2 days ago
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Two academics behind a gender-critical film have taken legal action against their union, accusing it of discrimination and harassment after it campaigned on social media to stop the documentary being screened.
Deirdre O’Neill, a senior lecturer in film studies at the University of Hertfordshire, and Michael Wayne, a professor of media and film studies at Brunel University, describe Adult Human Female as the first UK documentary to look at the “clash between women’s rights and gender ideology/trans rights”.
When a screening was arranged at the University of Edinburgh in 2022, documents before the tribunal said the local branch of the University and College Union (UCU) wrote to the university calling on it to cancel the event, describing it as a “clear attack on trans people’s identities” and denouncing it as “transphobic” on Twitter.
The campaign gathered support from students and a group of protesters managed to prevent the screening on two separate occasions – December 2022 and April 2023 – by blocking the entrance to the venue, preventing around 100-150 people from seeing the film on each occasion.
The film is part of a continuing debate about gender politics and free speech in UK universities. Last week, the University of Sussex was fined a record £585,000 for free speech breaches after a three-and-a-half-year investigation into the resignation of Prof Kathleen Stock, who was the target of protests over her views on gender identification and transgender rights.
Adult Human Female is regarded by trans rights groups as inflammatory, transphobic and inaccurate. Documents before the Watford tribunal said the film examined claims made by trans rights activists that “trans women are women” and should be treated as women in all legal and social contexts.
“Through interviews with academics, journalists, health care professionals and feminist campaigners, the film argues against those claims, and describes the detrimental treatment of women who have dissented from them,” the tribunal documents say.
O’Neill and Wayne, who describe themselves as gender critical, believe sex is a matter of biology, that it is impossible for a human to change sex, and that sex is important in a range of different political and social contexts.
They also do not subscribe to gender identity theory, “namely the belief that people are born with an internal sense of gender which may or may not correspond to their biological sex”, the documents state.
They claim these are protected beliefs and their union has discriminated against them contrary to section 57(2) of the Equality Act 2010. They also claim UCU’s conduct amounted to harassment, which “had the purpose and/or effect of violating their dignity and/or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them”.
The union – or respondent – denies it has discriminated against O’Neill and Wayne. Documents before the tribunal said: “The respondent’s conduct was proportionate and necessary in the interests of advocating the rights of others. Accordingly, the reason for any less favourable treatment was not the claimants’ gender-critical belief or lack of a belief in gender identity theory.”
Denying harassment, the union’s defence stated: “The conduct of the respondent was to highlight its commitment to supporting its members that identify as trans or non-binary. The respondent’s conduct was proportionate and in line with its current support for its trans, non-binary and LGBT+ members.”
The tribunal continues on Tuesday.
