Going Undercover: Queering Academia

James Esses’ Substack goes out to thousands of subscribers in over 80 countries. Become a paid subscriber to support James’ investigative journalism, gain access to his full archive of articles and have the ability to post comments and join the conversation.

---

As was featured in the Telegraph over the weekend, I recently sent someone undercover to attend the third ‘Queering Academia’ Conference held at the University of Westminster, as part of their ‘Westminster Conversations’ series.

My ‘spy’ covertly recorded the entire event, and I’m very pleased they did because it uncovered the extent to which queer ideology has infiltrated academia, as well as politics.

Introductions

The day began with an introduction from Westminster’s Deputy Vice Chancellor for Global Engagement, Professor Dibyesh Anand.

One might have hoped that, given Anand represents the University on the world stage, he would embody the principle of institutional neutrality. If only.

His official staff profile on the University of Westminster’s website states: “I identify as queer in personal and political terms”. This isn’t simply a representation of identity. It is a political statement. During his introductory talk, he referenced the fact that he always has a pride flag flying in his office. I wonder how that makes students and colleagues who oppose gender ideology feel.

His introductory remarks were inflammatory and designed to divide. For example, he made a statement that: “having non-white politicians…does not demonstrate anti-racism”. He name-dropped Kemi Badenoch, Rishi Sunak and Priti Patel as examples of this.

On the topic of immigration, a debate taking place across the entire country, he was both dismissive and ungrateful. Anand, who himself came to the UK from India said: “I’m not grateful to Britain for giving me the space – Britain should be grateful to me that I gave it the opportunity”. Charming.

Even more offensive was, when talking about ‘queerness’, Anand said that “if we were into uniformity, we wouldn’t be queer…we would be ‘boring’ like other people are”. To suggest that not being ‘trans’ or, god forbid, being straight, is boring, is both nonsensical and hostile.

Building Queer Careers

The first panel event of the day featured a number of ‘queer’ academics from across the country.

It was a diatribe of scaremongering and virtue signalling.

Professor Drew Simms (they/he/she), who describes himself as a “trans elder” said that academics should lean into the “alphabet mafia” to protest and campaign. He also said that “it feels like we’re going back to Section 28” – seemingly suggesting that banning puberty blockers or men from women’s toilets is comparable to banning the promotion of homosexuality.

Dr Ope Lori, who happens to be black, told attendees that “we have to talk about whiteness”. She went on to tell an anecdote from when she was rejected for a senior promotion on three occasions. In the end, because she “knew she was better than the terrible lecturer there”, she formed a view that it must have been because of her “gender, sexuality or race”. Of course, it cannot be because of a lack of ability or competence – it has to be because of some ‘ism’ or ‘phobia’.

Rosette Jaminki (she/they), who is the Outreach Specialist at Westminster Students Union, said that the study of sociology “has to be queer”, because “white men wrote the theory”.

Queering the Crisis

Pippa Catterall, Professor of History and Politics at the University of Westminster, gave the next talk. For context, Pippa is a man who identifies as a woman.

He began by encouraging the “taxpayer funded queering of academia” in order to “sell it to the arseholes who read the Daily Mail”. This demonstrates the disdain held towards large sections of society. Tellingly, the audience simply smiled and laughed in return.

He then went on to say that “it feels like we’re in 1930s Germany”, the clearest example of scaremongering.

At one point, Catterall even went as far as stating that “the Supreme Court has fucked up everything for trans people”. Remember, this is meant to be an academic conference.

During a follow-up presentation by an organisation called Pride in Education, which provides LGBT materials to schools, the recent EHRC consultation on same-sex spaces was referred to as “bollox”.

Leading While Queer

However, the pièce de résistance, and the section that was the focus of the Telegraph’s piece, was the talk entitled ‘Leading While Queer’ by Labour MP for Macclesfield, Tim Roca.

Roca, the “first openly gay MP for Macclesfield” engaged in what can only be described as a diatribe of contempt for major UK institutions and most of the public in general.

He described Parliament as a “toxic cesspit” and claimed that, because he was asked about family values during his candidacy selection, this demonstrated “undertones of homophobia”.

Recalling the recent Supreme Court judgment on biological sex, Roca described it as “really depressing”, which is bizarre way to describe a decision that protected women’s rights.

He went on a tirade against Baroness Falkner, current Chair of the EHRC, claiming that “she is not a friend of our community” and calling for a “new, better EHRC Chief”.

He insulted his predecessor MP in Macclesfield, describing him as “terrible”, seemingly solely because he was a practising Mormon.

To those who seek to uncouple the ‘T’ from the ‘LGB’, Roca firmly believes that “we must make sure that doesn’t happen”.

According to Roca, the “battle for the soul” of every British political party will come down to the ‘trans’ issue.

Following a question from the audience about the state of British politics, Roca said possibly the most shocking thing of the day. He described ‘transphobes’ (which we can only assume to mean anyone who takes issue with gender ideology) as “swivel-eyed” and claimed that “they’re not very well people”. In one fell swoop, he managed to insult the vast majority of the British public.

Finally, in a nod to the decision by Labour to extend voting rights to 16-year-olds, Roca expressed his concern, saying: “I’m really worried by the number of young people who really like Reform”. He is opposed to lowering the voting age purely because of the risk it poses to his own career. This gives you a sense of the man.

For an elected member of parliament to speak with such disdain for the Supreme Court, the Chair of the EHRC, and those across society concerned about the impact of gender ideology on women’s rights and child safeguarding, is shocking. However, my gut tells me that this is how your average Labour MP thinks and that should concern us all.

The conference concluded with Professor Dibyesh Anand offering a call to arms for attendees: “we can’t queer academia without queering society”.

All of this from just one conference in one university. Who knows how many other similar events are being held daily, up and down the UK, filled with the same ideology and indoctrination?

Forget ‘queering academic’. Queer theory needs to be eradicated from society altogether.