Essex university

We have been told that our mere presence as academics makes students feel unsafe. We have been threatened with violence, disinvited from speaking and even blacklisted. We have had our academic freedom curtailed. Our crime? Asserting that there are two sexes — male and female — and for insisting that some spaces are legally allowed to be organised according to sex and not gender identity. The Equality Act 2010 protects women’s spaces where it is proportionate and legitimate: spaces such as prisons, domestic violence refuges and sports teams. The University of Essex has issued a public apology to us both. We were both blocked from attending events, and one of us

This week a game-changer of a report released by Essex university led to its Vice Chancellor abjectly apologising for the university cancelling two feminist academics for their views on gender identity and sex. Both professors Jo Phoenix and Rosa Freedman have views which accord with our current laws on gender identity, and yet they had a number of talks cancelled by Essex university and Freedman was potentially rejected from a job after they were labelled ‘transphobes’ by a mob of intolerant academics and students. Now Essex has been forced into issuing a humiliating apology and admitted that its treatment of the professors infringed on their freedom of speech. So how