Britain's largest higher education union allows members to identify as...anything?
The United Kingdom Universities and Colleges Union, the largest in Great Britain, recently released a statement detailing its "position on trans inclusion." In it, the UKUCU, which represents 120,000 employees, emphasized its "long history" of allowing members to "self-identify," whether that is being black, disabled, LGBT or women." The document stresses the union's effort "to ensure an inclusive approach to gender identities which is [sic] different to that assigned at birth." It states: "Looking at different experiences of what it means to be woman, or black/disabled/LGBT, is at the heart of an intersectional approach and involves listening and seeking to establish understanding and solidarity in struggle against oppression and discrimination."
It is highly unlikely that "your group" is being discriminated against if it occasions an entire document or manifesto to be proffered in its defense, even if said group is refusing to acknowledge scientific reality. Nor are you being "oppressed" or even "marginalized" if you can get everyone else to dismiss facts and reality in favor of your feelings and emotions.
The UKUCU (actually, the UCU, officially, but I like the sound of "UKUCU" better) made clear that it supports "a social, rather than a medical, model of gender recognition that will help challenge repressive gender stereotypes in the workplace and in society." Its statement also proclaimed that "saying or implying that trans women are really men denies trans women their right to be men."
There is a right to be a man? Or to be a woman? I was heretofore aware of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but not the right to pick your own sex. Since governments are gradually taking away our right to life and liberty, ergo also the pursuit of happiness, it's nice that someone is granting us the right to pick our sex. And race.
I'm sure that some particularly woke progressives also support a "social," rather than biological model of species recognition as well. In the struggle against oppression and discrimination, of course. At times it seems there is an inverse relationship between the capabilities of science...and human reason.
But, hey, I'm thrilled to know I have the right to be anyone or anything I like. No more blinding me with science. Race. Sex. Species. All just arbitrary constructs. I think I'll be Kim Kardashian — or maybe a horse.
The joys of self-identification!