Perhaps UoN management should take some lessons from the courses they’re suspending: it is precisely the critically engaged, reflexive, integrated thinking and communication that are taught in many of these courses, that are glaringly missing from the decisions and communications management put out.

Especially when such decisions are communicated in the most untransparent way – instead of taking accountability, the uni’s management hides behind empty jargon, vague expressions, and the obviously void claim that this shouldn’t harm the research of the very people whose departments are at risk.

The knock-on effects of this decision will be felt across the university and will be difficult to repair – who would choose to study at an institution that so actively devalues their broader field, even if their specific niche in this field is still offered as a course?

Both this decision and how it was communicated to us show management to be deeply problematic and irresponsible. A management that believes that tanking their institution’s reputation will improve their financial situation clearly does not understand the importance of being seen as reliable, stable.

But also for people in other fields at UoN or working with the university, who are now learning just how unreliable and irresponsible a partner the university is. An institution that is willing to cut entire departments overnight, cannot believably promise to protect other departments in the future.

For myself, but also for the faculty whose work has continually put UoN on the map as an institution producing outstanding research and teaching, the current students now learning that their courses will fizzle out after them, the prospective students whose chosen field is no longer available.

If you want more of this, come see my talk in Manchester! And at some point in a journal near you.

With this knowledge, BBB’s position on gender-affirming care in 2025 is not a shift compared to their 2023 position – it’s merely a continuation thereof. It’s important that news media see through this to not perpetuate the dressing up of anti-trans positions as “reasonable” or “supportive”.

The moment you actually look at these manifestos through a critical lens, this apparent support falls apart. At no point did BBB grant trans people the right to self-determination. In BBB’s 2023 manifesto, the right to be oneself continues to be conditional, something to be gatekept.

As I found in my study, BBB’s (and several others parties’) apparently supportive position on trans rights is only positive when viewed in light of the more overtly anti-trans parties on (mostly) the far right. But if “acknowledges that trans people exist” is the measure of support, the bar is low.

Yes, in 2023 BBB emphasised “the importance of quick and qualitative care for both [trans] youths and adults.” However, this assertion was couched in conditionality and the suggestion that gender-affirming care is currently too easily accessible, while hinting at the social contagion theory.

NOS writes that this position is in contrast with BBB’s previous election manifesto (2023), in which BBB advocated for better care for (young) trans people. However, as I found in my study, BBB’s previous election manifesto was not as trans-supportive as it seemed.

Last week, Dutch national broadcasting company NOS wrote about the draft election manifesto of the “Farmers-Citizen Movement”, BBB. BBB’s manifesto for the upcoming elections takes a stance against gender-affirming care for young trans people and “excessive symbolic politics” about LGBT+ policy.

So please actively support the trans people in your lives, whether they are visible or not. And use whatever opportunity you have to make trans visibility less difficult and less necessary. Fight back against anti-trans policies, educate people on trans issues, help keep us safe 20/20