Doctor in the House

Earlier this month I got endoctorfied. That is, the kind people at the University of Exeter bestowed upon me an honorary Doctorate of Laws (that’s an LLD, not a PhD). I wrote about it briefly on my blog, but I was still a bit gobsmacked then so I figured I owed you a longer report on the day.

I first found out about this in October last year, and my first reaction was to ask them if they had the right person. They seemed to think that they did, so I accepted, firm in the expectation that, long before the graduation day, someone high up in the university hierarchy would get cold feet and withdraw the offer. People don’t get honorary doctorates for doing trans activism, especially not on TERF Island, right?

I needed to keep quiet about it anyway. One thing that I and the university were keenly aware of was that any advance publicity risked a campaign in the press to have the honour revoked. If it could be kept quiet until it was all done and dusted we would probably be OK. And so it seems to have proved.

Anyway, I couldn’t tell anyone, and didn’t want to because I would look very stupid if it did get withdrawn.

Part of that was that I was limited with respect to guests. I invited Kevin, and he was delighted at the prospect. This was, of course, long before he made the decision to embark on gender transition. We talked about this in the coming months, and decided that this would be a final Kevin visit. It is very hard these days for a trans person to travel internationally in the early stages of transition, but for the most part it will be Kayla who is here for BristolCon and World Fantasy.

Come June I was having to do things such as write an acceptance speech and I started to believe that it was actually going to happen. Thankfully it did, otherwise we would have wasted a lot of money on air fares.

Exeter kindly paid for us to have first class rail travel to and from the event. This made Kevin very happy. They also put us up in a hotel for a couple of nights. We had the Sunday free to explore the city and recover from the travel before the big day on the Monday.

Exeter is a lovely city, and the weather was fabulous, all of which helped with the relaxation. There is a flea market on Fore Street on Sundays and I managed to find a bangle that would go well with my dress so I had something from the city for the occasion.

I took Kevin to the Royal Albert Museum, because if you have an American in tow showing off depth of history is a cool thing to do. Sadly there is very little Celtic or Roman material on display. I’m guessing that a lot of the legionary fortress is buried under the modern city and can’t be excavated, but it is quite disappointing compared to Chester or Caerleon.

Graduation at a modern university is a major operation. It lasts for several days, and there are several ceremonies each day. Otherwise there would not be seating room for everyone. There is only one honorary doctorate in each ceremony. But there were two other ceremonies on the day so I got to meet two of my fellow honorees.

Before that there was a meeting with some of the academics. Sadly neither Jana Funke nor Rebecca Langlands could be there on the day. They are both professors at Exeter whom I have worked with in the past. I suspect that they may have had a part in suggesting me of the honour. But I did get to talk to some people from Classics, History and Languages.

Then there was lunch, where I got to meet my fellow honorees. One of them was Caroline Lucas, the former Green Party MP. I had met her before at the first ever Brighton Trans Pride, so we had something to talk about. The other was a woman called Pippa Warin who has done some amazing work in theatre and literature in the South-West. I wish I had had more time to talk with her as we seemed to have a lot of interests in common.

Each honoree was placed on a different table for lunch, so I ended up with a bunch of university people. Much to my surprise, one was a keen Iain M Banks fan, and another was working on SF&F by African and Caribbean authors. We truly have won the literary culture war.

After lunch Kevin was taken off to the audience while I got dressed up in academic robes and briefed on the ceremony. It was a little more complicated than accepting a Hugo, but not much, and I was provided with a lovely chap called Roscoe whose job it was to sit next to me and tell me what to do next. Mostly that entailed sitting quietly and applauding every one of the young people graduating in the session.

The actual presentation process begins with an ‘oration’, that is a speech by the university explaining why I was being honoured. That was given by professor Rajani Naidoo who is a Deputy Vice-Chancellor and also responsible for DEI work. She’s an amazing South African woman, just the sort of forthright feminist that I enjoy hanging out with.

I may have had a bit of a feminist rant in my acceptance speech.

Having been endoctored, I then had to process out through the audience. I did get a couple of very unpleasant looks from older white men, but that was more than made up for by the happy, smiling faces of many of the mothers and women graduates. After that it was official photographs and back to St. David’s station to catch the train back to Wales.

Left to right: Provost Professor Dan Charman, me, Vice Chancellor Professor Lisa Roberts and Deputy Vice Chancellor Professor Rajani Naidoo

My thanks are due to Helen and Megan from the university staff who planned the whole day and guided me through it, to Roscoe for keeping me on the right track during the ceremony, to Professor Naidoo for the oration and help with my speech, and to Vice Chancellor Professor Lisa Roberts and all of her staff for the incredible honour.

I won’t be using my new title very often. I still feel a bit of an imposter compared to people who have actually slogged through a 3 or more year university course. But I will most definitely use it when I am haranguing government over trans rights issues.