Refer to women as ‘womxn’, says official new justice adviser
THE Crown Prosecution Service came under fire yesterday for hiring to a new diversity role a transgender activist who wants women to be called ‘womxn’.
Director of Public Prosecutions Max Hill QC publicly welcomed Sophie Cook this week as a ‘speak out champion’, intended to boost confidence in staff to ‘speak about their experiences’.
But after her appointment to the £31,000 job was announced, it emerged that Dr Cook had previously condemned a lecturer for her views on gender identity.
Dr Kathleen Stock, a former philosophy professor at Sussex University, quit her job over a row in which she said trans women should be excluded from women’s changing rooms. Yesterday she tweeted a 2018 article in which Dr Cook accused her of putting students at risk of physical and mental harm by expressing her views.
Her tweet added wryly: ‘Cook doesn’t think everyone should speak out though.’ In the article, Dr Cook had said: ‘The views expressed by Dr Kathleen Stock will be deeply damaging to already vulnerable students. The constant demonisation of transgender people as potential sexual aggressors is both false – they are much more likely to be victims of violence than the perpetrator – and damaging.’
Dr Cook describes herself as a writer, actor, broadcaster and photographer and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Bournemouth University for her work in mental health. Yesterday some expressed concern about her use of the derogatory term ‘Terf’, which stands for ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist’.
In September, she tweeted about ‘keep[ing] the Terfs happy’, adding: ‘Are they ever happy?’ On Newsnight in 2018, she also supported replacing the word ‘woman’ with ‘womxn’, a term inclusive of trans and non-binary women.
She said: ‘I do wonder why people are so offended by it... actually the word was invented by feminists, they were quite happily using these words a few years ago... all of a sudden, they’re taking offence.’
Barrister Sarah Phillimore asked Mr Hill on Twitter: ‘What would happen to a female member of the CPS... who objected to [your] new “speak out champion” referring to her in this derogatory way?’ A CPS spokesman said: ‘The CPS is proud to have a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture and working environment.’