Gender Ideology Is Destroying Academia (Part II)

My cancellation, Part II: The story and its aftermath

Academia

GENDER IDEOLOGY IS DESTROYING ACADEMIA (Part II)

My cancellation, Part II: The story and its aftermath

Tiffanie Victoria Jones

Editors’ note: Part one of this series may be found here.

Section 1—The Story

It was a normal class session. Because I am notoriously one of the hardest graders—one of my former students endearingly called me a “cute little monster” because of my tough grading style—I have structured my class sessions as a light-hearted space. (Even my office is adorned beautifully and warmly designed, with earthy colors and bamboo sticks and soft soap decorated in the shape of rose petals, to disarm angry students when they need to discuss their grades.) This class session was pretty typical. We had lively discussions with lots of laughter and warmth. That all ended with one comment.

We were discussing hegemonic masculinity—the most idealized form of masculinity—and one student gave the example of “women’s birthing practices.” The students agreed that the way that women are encouraged to give birth in America is to the benefit of the male doctor at the expense of the woman’s comfort, as she must lie on her back so that he can see. I, having never given birth, was only familiar with that very imagery plastered across thousands of television programs shown since the beginning of television. My students “enlightened” me that there were far more comfortable ways for women to give birth. Okay. And then it happened, the comment that silenced the entire room. “Well, we shouldn’t say women give birth because not everyone who gives birth is a woman.” The entire class froze in dead silence. I stared at the student who made the comment. (She will be called “Student” from here on out.)  

She proceeded: “Does that make sense?” 

“No,” I said. 

“Oh, well, some men have uteruses. Does that make sense?” she asked again.  

“No.”  

She proceeded, “I’m talking about ‘trans-men,’” to which I responded, “What is a ‘trans-man?’”

“You don’t know what a ‘trans-man’ is?”

“What is a ‘trans-man?’” I asked again.

Student hurriedly spoke about so-called “trans-men,” and when I realized that I would not be able to respond, I stopped trying. I let her continue. I heard rhetoric. I heard hyperbole. I heard manipulation. I heard canned talking points. I heard something to this effect: “Trans-men” are people who were assigned female at birth but who are, identify, and live as men. And when you suggest that only women give birth, you are excluding “trans-men,” and that causes harm to them. When she was done, she asked again, 

“Does that make sense?”

And again, but this time only in my head, I said, “No.” While I heard the gist of what she was saying, and I understood the words that she constructed, her underlying principle did not make sense. When you remove the rhetoric, the hyperbole, the manipulation, and the canned talking points, this skeleton reveals something more to this effect: “trans-men” are delusional women who believe they are men—delusional because a delusion is a deeply held belief against all evidence to the contrary, and women because these people are adult humans who have large, immobile gametes, otherwise called females. In my mind, a pregnant woman who believes merely identifying as a man makes her a pregnant man is equivalent to a pregnant woman who believes identifying as an elephant makes her a pregnant elephant…or a teenage girl who is sick and believes identifying as a newborn makes her a sick newborn…or a man who is illiterate and believes identifying as a tree makes him an illiterate tree…or a child who is school-aged and believes identifying as a pilot makes him a school-aged pilot…or a man who is homeless and believes identifying as the president makes him a homeless president…or…(this can go on forever). Does the statement make sense? Sense, as in, is it intelligible, reasonable, or justifiable? Of course not! It is fully illogical. And its illogicality is clearly exposed when the undergirding principle is immediately defeated (and obliterated) by all of the preposterous examples that result from attempting to apply the principle.  

Back to the story. Not wanting to say again that no, she did not make sense, I said the following: “Let’s talk about this. What is gender?” 

She responded by saying, “Gender is anything; it’s everything. It’s whatever you want it to be.”

I held up a marker and said, “Okay, is this marker gender?”

Student said, “No.”

I held up a napkin and said, “Is this napkin gender?” 

Again, she said, “No.”

I said, “Is it clear now that gender is not anything, everything, whatever you want it to be?”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “So, what is gender?”

