (sometimes) teenage girls by middle-aged men seemed embedded.'
Goldsmiths have since launched a 10-point sexual harassment strategy and say they plan to improve the way that reports of sexual misdeeds are handled. However, more recently they have found themselves at the center of yet another scandal - this time focusing on the conduct of transgender lecturer Natasha Kennedy.
Natacha and Mark are going on a Witch Hunt
Natacha Kennedy lectures at Goldsmiths college on Theories of Gender and Transgender and describes herself as a 'stroppy Bolshie trans girl with attitude.'
Despite knowing she was transgender from the age of four, Natacha is very comfortable with her masculine side. So much so that she lives much of her life as her male alter-ego Mark Hellen. Indeed, they are both listed in the Goldsmiths’ staff directory and co-author their own academic papers, in spite of the ethical concerns such behaviour raises.
In August 2018 Mark and Natasha created a closed Facebook group and asked members to submit names of academics who did not agree that biological males could become women. Aimee Challenor, the former Green Party candidate who used their father as an election agent despite knowing he’d been accused of raping and torturing a ten-year-old girl, for which he was later jailed, gave a list of people to blacklist.
Everyone targeted was female.
Two such academics were Kathleen Stock, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex, and Rosa Freedman, a Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development at the University of Reading. A common tactic was to report them for hate crimes. One activist boasted that he had reported Freedman several times. Another wrote about Stock in the Trans Rights UK Facebook group saying, 'File a hate crime report against her, and then the chairman and vice-chair. Drag them over the fucking coals.'
Professor Freedman told The Times:
'We are talking about the aggressive trolling of women who are experts. I have received penis pictures telling me to "suck my girl cock". This is straight-up, aggressive, anti-woman misogyny.'
Professor Stock said:
“It is head-scratching bizarre how so many public organisations, many of them ostensibly progressive, have capitulated to passive-aggressive, emotionally blackmailing, and sometimes even outright threatening behaviour from trans activists, often online.”
It is worth mentioning that both Freedman and Stock are lesbians, as are many women accused of wrongdoing by trans right activists.
Gulags are nice!
In September of this year, Goldsmiths’ LGBTQ+ Society found itself in the middle of a scandal which led to their suspension and disaffiliation from the Students Union.
Inspired by Natacha Kennedy’s tactics, they asked their members to block several TERFS (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) on Twitter. Whilst activists claim this is only a descriptive word, others say this is hate speech, the 21st century version of witch, used to smear opponents and incite violence against women. Lesbian activists argue it’s homophobic and have shown the ways it’s used in the LGBT community to shame lesbians for refusing the accept transwomen (84% of whom retain their penis) as potential sexual partners.
The LGBTQ+ Society contacted the Twitter accounts that followed a number of women, smearing their reputations and suggesting they unfollow them.
Claire Graham (@mrkhtake2), a special educational needs teacher with an intersex condition, had objected to their threat to target feminist academics and political activists. Responding to her claim they sounded 'a bit fascist', Goldsmiths’ LGBTQ+ Society said they would 'arrange to send you to the Gulag,' followed by a smiling emoji.
Rather than retract their statement, they went on to create a Twitter thread extolling the virtues of Gulags. They described them as benign places where inmates received education, training and enjoyed the opportunity to take part in clubs, sports and theatre groups.
Twitter was quick to respond and the resulting twitterstorm caught the attention of the international media. Many pointed out the irony of an LGBTQ+ society using an allegedly homophobic slur like TERF and then threatening to send an intersex woman to a Soviet Gulag - especially inappropriate when you consider the high percentage of gay men and lesbians who died in such places.
The LGBTQ+ Society was suspended and disaffiliated from the Student Union the next day but the damage was already done. The story went viral: reported across the world as an example of ‘Far-Left Extremism’ and ‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’.
The LGBTQ+ Society responded with the following statement:
A woman is called a “fucking ugly cunt”. And other things that happened at the Radical Book Fair.
