Meet the author/publisher: Jo Phoenix on ‘publishing for those who refuse to be cancelled’

Having experienced losing her job because of her gender-critical views, Professor Jo Phoenix has launched a new publishing company, Phoenix Publications Ltd. With the tagline ‘Independent publishing for those who refuse to be cancelled’, the aim is to publish ‘rigorous gender-critical non-fiction in long and short form, from those at the sharp end of contemporary social and political struggles’. It promises books, booklets, reports, memoirs, testimonies – from those at the sharp end of contemporary social and political struggles – and its scope will broaden into adjacent categories – fiction, for instance – as the press develops and submissions warrant.

The first book – Sex: One Woman’s War – is by Jo Phoenix herself (co-written with Pat Carlen). Part sociology, part memoir, the book tells Jo’s story of how she took her employer, The Open University, to an Employment Tribunal claiming, amongst other things, constructive dismissal. In 2024, her claim was upheld, but not before she had suffered much abuse at work, online and in person for her gender-critical view that biological sex is immutable. Like many in the sex gender wars, Jo was an accidental campaigner. Her own life experiences had ill-prepared her for vilification or, subsequently, for celebration as a champion of science and common sense, academic freedom and workplace justice.

Meanwhile, Jo Bartosch and others have set up a new initiative, TERF Times, publishing stories that ‘are written by women with the ovaries to tell the truth, for readers tired of media outlets that treat women’s interests as an afterthought.

But is there a danger that setting up segmented publishing and journalism ventures might be a cul-de-sac, separating gender-critical and/or cancelled writers away from the mainstream? Or is now the time to build a new publishing and writing ecosystem?