On Launching the Open University Gender Critical Research Network:

A tale about the attempt to restrict freedom of speech and academic freedom in Universities today.

It has been a few months now since me and Jon Pike launched the Gender Critical Research Network at The Open University. Immediately after, there was a concerted and targeted campaign, launched by staff and students of the OU, to get the network shut down. Right now, there is an open public letter on google docs organised by OU academic staff and with over 360 OU staff or Postgraduate signatories accusing the Gender Critical Research Network (and by extension its members) of being transphobic. It does this by highlighting a podcast uploaded to the OUGCRN website – an interview *I* did with Julian Vigo as part of her Savage Minds podcasts – and providing an *erroneous* precise of that interview. Julian interviewed me about University of Essex’s public apology and the Reindorf Review and the events that led to my blacklisting. The google docs letter contains time stamps pointing to: where I critique Stonewall strategy and approach (claiming that this is transphobic); where the interviewer refers to ‘men in dresses’ (which was in fact referring to drag queens in the 1980s and 1990s and not, as suggested derogatorily referring to transwomen); and where the interviewer refers to the approach by Stonewall to lesbian and gay men that we are same GENDER rather than same SEX attracted using trans rights activists’ own phrase ‘sucking female cocks’ (claiming that this too is in some deeply ironic twist, transphobic).

There are also two open statements sitting on OU servers making similar claims (that the network and its members are anti-trans and contribute to a climate of transphobia). My own local branch of UCU (via the EDI postholders) circulated an email to all OU union staff promoting the open google docs letters alluded to above.

Across the open letter, the two open statements and the UCU email, there are calls for the university to disaffiliate the Gender Critical Research Network or this, that or the other section of the University wishes to distance themselves from the Gender Critical Research Network – all the basis of crude, crass and pejorative stereotypes about my (and others) gender critical beliefs (and THEORETICAL perspectives).

Even though the open letter, the two statements and the union email were published in the days after launching the network, the campaign targeted at me and the network is ongoing because it remains in the public domain and on the university servers. I experience their deleterious effect every day.

To date, the open google docs letter, as well as the two open statements and the UCU email have not been taken down.

Why am I dredging this up now? Because after several months of thinking through these matters, I have come to realise that I started censoring myself on twitter and in the public and in that regard the campaign is having an ongoing effect on me.

The open letter and open statements have been organised and written by friends and colleagues I have worked with. I suspect many people who signed the statement/letter did not realise what they were signing.

As many of you know, I have been ‘off sick’ for a few months now because of the effect this campaign against me has had. I write this not to claim some type of victimhood but simply to recount some facts.

The tone and tenor of the campaign against me and the network has made me doubt and question what I ought to talk about in open. And in the face of that doubt, I have remained silent.

But after a long hard summer, I have decided that I will no longer be quiet about what happened and its effect and why I fear for professionalism and academic freedom. I will talk about the (on-going) reaction to the establishment of The Open University Gender Critical Network. I will talk about the fact that I have chosen to resign and quit my own LGBTQi staff support network yammer page because of the pernicious and pejorative stereotypes of GC academics that are being spread on that OU platform.

I will talk about the fact that just because people are not actively tweeting about it *right now*, doesn’t mean that I am not being currently harassed or that the problem has gone away.

Many weeks ago, I talked to an exceptionally brave trans colleague at work who put their head above the parapet to find common ground with me. I thank that person and hope they see this tweet knowing that the conversation was very helpful and that I tried to act on the suggestions made. But, in that conversation it was suggested to me that the more I talk about the lies and negative stereotypes of GC people peddled in campaign against me and the other members of OUGCRN and the more I talk about the campaign calls for discrimination against me based on those lies, the less able it will be for things to 'settle down' at work.

I get it. No one likes ill will at work. However, I then realised that by not talking about it I was, in effect, telling myself not to rock the boat. To let it settle. To be quiet.

Today, I realised I’m not that sort of academic or woman. I have known violence from men. I have been told to be quiet before. I have been told I don't play nicely with others.

Funny how silencing works. First, they accuse you of hideous, shameful things. Then you silence yourself. Then you lose your voice.

No more.