A student organization at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) is calling for the expulsion of a prominent professor of Social Anthropology, alleging she was “transphobic.” The Socialist Youth Organization, also known as OJS, is demanding the termination of Dr. Silvia Carrasco, after she gave a talk discussing the necessity of biological sex classifications in anthropology at the beginning of the semester.
On February 12, the OJS released a video on social media titled “let’s organize against transphobia.” In it, a female student read a speech targeting Carrasco and slamming the university for allowing “untouchable academic freedom” on sensitive subjects.
“Today, classes return to the UAB campus, ideological control returns, reactionary and transphobic speeches return to our classrooms,” she said. “Under the banner of untouchable academic freedom, they allow professors to impart content under ideological and scientific criteria, turning the classroom into a space for the production and legitimization of reactionary and… transphobic speeches… typical of social democratic politics, narratives that try to explain gender oppression from a sexual essentialism from biologist positions.”
The next day, next to the door of the classroom where Carrasco teaches, a number of posters appeared highlighting some of Carrasco’s social media posts in which she expressed criticism of transgender ideology and Spain’s “Trans Law,” which was enacted earlier last year and made it substantially easier for males to change their legal gender and name.
Over the print-outs, the OJS scribbled “alerta tránsfoba,” or “transphobic alert.”
Graffiti with the message “transphobic alert” also appeared in several places in the faculty and in the corridor of the Department of Social Anthropology and Culture the same day. Leaflets and flyers were also distributed by the OJS, appearing on desks throughout the campus.
On February 19, the Executive Committee of the Anthropology Department issued a statement firmly condemning any acts to “intimidate” teachers into silence.
“The Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona wants to express that actions that attempt to intimidate or boycott the teaching and research staff have no place in a democratic academic institution,” the statement, translated by Reduxx, read. “The plurality of opinions and theoretical orientations are essential to debate and advance in the production of anthropological knowledge, and that begins with the respect and recognition of the academic value of all the teaching staff.”
But the situation continued to escalate as the Socialist Youth Organization demanded “the immediate expulsion” of Carrasco and any of her “openly transphobic department colleagues.” The statement was published to social media in the form of a short video in which a female student read the demands out.
The next day, the students held an assembly right after Carrasco’s class, with the aim of “organizing the response to transphobia.”
But unwilling to be intimidated, Carrasco appeared on a television program that same night to discuss a local piece of draft legislation aimed at easing the process for gender changes. It was one of the first times that a voice critical of trans ideology appeared on national television to condemn efforts to erase biological sex, and clips from the program went viral on Spanish social media.
While the University Rector arranged a security team so that Carrasco could teach her March 5 class safely, Carrasco took extra measures and reported the Socialist Youth Organization to the local police in an effort to have their intimidation campaign documented.
Carrasco’s recent issues with trans activists started last year after she was invited to speak on a panel titled “Let’s Talk About Sex Baby: Why Biological Sex Remains a Necessary Analytical Category in Anthropology.” The panel was set to take place during the 2023 Annual Congress of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), featuring 5 female anthropologists critical of gender ideology.
But the panel was canceled at the last minute, with the AAA stating that they had “reached a decision to remove the session from the AAA/CASCA 2023 conference program” based on an evaluation that the “ideas presented could be harmful to trans and LGBTQI members of the anthropological community, as well as to the community at large.”
Three days later, the AAA published a notice on their official website that there was “no place for transphobia in Anthropology.”
Speaking to Reduxx, Carrasco said that there were “dozens of cases” of female teachers, both in University and schools, who have to self-censor due to the intimidation of trans activists.
“They are suffering because they see how transgenderism is entering education, using queer propaganda as a supposed update of the teaching staff in gender perspective,” she explains. “The Equality Units are acting as thought police, introducing what they call ‘gender perspective,’ which is nothing more than queer ideology, in the whole university.”
Along with Ana Hidalgo, Araceli Muñoz, and Marina Pibernat, Carrasco is an author of the book “La Coeducación Secuestrada,” translated as “The Hijacked Coeducation,” which presents a feminist critique of transgender ideas in education.
Carrasco tells Reduxx that she and the other authors of the book didn’t even consider proposing their research findings to their universities, because they knew it would be boycotted.
There have been multiple incidents in Spain of academics being targeted by trans activist groups in recent years.
As previously reported by Reduxx, University of Palma professors José Errasti and Marino Pérez, authors of Nobody is Born in the Wrong Body: The Success and Misery of Gender Identity, were forced to cancel a conference appearance after the venue received credible threats of violence.
And while Carrasco’s university is standing firm in their support of her freedom of speech, at least in private, other instructors have not been so lucky.
The University of Granada did not renew the contract of Tasia Aránguez, a professor of the Philosophy of Law, after she expressed criticism of gender ideology. The University of Valencia similarly dismissed Amparo Mañés as Head of Equality after stating that women “are human females.”