Mick Hartley

Another one down, after Kathleen Stock:

An academic who faced abuse from colleagues over her transgender views has quit the Open University.

Jo Phoenix, who has been researching sex, gender and justice for two decades and believes biological sex cannot be changed, was one of two academics to receive an apology from Essex University after a talk was cancelled.

She said that conflict with colleagues at Open University, where she is professor of criminology, has led to post-traumatic stress disorder. She is taking the institution to an employment tribunal.

Phoenix said that she would be starting a new role at Reading University. She had set up a network at Open University to study gender-critical views, held by those who do not believe biological sex can be changed. An open letter denouncing the network was signed by 380 people. It said: “We do not believe that freedom of speech or academic freedom should come at the expense of marginalised groups.” It added that the network was “hostile to the rights of trans people”. A manager likened her to a “racist uncle”.

Who'd want to work in higher education nowadays? Full of virtue-signalling creeps, many of whom are no doubt too scared to come out and say anything against the reigning gender ideology. Saying that biological sex cannot be changed – an unequivocal statement of the obvious – makes you “hostile to the rights of trans people”? It's just so….pathetic.