University of Bristol students vote to ban ‘transphobic feminist speakers’
(Photo by Gaye Gerard/Getty Images)
University of Bristol students have voted to no platform trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) from speaking on campus.
TERF is an acronym for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, who claim that trans women are not women and argue that they have male privilege.
The university’s students’ union passed the motion to no platform TERF speakers which would likely include feminist speakers like Germaine Greer and Linda Bellos.
The motion was passed as the feminists have been accused of transphobia.
But the motion was put forward by the students’ union’s feminist society.
It means that any event with speakers collaborating with any group holding “trans-exclusionary radical feminist viewa” canot take place on university grounds.
RELATED: What is a TERF and why should you be worried?
But some at the university attended the meeting and said they disagreed with the motion.
One student told the Times: “There is no justification for banning a view just because you don’t like it.”
One more vote is needed in order to make the ban official students’ union policy, the union spokesperson said after this vote.
Greer last year attacked a Cambridge University college for new rules to ensure transgender women are welcome.
Murray Edwards College, which was founded in 1954, is to allow any self-identifying woman to attend the college.
The new rules will be applied to any student who has taken steps to publicly identify as a woman, regardless of the gender on their birth certificate.
Since the Equality Act 2010 it has been illegal to demand proof of gender identity from a trans person where you would not require it from a cisgendered person.
This means any other single-gender institutions would have to follow similar rules, but few have policy in place.
Greer also defended men accused of sexual assault in an attack on the #MeToo movement.
The noted feminist author has come under scrutiny a number of times for her extreme views about trans people, famously claiming: “Just because you lop off your d**k and then wear a dress doesn’t make you a f***ing woman”.
(Getty)
This is just one of many claims that Greer has made, with other choice comments and ideas including her belief that trans women should not marry other women because it isn’t “fair”.
She also said that the trans identity meant that she could “call herself a Cocker Spaniel”, and that she would not recognise trans women as women or trans men as men even if “a knife was held to her throat”.
