Univ investigates feminist grad student for saying men can’t become women

LINK

What are the odds a feminist graduate student could be under siege for feminist rhetoric on a California campus?

Under an intersectional framework and evolving definition of “woman,” much higher than you might expect.

University of California-Santa Barbara doctoral students, alumni and “allies” are demanding the administration take action against Laura Tanner, an outspoken critic of transgender ideology and doctoral candidate in its Department of Feminist Studies.

Tanner’s Twitter feed is dominated by discussion of transgender ideology’s threat to women, including young lesbians. She believes that transgender women – biological males – are wrongly appropriating a female identity.

Her header image bluntly declares: “A woman is someone with a female body and any personality … not a ‘female personality’ and any body. Any other definition is sexism.” School newspaper The Daily Nexus reprinted several of her tweets that it considered “transphobic.”

Yet Tanner identifies as an intersectional feminist. Her dissertation is an “intersectional feminist analysis of child-initiated violence and the binds of mothering,” according to her department page. (She has three children, ages 16 to 23, according to her website.)

She has designed and taught two courses in the department and served as teaching assistant for four courses, but it’s not clear if she’s scheduled to teach again. Tanner did not respond to emails or Twitter messages from The College Fix this week.

Critics on Twitter want her removed from teaching or worse, with some lobbing personal insults at Tanner such as “absolute trash” and “dumb bitch,” according to the Daily. One declared “that bitch needs to die,” and others have targeted her for being white.

At least one former Tanner student, Kyremina Youssef, has publicly discussed filing a complaint against her with the department and university ethics board, citing Tanner’s tweets. She and another student also held a campus demonstration against her last month.

Another student who complained about Tanner posted a response from Laury Oaks, the chair of Tanner’s department. Oaks called Tanner’s social media posts “distressing” and told the student he could also file ethics and Title IX complaints.

He also posted a response from Title IX Coordinator Ariana Alvarez, who said her office is “actively engaging in a response” and asked him to forward “any new material/posts” by Tanner.

Despite these official responses to at least one student, UCSB and Tanner’s department have been publicly mum in response to the activism against her.

The Department of Feminist Studies has yet to answer its phone any time The Fix has called, and did not return a voicemail. But a spokesperson for the university told The Fix Thursday night that the department asked her to respond on its behalf.

Deputy News Director Shelly Leachman did not answer Fix questions about whether invalidating transgender identity is a conduct-code violation at UCSB, either under any context or specifically in a teaching position.

...