Prof Jo Phoenix Profile picture
Follows n RTs not endorsements. Views all my own. I won my case against The Open University.
Marie-Louise Irvine Profile picture Diane Jones #NoPronounsThankYou Profile picture 2 subscribed
Feb 11 7 tweets 2 min read
In rebuttal:

I see that several academics who are either in law, sociology or criminology are dismissing the recent GC employment tribunal wins. They claim these are "petty" small pay outs, just advisory, etc. etc.

So, by way of rebuttal I thought I would pull together a few facts (or as we like to say in academia, evidence).

1. There has been a significant drop in the number of people making claims in the Employment Tribunal, but even still each year for the last 15 years there has been circa 100K or more claims made:Image 2. Discrimination on belief grounds is a tiny fraction of the overall claims - the majority of which are for breach of contract, race, disability or sex discrimination. Belief discrimination cases total circa 1-3% of all ET claims with the percentage falling.
Feb 7 8 tweets 3 min read
Short tweet thread - some reflections on the judgement and the last two weeks

In some parts of the X/twitter, I have been accused of making the judgement all about me. Well, yes. And no. The judgement is all about me and my former employer and OU employees.

But it is also about what many of us inside academia (and outside) have been suffering. Since @MForstater a ridiculous narrative started that one can hold GC beliefs but not express them. The focus since Forstater has been on helping employers and organisations understand that they cannot discriminate against someone who holds GC beliefs. Understandably, because until Maya won the EAT, our beliefs were thought to be equivalent to nazism. The legal wins since Forstater have been racking up. But there was one piece of the puzzle that had yet to be settled in a court - what are the parameters within which those who oppose us can make their protestations known. What is the lawful expression of opposition and what is not?
Jan 22 5 tweets 1 min read
have received the Tribunal’s judgment in my case against the OU today: I won! The Tribunal found that I was discriminated against and harassed because of my gender critical beliefs, and that I was constructively dismissed. The Tribunal found (inter alia!) that I was compared to a racist uncle. My colleagues orchestrated a hostile public campaign against me and gender critical research network with over 360 signing a public letter calling on the OU to close down my research group.
Aug 3, 2023 9 tweets 2 min read
Criminology thread. Tagging a few interested ppl. Please RT.

@bindelj @jk_rowling @ShonaghDillon @bsc_wccjn @K_IngalaSmith @centreWJ @polblonde @MForstater @runthinkwrite @MLInstitute @DeathoftheLeftt @JeanHatchet

1/ In the name of justice for women, a huge body of research… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2/ Yet, because so few women appear in the criminal justice system as offenders, policy, practice, prison regimes and programmes for rehab are based on ‘notional men’.

This became the bedrock of ‘gender-responsive’ CJ policy.
May 30, 2023 20 tweets 5 min read
Dear Professor Phipps

Thank you for submitting your paper (genderate.files.wordpress.com/2023/05/phipps…) to Online Journal of the Analysis of Contemporary Social and Political Movements. I will not be sending the paper out for peer review as it does not meet the requisite standard. This paper is receiving a desk reject for the following reasons.

The paper is peppered with problematic assertions about GC feminism that lack evidence and at times these read as though they are the musing of a fevered mind. Specifically:
Apr 28, 2023 11 tweets 3 min read
🧵
Is it hypocritical to write about threats to academic freedom whilst denying it to others?

A cautionary tale about conceptual imperialism, political dogmatism & asserting The Truth

TLDR: stopping the @AHFdoco is only defensible if one thinks trans theory is The Truth. I agree with much of what @DrSarahLiu says *in principle*. Academic freedom is under threat by bad faith actors world over. Look at Bolsonaro when he was elected. He shut down much of what sociology depts studied.
Mar 23, 2023 11 tweets 3 min read
RANT THREAD ALERT 👿

1/ Doing some background work for Saturday's forthcoming event with @project_lesbian.

Started where I always start with a good old fashioned literature search (made so easy these days by google scholar).

tickettailor.com/events/thelesb… 2/ Kept thinking about how things have changed. 25 years ago there was a (relatively) rich literature - academic, grey, activist, cultural, books, videos.. the lot. All speaking to the experiences of lesbians.
Jan 27, 2023 5 tweets 1 min read
1. Prisons are not like anywhere else. Women in prison cannot remove themselves from the company of a person that makes them feel uncomfortable. They have no control over who they associate with. 2. Prison staff have no control over who the courts send to prison and thus have no control over the types of risks and issues they have to manage. Criminal justice professionals have no control over who they have to 'assess' or the tools, criteria and guidance they are given...
Dec 22, 2022 19 tweets 4 min read
1/ Mini-thread on reading criminal statistics and their relevance to Scottish betrayal of women in prison, the 1823 Goal Act and the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women in Prison