She said, “I don’t know.”

I said, “Okay, that’s fair.” At that point, another student asked if the others could participate in the dialogue. I said, “Absolutely! What do y’all say?” And we began a discussion about the conceptualization of gender. The students wanted to conceptualize gender based on the theory that gender and sex are distinct, as opposed to the idea that gender is merely a synonym for sex (the actual way that “gender” came into usage; the term “gender” comes from the term “genre,” which means “type” or “kind” and was used to replace the term “sex,” due to its taboo dual meaning). After briefly introducing both ideas, the students unanimously agreed to use the theory proposing that the two terms are distinct. I made no argument and followed their preferred theory. For about six or seven minutes, we talked about the possible conceptual differences between the two terms.  

Throughout the discussion, while the other students participated eagerly in the dialogue, Student seemed agitated.  She slammed her notebook into her book sack, upset at the notion that intersex is not a distinct sex (in fact, while not forming a third sex apart from male or female, intersex refers to “those conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female”). At that point, one of Student’s friends said that she was uncomfortable with the discussion—that she wanted “to crawl out of [her] skin because [I] was abusing [my] power by forcing [them] to have a discussion that [they] did not want to have.” I ended the dialogue, not addressing the fact that their classmate asked me if others could participate in the discussion. I also did not express that I believed that their classmate was simply embarrassed, likely having never been asked to explain herself or defend her position. Instead, people have probably applauded her “courage” for her remarks. I explained to the students that the academic setting was not a place where people could state their opinions with reckless disregard for any facts; they are fully expected to support their ideas with scholarship. And I explained that under no circumstances are students permitted to manipulate others’ emotions or compel each other’s speech. They are free to believe as they choose and display their lens through their speech, as are others. We took a break and returned on a new topic.  

Two weeks later, I found out that Student had dropped my class and filed a discrimination complaint against me, citing “trans-exclusionary behavior” and “transphobic comments.” Student’s friends supported her, saying that I “bullied” her. The university dismissed the discrimination claim but supported the bullying claim, stating that I acted inappropriately. I requested that they remove the unsupported accusation from my file, and I supported my request with a conceptual definition of bullying from three reputable organizations. Bullying has three components: a power differential; longevity; and intentional harm. I am a professor, and she is a student, so power differential checks; I had met the student only once, during that class session, so longevity does not check; and no reasonable, normal (yes! normal) human being would say that asking the question, “what is gender?” is intentionally harmful, so intentional harm does not check. The response to my request to remove the bullying claim from my record was as follows: my case would now be investigated under Title IX. What does this mean? Though I was cleared of a discrimination claim, I was told that I was now being investigated for sexual harassment.

Section 2—The Aftermath

There were two major reactions following this situation—that from the students and that from the administration. Student’s friends decided to act on her behalf in the form of vindictive protectiveness. This type of behavior occurs when people are “so distressed” by perceived injustices toward others that they maliciously attack the person who they believe has committed the “injustice.” That semester, they gave me poor evaluations that included negative and false comments about me. They began telling faculty and the student body that I “hate” the homosexual and transgender-professing students. (They left out the fact that Student was my top performing student in that class). The following semester, they set some lofty goals: they would “revolt,” get me fired, and get me “blackballed from all American universities.” Some students actually joined my class so that they could “revolt” against me. Their revolt came in the form of dishonest statements in my evaluations. Outright lies! They also began complaining about minor things in an attempt to mount up complaints about me. For example, one of my students complained that I graded her unfairly. She complained that she received a score of 98% on an assignment instead of 100%. Another student filed a formal complaint against me, saying that I “hate women and young people.” When asked why she believed this to be so, especially considering that I am both a woman and a Millennial, she said that it was simply how she felt.    