On Saturday 2nd June 2018, self-declared radical feminist and blogger Jeni Harvey attended a radical book fair at Goldsmiths College. She wanted to distribute pamphlets she had produced about the difference between sex and gender, and how this should inform debates around government plans to allow transgender people to change their birth sex. After some positive discussions with attendees, she was approached by the book fair organisers, who said people had complained that her material was anti trans.
Harvey agreed with the organisers to pack up her stall, but was allowed to distribute her leaflets outside the university gates with three colleagues. Unfortunately, a hostile crowd of young people followed them. One of the book fair organisers was called a 'fucking ugly cunt' by a male protester. A woman grabbed a pamphlet from Harvey’s hands, ripped it into pieces and attempted to set it on fire. The worst claim however is that:
'Matthew Fuller, professor of cultural studies, was not only present in the courtyard as we were being verbally abused and intimidated, but also part of the group who gathered at the top of the stairs having followed us as we waited to leave. At no point did he, as someone in a position of authority at the university, attempt to prevent students behaving in such a threatening manner; indeed he appeared only to support them, describing my pamphlets as “anti-trans” — again, an accusation I reject.'
Harvey approached the university with video evidence of the incident but has received no response from the university authorities.
Reactions provoked
Responses to Girl Not Afraid's posters have varied. Many on Twitter reacted positively:
Others were less enthusiastic.
Natacha Kennedy refused to engage with the group, reporting them to Terfblocker. The list blocks its users from seeing the accounts of over 50,00, mainly female Twitter accounts. It is alleged that Aimee Challenor co-created the list with her paedophile father David Challenor - the Green Party activist convicted of serious sexual assault against a child earlier this year. We approached Kennedy for comment but she had yet to respond at the time of publication.
Girl Not Afraid - where do their intentions lay?
Who are Girl Not Afraid and what do they want? The first image was posted on the Twitter account of Jack Appleby on the 18th of November and was shortly followed by further images and the hashtag #GirlNotAfraid. A Twitter account has since emerged but provides few details except a link to a Dropbox account allowing users to download copies of their posters.
An earlier sticker campaign from feminist group Liverpool Resisters resulted in their condemnation by Liverpool City Mayor Joe Anderson.
Inspired by the work of a mysterious campaigner nicknamed ‘sticker woman’ they had targeted the Anthony Gormley statues on Crosby Beach, allegedly covering their members with stickers reading ‘women don’t have penises’. In an impassioned speech, Mayor Jo Anderson proceeded to blame the Liverpool Resistors for his decision to deny all calls for discussion regarding the council's decision to remove all single-sex toilets.
Other stickers have emerged since, including the following image from Manchester which opposes government plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act. Some have even suggested the collective activities of these guerilla feminists should be entered for the public ballot as a nominee for the 2019 Turner Prize.
Questions remain regarding the ongoing conduct of staff, students and the authorities at Goldsmiths College. MMN! approached them and asked how they intended to address concerns of institutional misogyny and the reputational damage caused by the actions of their students and staff. We received the following response:
'Goldsmiths continues to support all members of its diverse and inclusive community and remains committed to the values of freedom of speech within the law.
The last year has seen significant progress in our efforts to tackle all forms of sexual violence: we launched an anonymous reporting website, delivered against sexual violence training for staff, piloted training for students, and ran a campaign to raise awareness of our new policies and procedures. However, we are far from complacent and this work continues.'
When asked specifically about Natacha Kennedy's secret Facebook group, the accusations contained in the ‘We Want Truth’ blog, and the presence of Goldsmith’s lecturer Matthew Fuller when a group of students allegedly attacked Harvey Jeni. Goldsmith’s responded:
'We are unable to comment on personal matters or give out personal data about individuals. We have procedures in place to ensure that all complaints we receive are carefully considered and, where appropriate, investigated and relevant action taken.'
By Sobering Maid
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