UK: Open University criminology professor who said 'male-bodied' trans women should NOT be in female prisons suffers public harassment
A Professor of Criminology at the Open University has described how she was compared to a 'racist uncle at a Christmas dinner table' for her gender critical beliefs.
Professor Jo Phoenix has crowdfunded more than £80,000 to fight her current employers for not protecting her from a bullying campaign after she expressed views about the silencing of academic debate on transgender issues.
She claims the Open University, who she began working for in 2016, 'shattered' her dreams and made her feel 'like a pariah'.
Professor Phoenix said she has been publicly vilified and suffered public harassment for launching the Open University gender critical research network.
She also said her view that male-bodied prisoners should not be allowed in female prisons resulted in her being compared to a transphobic and racist.
By bringing the Open University to an employment tribunal, she hopes to protect female academics from 'the vicious bullying perpetrated by those who disagree with our beliefs on sex and gender'.
The Government's policy to house transgender women in female prisons was ruled lawful by the High Court in July earlier this year amid claims from an inmate it raised the risk of sex attacks.
In 2018, Karen White - who was born a man but was placed in women's prison HMP New Hall after telling authorities of his identification as a woman - sexually assaulted two female inmates.
Prosecutors questioned whether White really wanted to transition to become a woman, or just used it as a ruse to target other women. He is now being housed in a male prison.
Professor Phoenix was also caught up in controversy with another university in 2019 following 'transphobe' accusations.
The University of Essex had to apologise in May, 18 months later, after a planned seminar was called off due to protestors.
It was set to explore tensions around placing transgender women - who were born men - in female prisons in Britain.
The Centre for Criminology cancelled the event a few hours ahead of it taking place, citing concerns that the 'open debate and discussion might be obstructed'.
The seminar was cancelled partly due to security concerns, but an investigation later found that the decision 'amounted to a breach of Professor Phoenix's right to freedom of expression'.
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UK: 'Censoring' of history as portrait of Sir Thomas Picton -- who died at Waterloo - is taken down
BBC presenter Huw Edwards today hit out at 'censoring' history after a picture of a slave owner who was the most senior British officer to die at the Battle of Waterloo was removed from the Welsh national museum.
The 'heroic' portrait of lieutenant general Sir Thomas Picton has hung at the museum in Cardiff for 100 years, but will now be sent to its stores after it was reappraised in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Reacting to the news, the News At Ten host tweeted: 'As a journalist I feel uneasy about this element of ''censoring'' history. Should not Picton remain on display as a reminder to Wales of an aspect of its past - no matter how disgraceful?'
Picton is notorious for his cruel treatment of his slaves, including executing a dozen and torturing and mutilating others.
He was known to have used the slave trade to build up his considerable fortune and in 1806 was also found guilty of torturing Luisa Calderon, a 14-year-old mixed-race girl, during his rule of Trinidad.
The portrait will be replaced by Hedger and Ditcher: Portrait of William Lloyd, which was painted by Albert Houthuesen, a Dutch artist who became fascinated with the working life of Flintshire colliers while on holiday with his wife in the 1930s.
Curators are handing artists a £12,000 commission to produce new artworks that will 'reinterpret' Picton's life by telling it from the view of his victims. When these new works are finished a committee will decide whether Picton can be rehung as part of a new display.
The future of the painting will be determined by the Sub Sahara Advisory Panel, whose director Fadhili Maghiya welcomed its removal. He said: 'It's almost like a new era in some ways, especially looking at who he was, what he stood for, what he did. 'It does bring a new chapter in terms of conversations about race, diversity, inclusiveness.'
In July 2020 councillors voted to remove a statue of Picton in Cardiff City Hall amid a Welsh government probe into offensive statues. Councillors said the statue was an 'affront' to black people in Cardiff and 'no longer acceptable'.
But last December counsellors in Carmarthen voted against removing or renaming a monument to the local hero.
The memorial has stood in Picton Terrace in the south-western town since 1888
My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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