Words are Professor Jo Phoenix’s stock-in-trade, but she struggles to find ones that encompass the scale of her anger and grief.
‘I’ve been living in a state of semi-hell; last summer was the worst of my entire life,’ says the eminent academic. ‘I’ve been publicly vilified by hundreds of colleagues. I’ve been called transphobic. Violent and profane posters have been directed against me.’
She says she was compared to a racist by her managers and has been told that her views are ‘as bad as Holocaust denial’.
‘I’ve been silenced and shunned. I’ve been made to feel like a pariah and I’ve been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result.’ When I ask how this vicious onslaught has made her feel, she casts around for exactly the right response before saying: ‘Treachery is too light a word. I feel enraged. There is this bitter sense of betrayal and a dramatic feeling of loss because the university I’ve worked with for several years and loved has failed to support me.’
Jo Phoenix, 57, (pictured) who is Professor of Criminology at the Open University, has been been branded a ‘transphobe’ and put on a list circulated online that called her a ‘Terf’
Jo Phoenix is 57 years old and Professor of Criminology at The Open University. Her research interests include sex, gender, and justice. How ironic it is that her enemies have compiled a charge sheet of ‘crimes’ of which they say she is guilty.
Professor Phoenix is now the latest victim in a toxic culture war, which is poisoning British universities. It is also part and parcel of wider freedom of speech crisis.
Her principal ‘crime’ is to have spoken out about ‘the silencing of academic debate on trans issues’, criticising the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall’s influence in universities and highlighting the challenges of dealing with transgender women in women’s prisons.
Professor Phoenix said that she has been branded a ‘transphobe’ and put on a list circulated online that called her a ‘terf’ (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), the derogatory term to describe those who believe that ‘identifying’ as a woman is not the same as being born a woman.
The campaign of bullying against her from ideologues who condemn anyone who suggests that a person’s biological sex takes precedence over someone’s ‘gender identity’ has also targeted fellow academic Professor Kathleen Stock. She was hounded from Sussex University — after being terrorised by banner-waving protesters demanding her resignation — for daring to speak out against aspects of transgender ideology.
J.K. Rowling was recently accused of transphobia. Trans activists leaked her address online last year. The Harry Potter author added she had received so many death threats she could ‘paper the house with them’.
Professor Phoenix recounts in this interview her experiences with verbal abuse, harassment, defamation, not only by students, but also from her peers and colleagues.
In an effort to preserve academic freedom and freedom to express herself, she is currently taking Open University to employment tribunal.
J. K. Rowling, (pictured), was last year accused of transphobia. She has now revealed that trans people leaked her address online.
To pay the legal costs, she’s using crowdfunding and so far has raised £86,000 in donations from supporters who back her attempt to hold the Open University to account.
Her hope is that the landmark case will force universities ‘to protect academics from vicious bullying designed to silence academic research into sex and gender’.
Professor Phoenix is engaging, articulate. She is just 5 feet 2 inches tall and has designer glasses and close-cropped locks. Her warmth and conviction are unwavering.
She says: ‘I don’t recognise myself as brave. I’m on my knees — exhausted and terrified that this is the end of my career and I will never be able to extricate myself from these accusations.’
Her courage is something to be proud of.
She is fighting her employer, but she also has arthritis. Both her knees and shoulders have been replaced. Her spine was stabilized with titanium rods.
I don’t feel brave. I’m on my knees, exhausted
Her work was terminated in June. She returned to work last month for research.
Over the summer, following the death of her mother, she hit a particularly low point when she couldn’t sleep.
‘I had a hideous nightmare and woke with flashing lights behind my eyes, feeling terrified and crying. I felt as if I was under siege,’ she says. ‘I’d had such vile abuse on Twitter — things like “shut the f**k up terf” and there were threatening images of baseball bats.
‘I kept telling the university staff that this vile stuff was coming onto my Twitter feed and they just said “Don’t look at it” and invited me to take a break from social media.’
A lesbian, she is quick to point out that she is not transphobic — believing fervently that trans people should be safeguarded and properly supported.
Professor Phoenix has spent over 20 years researching gender, sex and justice. She was scheduled to speak at Essex University in December 2019, about trans and prisons.
Pictured: Professor Kathleen Stock was harassed by Sussex University because she spoke out against certain aspects of transgender ideology
After the talk was advertised, someone on social media linked it to the ‘trans rights’ movement. The talk was met with a lot of criticism.
Among it was a tweet from an Essex University employee saying: ‘A well-known transphobe is coming to our campus.’
