There was a time when universities were revered as store-houses of wisdom and reason. Today they have become the breeding-ground for the next madness that is about to flood through society.

Roehampton University recently held a conference called “Thinking Beyond: Transversal Transfeminisms”, designed as a response to what it called “a series of attacks against the experiences and identities of trans people, including rampant transphobia in UK feminist circles”. There is quite enough presumption in that sentence alone to fill a number of conferences. But this was not what made this waste of life so noticeable.

The organisers of the conference had introduced a “traffic-light” system of badges that attendees could wear. Those wearing red badges were signalling that they did not wish to engage with their fellow academics. Those wearing yellow indicated that they did not want to be approached, but were willing to communicate if they themselves made the first move. Green badges were to be worn by academics who were not terrified by the idea of talking to other human beings.

I have some sympathy for this system. There are days when I would quite happily walk through life with a red badge on my person. Mornings are a particular red badge time. Certainly if I were attending a transfeminism conference the temptation to wear a big red badge would be considerable.

But of course there is a problem here, which is that the free exchange of ideas used to be exactly what universities were for. The idea that a university could be home to anybody who has no intention of engaging with their fellow academics is a negation of everything that the university used to be devoted to.

This whole traffic-light system is also a great flashing warning light about what is going on in parts of the modern university – which is not the unfettered and fearless pursuit of truth and ideas, but the coddling of students and academics alike in a pretend world into which the real world is told never to intrude.

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The fact that a “transfeminist” conference might be the epicentre of such a charade should not be a surprise. Perhaps no other issue in our society is so opposed to actual inquiry as everything and anything to do with the issue of “trans”.

One reason why I finished my latest book of heresies with a chapter devoted to this topic is precisely because so little public thinking has been allowed about this complicated and shut-down issue.

Because the trans movement makes exceptionally large claims for itself. Now, where there is a rights claim it is worth taking it seriously and looking at it carefully. But within the trans movement are a serious and seriously deranging set of claims; things that society is being invited to believe that no reasonable society can.

These include the idea that there is no difference between men and women. Or that men can become women whenever they like.

All of this and much more has been smuggled into our society with almost no public thought or debate. Any attempt even to question these new dogmas is turned into a “phobia”. Every raised eyebrow is responded to as though it is an act of violence.

As it happens there is a serious need to have a deep, open and evidence-based look at what is plausible in the trans movement’s claims and what cannot be agreed to. Too few people have dared to put their heads above the parapet and have such a discussion.

And that is a sadly typical story of our time. On issue after issue, people are denounced for thinking or speaking freely in public. And as a result, on issue after issue, bad ideas and poor thinking have become embedded on subjects we could all do with having addressed fearlessly.

Universities ought to be the one place where such a discussion should occur. But as Roehampton has showed, universities have become the last place you would go today for such a discussion.

Which is one reason why government ought to take a serious look at such institutions and seriously consider whether it’s right to give the green light to taxpayers’ money being spent on them.

The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity is published by Bloomsbury