I want to be around academics who truly believe in liberation. In the liberation of all people. I want people I can grow with. Through the tone-policing, the straw men, the hollow declarations of allyship, I continue to lean into love.

I am so happy and free, I feel unrestrained by the myriad forces that would have me choose a binary gender or adhere to the supposed corresponding gender of assigned sex. I feel empowered and unapologetic about who I am. I have been involved in advocacy for a long time, but this is the first time that I feel I am making a difference for others and myself. This has been a long journey that started with Autistic advocacy and has strengthened through anti-racism work. This continues as I deepen my understanding of how everything is connected, including our collective liberation.

Liberation can happen in the Academy. Currently in the UK, many fear losing their jobs and losing hard-fought positions. Many academics, especially in Social Research, start with exceedingly good intentions, but the politics and the continuous towing of the school or university line wear this away. These are both exceedingly difficult to navigate. To keep doing the work that means something to them, they must bend to the will of the academy. Funders must be appeased. Students need to be taught, and nothing can be done through the sheer volume of emails and complicated administration.

As I think about the people who have supported my efforts over the last few weeks (more on that here) and those who have not, I also think about their lack of choice. About them not feeling that they can put their head over the parapet, paralysed with fear. They cannot fight for trans rights or any other rights within the academy and that must be soul-crushing.

This all comes back to the Academy, centring control over the creation of knowledge. Of course, universities are businesses, and the business model does not always consider the happiness of their workers. Universities sell a product – they want bums on seats, and they’ll use league tables, local nightlife, certifications and all manner of other things to draw potential students in. What the universities are not selling, because they have not bought into it themselves, is the joy of creating knowledge and the importance of sharing this freely across all groups and individuals. They are not selling community, connection, and liberation, and yet they could so easily weave this into their ethos. They are not just a place in which people do research, they are a place in which people fall in love with knowledge.

The Academy misses so many important factors within its oligarchy structure. Within these hierarchies, nobody wins apart from the top 1%. Does this sound familiar? These people, of course, must also fight outside pressures, but they do so with a more secure position and a nicer pension.

Everyone feels some kind of pressure, so how do we become more liberated in academic spaces? Where does someone like me fit, and do I want to? I have no immediate answers for these questions, all I have is the will to continue to advocate for trans+ Autistic people inside and outside of the academy. I will centre love and connection in all my work. I will stay strong in the beliefs I have of humanity, and I will not have my spirit crushed by the machine of academia.