Simon Fanshawe, former stand-up comedian and gay rights activist, has been officially installed as the new rector of Edinburgh University. He follows in heavy footsteps, Winston Churchill and Gordon Brown among them. He’s not daunted by this and says he is up for the job. But what is the job? And what is it that Fanshawe hopes to bring to the role?
His answer: “to contribute in any way that I can to dialogue. The exchange of ideas sits at the core. If I can help the university navigate the difference between opinions and behaviour, whether it’s through the Academic Freedom strand or other dialogues we have, and that there’s not a social cost to that.”
“We simply should not isolate or bully people because they have views with which we do not agree. That is not what universities are about. They’re about this fundamental idea which is using knowledge to pursue truth.”
It’s no secret that Fanshawe’s appointment has been greeted with hostility. The Student Union have refused to meet with him because of his views on trans rights, the same issue which helped to drive out his predecessor from the job.
The University Staff Pride Network released a statement describing their concern about his “ties with the LGB Alliance and statements on trans identity.” The former Trans and Non-Binary liberation officer at the Edinburgh University Student Association, Robyn Woof, resigned from her role, citing Mr Fanshawe’s appointment as part of the reason why.
Fanshawe had previously written an open letter in which he criticises Stonewall’s campaign for gender self-identification, arguing that this would undermine “women’s sex-based rights and protections.” He argues that this “ideological campaign” divides the lesbian and gay community and detracts from the broad coalitions created by Stonewall that helped achieve marriage equality in 2014.
In an official statement on Fanshawe’s appointment, the University and College Union have voiced their concern about the dissemination of these beliefs which “encourage hostility and discrimination.” Dr Gina Gwenffrewi, lecturer in Trans Studies, posted on X that Fanshawe’s appointment is an “outrageous declaration of contempt by the University of Edinburgh for trans people.” The University of Edinburgh have stated that the rector is a student and staff elected position, and that Fanshawe was named as rector uncontested, following due process.
Fanshawe helped found the Stonewall charity, which he started in 1989 with six others to appeal against Section 28, a 1988 act which stated that local authorities could not promote homosexuality as a “pretended family relationship.”
He tells me, “We set up Stonewall with the deliberate attempt to challenge all the unequal laws – prohibition on serving the armed forces, adoption and fostering, the discrimination of the provision of services and goods, the age of consent. But the point about it was we never asked people to approve of us. We were able to put together very big constituencies of people, many of whom didn’t approve of us, but they did approve of the principle of equal treatment under the law.”
Stonewall continued building these broad constituencies and helped achieve equal marriage and total legislative equality in 2014. Why then, after being a founder of Stonewall and having a prominent role for six years, did Fanshawe decide to leave it?
Fanshawe’s disagreement with Stonewall was that it stopped building these broad coalitions and became “very ideological, very narrow.” He states that lesbian, gay and transgender people do not have a singular view or voice on this issue.
I ask him if he was nervous about becoming the rector knowing that his predecessor Ann Henderson felt pushed out of the role after accusations of transphobia. He tells me that while he had heard this, he believes that the debate is changing, that people are realising that complex issues require reasoned discussions rather than “people with bullhorns and masks trying to disrupt things.”
On whether the University of Edinburgh in particular has a problem with cancel culture, Fanshawe thinks that there is a twin track. He suggests that on the one hand, there is a vibrant exchange of ideas in the university, especially in terms of academic work. However, there is another strand filled with “some very loud but minority voices that are very very visible.”
Fanshawe wants to have as many conversations as he possibly can. He says, “I think it’s a great shame that the Student Union is refusing to meet with me.” He urges students to talk with those who have different views from theirs.
Now a consultant on diversity and inclusion, Fanshawe believes that the way to work in a society is compromise: ‘‘We, in the best possible sense of the word, tolerate each other. Tolerance is a great word, it’s fallen into very bad rap but it’s a great word – if metal’s tolerant it bends, if it’s not tolerant it snaps.”