Professor Phoenix said that three academic staff members encouraged Essex students against her on the day of the lecture. A flyer, including the image of a gun, and the words ‘Shut the F**k Up terf’ was distributed.
The talk was rescheduled by the university officials to ensure adequate security.
But Professor Phoenix says the university’s department of sociology convened a meeting to discuss the lecture and asked her for a transcript of what she was going to say.
This was not a common practice so she declined. ‘They voted to blacklist me, which was like putting a lit match into a tank of petrol. I was initially outraged. Then, as I realized this was going to affect my reputation and career in a major way, I felt devastated. Twice I was called racist. Then, when it became clear that my gender-critical viewpoints were just as dangerous as Holocaust denial, I was compared to a racist. It was all deeply unpleasant.’
I’ll do what it takes — this is too important to walk away
Her exoneration took 18 more months.
A report on the university’s handling of the case by barrister Akua Reindorf concluded that Essex University had breached her rights.
The university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Anthony Forster, duly issued an apology.
However, he then appeared to retract it, saying the report had ‘a negative impact on trans and non-binary staff and students’.
Professor Phoenix says: ‘The apology was hollow. It was like hitting someone with a car and breaking every bone in their body then saying, “sorry”.’
At this moment, she established the Open University Gender Critical Research Network.
Gender-critical views are the belief that someone’s sex — whether male or female — is biological and unchanging and different from their gender identity (whether they identify as a man or a woman). They are protected by law.
Professor Phoenix claims three other academic staff encouraged Essex students to mobilise forces against her on the day of her lecture at Essex University (pictured)
She is particularly keen to ensure women are safeguarded, especially in places such as prisons where trans women — who were born men and may still have male genitalia — are placed alongside women born female. Karen White was a trans woman who identified herself as a woman but was legally a man, yet she sexually assaulted and raped two female inmates in Yorkshire’s prison.
It wasn’t long before, she says, that the harassment campaign against her ‘went into hyper-drive on steroids — all hell was unleashed’. An open letter denouncing the network was signed by 380 people — including many of her fellow academics.
It said: ‘We do not believe that freedom of speech or academic freedom should come at the expense of marginalised groups,’ claiming that gender-critical feminism is, ‘fundamentally hostile to the rights of trans people’. It also called for the network’s disaffiliation from the university.
She was also monstrously accused of ‘contributing to an atmosphere in which trans people are killed’. Among other abuse, a senior Open University manager likened her to ‘the racist uncle at the Christmas dinner table’.
The manager, who she claims was brutally dismissive of her crying response, became furious with her. ‘She said if I couldn’t cope, she could put me in touch with counselling services.’
Professor Phoenix said she had pleaded with Open University officials to stop harassment. However, they did not respond. This is why Professor Phoenix is taking them to employment tribunal.
A spokesperson for the Open University told the Daily Mail: ‘The Open University is an environment where an academic can express a view freely, and others can choose to disagree. It is part of the academic process and applies to all subjects. It is our job as institutions to help facilitate such debates, while also ensuring they are in compliance with law and provide support for colleagues when needed.
‘The Gender Critical Research Network continues to grow, host debates, produce research and draw on the support of university resources to help with its work.
Professor Jo Phoenix (pictured), is concerned about her personal safety, having gone to a school where one of her teachers was shot dead by a fellow pupil
‘It is open to any colleague to raise a concern, and while we cannot comment on ongoing matters, we would like to reiterate that any concern raised is taken extremely seriously and will be investigated fairly and robustly.’
Unsurprisingly, Professor Phoenix has concerns about her safety. She is reticent about saying where she lives — other than that it is in the South West of England.
‘When there is an atmosphere in which some people are told they’re a threat to a minority group, the stakes are so high that it’s only a matter of time before someone is physically attacked,’ she says.
She has personal experiences that have led her to fear. When she was 13 years old, a Texas teacher shot and killed one of her classmates. Two years later she was raped again by two men.
‘It gave me a finely tuned sense of justice,’ she says.
Professor Phoenix first worked for the Open University in 1996 and she describes her current post as a ‘dream job because adult education is so important to me’.
It makes her current isolationism more distressing.
Only a glimmer of hope is the kindness of people who donated money to pay for her legal expenses.
Not only is she battling for her own career and the principles of free speech, she says she is also fighting for younger generations — such as her two stepchildren and four adored grandchildren.
‘I’m doing it for them because they need to be able to talk about the difference between women and trans women without being accused of hatred. I’ll do whatever it takes because this is too important to walk away from.’
To contribute to Jo’s fund go to: crowdjustice.com/case/ harassed-silenced-for-my-gender-critical-views/.