A sociologist who is suing City, University of London for unfair dismissal, claiming that she was forced out for highlighting how gender critical feminists have been censored, has criticised a climate of “compliance, groupthink and scholarly mediocrity” in UK gender studies.
Laura Favaro, who was research fellow at City’s Gender and Sexualities Research Centre, said she was ostracised at her workplace and denied access to her research data after writing an article for Times Higher Education about how female scholars feared career damage if they criticised the idea that transgender women should be considered the same as natal women in all aspects of public life.
The feature drew on conversations with 50 gender studies academics on both sides of the gender debate carried out for a British Academy-backed project. It described submissions by gender critical feminists being rejected by journal editors on ideological grounds, as well as their support for the bullying and censorship of academics.
In the wake of its publication in September 2022, Dr Favaro’s article was praised for exposing the persecution faced by gender critical scholars, and their inability to speak freely, but was also criticised as an “attack on trans people”. Senior scholars interviewed anonymously for the study broke cover to express their anger, claiming that Dr Favaro had breached ethical rules – claims she said were dismissed as “baseless” by a City investigation.
