Have you heard of Professor Sally Hines “(she/her)”, a “Gender Studies and Sociology academic” at the University of Sheffield?
When Hines isn’t busy researching “transgender, gender and sexuality theory, gender and sexual citizenship, sociologies of the body, sociologies of intimacy, intersectionality, and theories of recognition and difference”, as well as “Pregnant Men”, she can be found on X, tweeting about anything from…
…defending the “lanyard class”…
… to saying that people “really don’t have to worry” about “the future bone density of trans people”:
… to claiming that the Gender Critical movement “is now fully associated with the extreme right”…
I think it’s fair to say Hines is not the biggest fan of Graham Linehan (and vice versa)…
… whom she accused of “obsessively tweeting about a paper that I co-wrote on trans pregnancy.”
But why shouldn’t Linehan highlight this study - seeing that Hines’ research on “Pregnant Men” received hundreds of thousands in taxpayer funding?
And that’s just the start…
Hines has been Principal Investigator on six projects that received £1,843,715 total in taxpayer funding:
All of these were funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), a subsidiary of the UK Research and Innovation.
Hines is also listed as Co-investigator on a taxpayer-funded project titled ESRC Seminar Series: Critical Diversities@ the Intersection: Policies, Practices, Perspectives, which received £16,378 and ran from 2013-2015.
So all in all, Hines has led or worked on projects awarded £1,860,093 in taxpayer funding.
Let’s take a closer look at some of this work…
Pregnant Men: An International Exploration of Trans Male Experiences and Practices of Reproduction received £668,244 in total and ran from March 2017 to April 2021 at two universities (the University of Leeds and University of Sheffield).
Part of its abstract reads: “Trans male pregnancy shows how shifts in gendered and intimate practices occur within changing social institutions, technological advances and developing cultural understandings. Vice versa, such social, technological and cultural transformations impact on how individuals live their gendered, bodily and intimate lives. Diversification of gendered, sexual and intimate practices, and advances in health care practices and reproductive technology, have significantly altered contemporary experiences of pregnancy and birth.”
Then there’s Living Gender in Diverse Times, which also took part in two phases at the University of Leeds and University of Sheffield - costing taxpayers £1,057,555.
Its abstract reads:
“From coverage of Miley Cyrus' declaration that 'You Can Just Be Whatever You Want to Be' in 'Time Magazine', the introduction of a gender fluid character into the video game 'Sims 4' and Facebook's launch of multiple gender 'options', the last year and half of media coverage lends support to the 'Financial Times' End of Year (2015) pronouncement 'Year in a word: Trans: Gender discussion becomes a nuanced, fluid , 'non-binary' affair'.While there has been significant cultural interest in the ways in which young people are moving away from the traditional binary identities of male and female and adopting gendered expressions that destabilise conventional gendered norms. Academic research has yet to explore the ways in which the meanings of gender have changed for young people or to address the implications of this on gender as a social category more broadly. The overall aim of this project is to gain in-depth evidence driven knowledge of the understandings and practices of gender in the 21st C. UK amongst young people between the ages of 15-24.”
Wow, what great value for money…
Interestingly, another person Hines has been rude about on X is yours truly.
A couple of weeks ago she appeared to imply that I am part of a “politically dangerous” trend of journalists misleading the public about social sciences and humanities:
“They care nothing about evidence and wilfully mislead the public”, Hines wrote.
But where’s her evidence for that? I hope it’s obvious by now I enjoy publicising facts - which is why I encourage readers to check out the full list of taxpayer-funded research led by Professor Sally Hines.
More:
The sheer pomposity of these people is hilarious.
What a shame that Monty Python is no more 🤣
Hines is not helping to disabuse my general supposition that every university social ‘science’ department should be closed down.
I imagine that there is still some valid research done in this field that would stand the test of intellectual credibility and usefulness but it is drowned out by the phalanx of grifting charlatans such as Hines.
Let’s have a year zero approach. Remove all taxpayer funding from the lot and start again with a small budget and rigorous approval of applications for new projects.