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Shereen Benjamin vs. transgender people

Shereen Benjamin is a British educator, sex segregationist, and anti-transgender activist.

Background

Shereen Benjamin was born in 1965.

  • 1987: BEd (Hons) Music and Primary Education (Council for National Academic Awards)
  • 1989: Diploma in Music Therapy (Roehampton Institute of Higher Education)
  • 1995: MA Education and Women’s Studies (University of London Institute of Education)
  • 2002: PhD (University of London Institute of Education)

Anti-transgender activism

In 2020, Benjamin gave a speech at anti-trans group Women’s Declaration International attacking the trans rights movement:

First, a movement that comes after the rights of another protected group is not progressive. No other civil rights movement in history has sought to advance its interests at the cost of other vulnerable groups. We’re up against a movement that seeks to appropriate our rights, our history and even the language we use to describe ourselves and name our oppression. When you read that it’s exclusionary for women to refer to ourselves as ‘women’ and we have to accept our designation as ‘cis women’ which makes us a sub-group within our own sex class.

Benjamin is on the advisory board for anti-trans group Sex Matters, which includes this quotation:

“Universities should maintain a neutral position on gender identity theory, so that staff and students can research, teach and discuss the theory itself and its many implications without fear of censure or attack. Universities should uphold the right of their members to hold supportive, critical and agnostic positions on gender identity theory, and should actively defend their right to argue for those positions according to normal academic conventions.”

Benjamin contributed a chapter titled “Schools, Feminism and Gender-Identity Theory” in the 2023 anti-trans book Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader.

References

Sullivan, Alice; Todd, Selina [Eds.] (2023). Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader. Taylor & Francis, ISBN 9781032261195

Benjamin, Shereen (18 October, 2023). Burn the book! In which activists protest against the publication of a book they know little about. The Critic https://thecritic.co.uk/burn-the-book/

Benjamin, Shereen (November 2020). Written evidence submitted by Dr Shereen Benjamin [GRA1951]. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18137/pdf/

Benjamin, Shereen (March 2020). IWD20 speech. https://forwomen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IWD20-speech-Shereen.pdf

Resources

Sex Matters (sex-matters.org)

University of Edinburgh (edwebprofiles.ed.ac.uk)

IMDb (imdb.com)