ohchr.org/en/instruments… 2/ There are two schools of criminological thought refered to as (i) 'left realist' and (ii) 'ultra-realist'. Both start from the assumption that we must take seriously crime and its effects - rather than explain everything away as effect of bad state n oppression.
Dec 22, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
Thank you for your submission to the Online Journal of Social Critique. The editor board have rejected your submission on the following grounds: You have made the error of universalising from the particular. Many people find it difficult to realise that your own subjective experience of the world is not a safe basis on which to make generalisations. In your case, you homogenise 'gender critical academics'
Dec 8, 2022 14 tweets 4 min read
🧵
Dear @Daragh_Murray @livesrunning @edajones16
Thank you for submitting your report to the Open Journal Of Legal Analysis. I'm afraid that the decision of the editorial board is to reject it. It does not meet the standards of academic publishing for the following reasons: 1. The paper is, presentationally, very poor with numerous typographical errors and infelicities of expression. May we kindly suggest that next time you proof read your paper prior to submission. Our readers are not there to provide copy editing services.
Sep 14, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
1/ A mini thread in the bleeding obvious: Stonewall's lobbying started an attempt to redefine the category 'women' in a way that ended up being antithetical to much feminist thinking and politics, especially those versions concerned with male violence, safeguarding & justice. 2/ Yesterday we saw in Mermaids v LGB Alliance a contest over the meaning of the word lesbian.

Not gay.

Lesbian.
Aug 13, 2022 10 tweets 3 min read
1/ Saturday morning rage thread - pls read to end:

I started openly criticizing Stonewall, the idea that TWAW & the campaign for self-ID in 2018 - as part of my job.

I signed a letter to The Guardian & The Sunday Times openly critical of Stonewall & its impact on Universities. 2/ My concerns about self-ID in prisons, abt the silencing that was happening in universities, abt the foreclosure of academic freedom got me branded as "anti-trans" and a "transphobe" by colleagues at OU. This had profound and life-changing effects on my career.
Aug 12, 2022 6 tweets 3 min read
1/ So, apparently it has comes as news to several of my twitter followers that the QWERTY keyboard was invented to keep women out of the printing industry. Here's the story:

In 1988, I did a women and work module as part of my UG Sociology degree @ Bristol University. 2/ I came across the work of Cynthia Cockburn. Two formative texts about the material of male power. First one was called The Material of Male Power and can be found jstor.org/stable/1394914… (1st 4 page shown) ImageImageImageImage
Jul 19, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
1: Please take time to read the full report. Women’s fear of male violence is rooted in their experiences and deep knowledge about how it permeates the entirety of their lives. Single sex provision *of all kinds* (not just toilets) is one way women have navigated the risks. 2: Removing this means that women’s use of public services and civic space will, necessarily, be reduced. As @HJoyceGender stated at the launch in House of Lords - of course not all women experience this fear….
Jul 18, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
1/ Another fact about sex-based injustice:

2002 - 2016: less than 100 police recorded offences
of exploitation through prostitution, rising to 282 by 2021.

Same time period: 2111 police recorded offences of soliciting for prostitution falling to circa 300. 2/ Soliciting figures are have dramatically reduced since 1980s when (literally) 10K+ women were being arrested and convicted year on year.

Exploitation figures grossly out of line with what research confirms about some women's involvement in prostitution -
Jul 18, 2022 8 tweets 2 min read
1/For those who like their discussions informed by facts:

More than 100K women report 1 type of sexual violence or other every year since 2017. Around 10 x more women than men report rape and sexual assault (although more men are reporting rape and more still sexual assault). 2/ Soz for tiny picture. I've taken statistics taken from ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
May 17, 2022 17 tweets 12 min read
THREAD:
1/ A year ago today, at nearly 10 pm at night, @Uni_of_Essex emailed @GoonerProf and myself in which the VC apologised for the unlawful treatment we received.

As much as everyone welcomed the #ReindorfReport, it turned my life upside down - and @GoonerProf's 2/ To recap: in Dec 2019, a seminar I was due to give - one which I was invited to give and where the subject was negotiated in advance was postponed then cancelled by a group of academic staff & students accusing me of transphobia. I was then blacklisted by Sociology Dept.
Apr 11, 2022 7 tweets 3 min read
1/ THREAD on Transgender prison placement policy

The 12 fact thread posted as response to @zoesqwilliams is based on fact and professional criminological argument. It generated attention so, I'm reposting the blogs and articles from which thread was taken.

Happy reading. 2/ Written to my academic criminological colleagues but for everyone to read. Has facts and numbers taken from official sources regarding sexual offending of transgender prisoners
jophoenix.substack.com/p/what-do-we-s…
Apr 8, 2022 10 tweets 3 min read
Thread with 12 FACTS for @zoesqwilliams astonishingly ignorant statement: "Beneath every confected outrage about ... trans prisoners".
@NoXYinXXprisons @SexMattersOrg @bsc_wccjn

Fact 1. the total trans prison population is unknowable. Fact 2. the known trans prison population shows that the vast majority of trans prisoners are men who identity as women and who do not possess a GRC

Fact 3. Possession of a GRC means that the person will be accommodated in the prison of the LEGAL (ie changed) sex
Dec 29, 2021 10 tweets 3 min read
1/ Many of us having been saying this for a long time. A new player into the discussion is @James_Treadwell. Please read his tweets on the problems of self-Id in prison. And the replies 2/ I said it here at an entire conference looking at this issue