Professor fears for job after accusation of transphobia

A LEADING criminology professor is being investigated by his university for “transphobia” because he defended single-sex prisons.

Staffordshire University is examining tweets posted by Prof James Treadwell, an expert on crime and prisons, because it received a single complaint about them from an unknown source.

The scholar, who previously worked for the probation service, had expressed fears on social media that male sex offenders could access women’s prisons using loopholes designed for transgender inmates and now fears for his job.

His comments backed an online “KeepPrisonsSingleSex” campaign which has taken off after an unsuccessful House of Lords attempt to place prisoners in facilities “by reference to their sex registered at birth”, rather than their gender identity.

As fellow professors leapt to his defence in the latest campus trans row, Prof Treadwell, an executive member of the British Society of Criminology, warned academics that cancellation “can happen to any of you”.

“I have been told by @Staffsuni that I am being investigated for transphobia after formal and official complaints about my Twitter conduct,” he wrote online on Wednesday. “I honestly have tried to be balanced and reasonable and promote fair debate. Trans people, like all people, deserve dignity and respect. Academics giving their personal views do too.”

The official transgender prison population has risen by a fifth in two years and numbered 197 last year. Ministry of Justice rules allow inmates born male who identify as female to ask to be kept in women’s prisons even if they have not physically transitioned.

Prof Treadwell had tweeted the day before he announced the probe: “I do not think the main risk to women is, for the most part, trans people, men or women, it is from men, using loopholes.”

He added that he could “not see any case, for now, why we should do anything but #Keepprisonssinglesex”.

A Staffordshire University spokesman said: “We have received a complaint about views expressed by Professor Treadwell on Twitter.

“This is … being reviewed in accordance with the university’s procedures.

“We are committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion… We are equally committed to academic freedom and lawful freedom of speech.

“We cannot comment any further at this stage.”