Equalities watchdog launches study aiming to ‘reduce distress’ in trans debate

The equalities watchdog has launched a study into the sex versus gender row amid fears that the abuse of feminist academics by trans activists is harming freedom of expression.

The new research, for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), aims to find ways to "reduce distress" and "foster good relations and respect" between the opposing sides in the debate.

It has awarded the £18,000 contract to London’s City University to carry out qualitative interviews with academics over the next two months.

The regulator has found itself at the centre of a vicious debate between those who believe biological sex cannot be changed, known as "gender-critical" views, and trans activists who argue that men who identify as women should be legally recognised as female.

It comes after Prof Kathleen Stock quit the University of Sussex when students put up posters calling for her to be fired, labelling her “transphobic” for arguing that single-sex spaces such as changing rooms must be preserved for women.

Jo Phoenix, a criminology professor, also quit the Open University last year and launched a legal action against it for failing to protect her from what she described as harassment.

This came months after a barrister’s landmark report found that she and Prof Rosa Freedman, a human rights expert at Reading University, had their free speech breached when they were no-platformed at Essex University.

And Oxford University assigned security guards to Prof Selina Todd in 2020 to accompany the leading women’s historian to lectures after threats from activists.

The EHRC said it "has a duty to review and collect evidence about the nine protected characteristics in the Equality Act". These include biological sex and gender reassignment but not gender identity.

A spokesman said: "This research, by City University, aims to understand the perspectives of a range of people on issues of sex and gender, so that the commission can help communities across Britain to talk about complex issues of identity in ways that foster good relations and respect between groups, in line with our statutory remit.

"Finding ways to reduce distress in this contested area is a good use of public money."

‘A refreshing change’

Prof Todd said the study "marks a refreshing change" in tackling censorship, telling The Telegraph: "Those of us who feel able to speak out are acutely aware of many other feminist academics and students who feel they cannot. After experiencing bullying and abuse for expressing my lawful views, I do not blame them."

Prof Phoenix said: "It is difficult to underestimate what welcome news this is. I know from first hand experience that there are plenty of activist academics who accuse people like me of 'weaponising' free speech – as though that is a thing and as though that justifies their egregious, unethical and unlawful behaviour.

"I wish them and their researchers every success and look forward to the results."

Baroness Falkner of Margravine, the EHRC chairman, has recognised there is "genuine public concern" that women's and transgender rights can be in conflict, seeking to ensure the regulator understands this while staying "fully committed" to LGBT+ rights.

This prompted Stonewall, the diversity training charity, to lead a coalition of groups last month seeking to get the EHRC's special status at the United Nations removed, a move scorned by Sir Trevor Phillips, the EHRC’s founding chairman.

The regulator corrected the title of the research on the published contract, which was originally called "Gender Wars", following an "unintentional human error".