The administration had an interesting response as well. After a month had gone by with no word from Title IX, I reached out for an update. The sexual harassment charges were never filed, and the investigating office that accused me of bullying closed my case, while leaving the bullying claim in my record. (Ultimately, they never addressed my complaint about the bullying charge, distracting me with a much larger Title IX charge, only to never file the Title IX charge in the hopes, I believe, that I would shut up. Well, we see how that worked out.) In-house, I immediately shared the class situation with the dean. He initially expressed confusion as to why Student was upset. About a week later, his tune changed. He stated that he understood her, and the entire school needed to undergo sensitivity training (read: conversion therapy). The five trainings were taught by three people. One was a woman who conducts presentations with her chest exposed to reveal her breast-cancer-related double-mastectomy. She also states that biology is “not real,” describes herself as a “PWI survivor,” and took to YouTube to beg her infant boy to “be gay.” Another presenter claimed to be “she” one week and “they” the next and taught that virtually everything was “white supremacy,” including punctuality. Yes, according to her, if you are on time or like to be early, you are perpetuating “white supremacy.” The third presenter was a blue-haired man who claims that there are nine different sexes because “science has proven this,” with absolutely no proof shared. (Well, a quick question: if one sex is female and represented, primarily, by a vagina, and another sex is male and represented, primarily, by a penis, what is the third sex’s name and its mutually exclusive, primary, organic representation? Why am I certain that I do not need to ask about the “other six sexes”?)  

In addition to these absurd trainings, the dean placed me on a professional improvement plan. I had to have ongoing conversations with the director of the campus’s instructor assistance program (I must admit she was quite kind, and her recommendations were actually beneficial). I was removed from the flagship program and placed in the doctoral program. The dean also mandated that I have ongoing conversations with the “she-yesterday/they-today” lady, who cancelled all of our meetings after being late to the first one. (Maybe she thought that being late was her demonstration against “white supremacy,” since, in her mind, punctuality [read: respecting someone else’s time] is racist.) Additionally, my classes had to be monitored three times through peer observations, but later the dean decided to add an unlimited number of observations…just because. I refused that level of class intrusion. While one evaluator did not review the results with me, my other two peer observations were excellent. My course evaluations had to improve, and they did improve significantly. Indeed, a few evaluations were excellent, following my switch to the doctoral program and the revolting class’s graduation. I was also nominated for Faculty Member of the Year for my work in this program. And I had to take professional development trainings, which I did. We never reviewed the results of the plan. 

Despite completing the plan, with the exception of the unlimited observations, I was removed from the classroom altogether, and an outright attack on my academic freedom and professional responsibilities was launched. My professional judgments were undermined at every turn. For example, a cheating student’s grade grievance was upheld, with absolutely no input from me, and I was asked to change his grade. In fact, I did not even learn that he had the hearing until I was given the result, which was that I was instructed to change his grade. The dean went so far as to allow the new chair to remove me as the professor of record for the final class that I taught, lock me out of the class, and change my grades. The reason given was because of “issues with the class.” This is quite an interesting reason because my course evaluation for this class was very good. So, what is the real reason for all of the poor treatment? Well, I have an idea…

[To be continued! Hit subscribe so you don’t miss an installment.]

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Tiffanie Victoria Jones (PhD, LMSW) is a New Orleans native. She earned a BA in Mass Communication from Dillard University, an MSW from the University of Missouri at Columbia, and a PhD in Social Work from Howard University. A research methodologist, Dr. Jones has taught in both undergraduate and graduate schools, predominantly in the research sequence. She specializes in research design and data analysis. Dr. Jones has served as either the methodologist, advisor, or research consultant for over 100 Master’s theses and doctoral capstone projects, domestic and abroad. She is also the founder of CiL Research Consulting Group. Dr. Jones’ research centers primarily on psychosocial outcomes for special and vulnerable populations. In the classroom, she focuses on incorporating innovative teaching techniques to increase higher-order thinking skills, critical thinking skills, and engagement. Personally and most importantly, Dr. Jones loves God above everything and is a devoted born-again believer in the Lord, Jesus Christ. She also enjoys doing creative works, reading, trying out new restaurants, traveling, and getting beautifully crafted cakes for her birthday.