Joanna Phoenix | |
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Born | 1964 |
Known for | Academic author and feminist researcher in criminology |
Joanna Phoenix (born 1964) is an academic author and professor of criminology in the United Kingdom. [1] [2] [3] Phoenix writes about the policies and laws which surround various sexual activities and the social conditions which underpin them.
She is known for her gender critical views, having founded the Gender Critical Research Network at the Open University where she was a Professor of Criminology. In 2024, Phoenix sued the University successfully at an employment tribunal for constructive dismissal, victimisation, harassment and direct discrimination. [4] In an open letter, 368 of her colleagues had described the Network as "transphobic" and her Head of Discipline had compared her to a "racist uncle" which, the tribunal found, amounted to harassment. [4] Following this decision, Open University apologized unreservedly to Phoenix for the hurt and distress this caused. [5]
Phoenix has held academic posts as Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Middlesex from 1998 to 2000, the University of Bath until 2000 and a variety of posts at the University of Durham until 2013 (reader in criminology, made professor in 2010, deputy head of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health, Dean of Queens Campus) and Head of the law department at the University of Leicester. [6] She was Professor of Criminology at the Open University, before moving to University of Reading. Phoenix is a trustee of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. [6]
Her research areas include sex, gender, sexualities, prostitution policy and the experience of women in prison. She has written two books, Making Sense of Prostitution [7] and Illegal and Illicit: Sex, Regulation and Social Control (with Sarah Oerton). Phoenix edited Regulating Sex for Sale [8] and several articles and book chapters on the sex industry [9] [10] [11] [8] [12] [13] and experiences of supporting transgender persons in the prison estate. [14]
Reviewers of her books describe "the paradox that cannot have escaped the attention of many readers in the field: that the apparent increase in freedom, choice, and diversity in sexual matters is conversely and simultaneously matched by a 'proliferation of laws, policies and guidelines which seek to determine the complex, vast and ever-increasing rules of engagement'". [15] Phoenix gave evidence to the UK Parliament regarding the multiple disadvantages that women experience in the criminal justice system, particularly working class women and women of colour. In relation to community-based punishments and services, she lobbied for continued provision of women-only, single sex spaces for women. [16]
Phoenix is one of the two academic speakers (along with Rosa Freedman) who received an apology from the University of Essex in 2021 after their invitation to speak about transgender rights in prisons was withdrawn at short notice due to students claiming that Phoenix is transphobic. [17] [18] [19] In November 2021, Phoenix welcomed legal action against the University of Essex, claiming its policies breach free speech legislation. The Free Speech Union, led by Toby Young, took the action. [20] An investigation found the decision to withdraw the invitation "amounted to a breach of Prof Phoenix's right to freedom of expression". [21]
In 2021, Phoenix began a process of bringing a constructive dismissal case against the Open University (her employer) for not protecting her against harassment in the workplace. [22] She has stated that she hopes the "case will help to establish a line in the sand and make it clear that baseless accusations of transphobia simply for standing up for the rights of women is harassment especially when made in an academic context". She left the Open University to take up a professorial role in the law school at the University of Reading. [23] [24] In January 2024, the Tribunal found in her favour. The judgment said that she had been constructively unfairly dismissed, and that she had suffered victimisation, harassment (which included being compared to a "racist uncle"), and direct discrimination by the Open University, which did not allow her to speak about her negative treatment in department meetings due to her research, and failed to protect her from deplatforming campaigns and being called a "transphobe" or "TERF" on social media. [22] [25] In March 2024, Professor Phoenix announced that she had agreed a compensation settlement with the Open University. The amount to be paid was not disclosed. [26]
In June 2021, Phoenix and Jon Pike (a researcher in philosophy of sport) [27] convened the Gender Critical Research Network (GCRN) at the Open University. [28] The network aims to "bring together a range of academics and scholars, all of which share a common interest in exploring how sexed bodies come to matter in their respective research fields and a common commitment to ensuring that a space within academia is kept open for those explorations". [29] Philosopher Kathleen Stock and Historian Selina Todd are members. [29]
The network was criticised and described as transphobic in an open letter signed by 368 people, which called on the Open University to withhold support and funding. [4] [30] The letter said the network was "hostile to the rights of trans people" and said that academic freedom should not be "at the expense of marginalised groups". [1] Phoenix has stated formally that she supports "the rights of trans individuals to be fully protected by the Equalities Act and welcome government reform of the Gender Recognition Act in ways that are sympathetic to their needs" but proposes that an individual's right to identify as a particular gender should not be the basis upon which provision of criminal justice is based. [16] The open letter was cited by the employment tribunal as one of the instances of harassment against Phoenix by her colleagues. [22]
In November 2021, the Open University's vice-chancellor's executive stated that "the formation of the GCRN was compatible with academic freedom, while also acknowledging that some staff found the content of the group's work to be challenging or concerning" and undertook to review of its own policies and procedures. [31] In an apology issued following the 2024 tribunal ruling, Professor Tim Blackman, Vice-Chancellor of The Open University, stated that "The University has supported and continues to support the work of the Gender Critical Research Network (GCRN) as part of the many important research activities that take place at the OU", and "The tribunal ruling makes it clear that we should have acted differently to address the impact of this reaction on Professor Phoenix and the working environment that she experienced." [5]
Phoenix has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. She and her partner, a glass artist, have been together since 2005. [32]
The word cisgender describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not transgender. The prefix cis- is Latin and means on this side of. The term cisgender was coined in 1994 as an antonym to transgender, and entered into dictionaries starting in 2015 as a result of changes in social discourse about gender. The term has been and continues to be controversial and subject to critique.
Catharine Alice MacKinnon is an American feminist legal scholar, activist, and author. She is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, where she has been tenured since 1990, and the James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. From 2008 to 2012, she was the special gender adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
Janice G. Raymond is an American lesbian radical feminist and professor emerita of women's studies and medical ethics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is known for her work against violence, sexual exploitation, and medical abuse of women, and for her controversial work denouncing transsexuality.
Donna M. Hughes is an American academic and feminist who chairs the women's studies department at the University of Rhode Island. Her research concerns prostitution and human trafficking; she was a prominent supporter of the campaign to end prostitution in Rhode Island, and has testified on these issues before several national legislative bodies. She sits on the editorial board of Sexualization, Media, and Society, a journal examining the impact of sexualized media.
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Rosa Anne Freedman, who has written as Rosa Davis, is a British professor of law, conflict, and global development at the University of Reading. Her principal area of research is the activities of the United Nations as they relate to human rights. She has given evidence before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom about the human rights work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and to the Scottish Government relating to gender questions on the national census.
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Forstater v Centre for Global Development Europe is a UK employment and discrimination case brought by Maya Forstater against the Center for Global Development (CGD). The Employment Appeal Tribunal decided that gender-critical views are capable of being protected as a belief under the Equality Act 2010. The tribunal further clarified that this finding does not mean that people with gender-critical beliefs can express them in a manner that discriminates against trans people.
Maya Forstater is a British gender-critical activist who was the claimant in Forstater v Centre for Global Development Europe. The case established that gender critical views are protected as a belief under the Equality Act 2010, while stating that the judgment does not permit misgendering transgender people with impunity. At a subsequent full merits hearing, the Employment Tribunal upheld Forstater's case, concluding that she had suffered direct discrimination on the basis of her gender critical beliefs. In a judgement for remedies handed down in June 2023, Forstater was awarded compensation of £91,500 for loss of earnings, injury to feelings and aggravated damages, with an additional £14,900 added as interest.
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