Academic faces sack for letter to Sunday Times that criticised training on trans issues The Sunday Times 23.06.19

The original article is here.

A lecturer who signed an open letter to The Sunday Times criticising LGBT training in universities has been threatened with being sacked as an editor of an academic journal unless she recants.

Sarah Honeychurch, a fellow in the Adam Smith Business School at Glasgow University, was among more than 30 academics who signed the letter in last week’s Sunday Times. It registered “disquiet” over a programme run by the charity Stonewall in which “anti-scientific claims are presented . . . as objective fact”.

The guidance includes instructing academics on using gender neutral pronouns such as “zie” and “ey”, as well as insisting that “one in 100 are born with an intersex trait” and that trans women should be allowed to use female changing rooms.

The letter was organised by Kathleen Stock, a professor at Sussex University. Many lecturers believe academic freedom to debate trans issues is being stifled on campus.

Last week Honeychurch, an editor of the journal Hybrid Pedagogy, received a formal email from Chris Friend, the managing editor, stating: “Unless I have misunderstood the intentions of the letter or the convictions of your signature, I must ask that you resign your position as editor for HPJ.”