Joanna Williams is a conservative British writer and anti-transgender activist.
Background
Joanna Gail “Jo” Williams was born in November 1973. Williams’ bio from The Corrosive Impact of Transgender Ideology states:
Joanna Williams is director of the Freedom, Democracy and Victimhood Project at Civitas. Previously she taught at the University of Kent where she was Director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education. Joanna is the author of Women vs Feminism (2017), Academic Freedom in an Age of Conformity (2016) and Consuming Higher Education, Why Learning Can’t Be Bought (2012). She co-edited Why Academic Freedom Matters (2017) and has written numerous academic journal articles and book chapters exploring the marketization of higher education, the student as consumer and education as a public good. In addition, Joanna has written about education, feminism and gender for many popular outlets including the The Spectator, The Sun, The Telegraph and American Conservative. Joanna is a regular columnist for the online magazine Spiked.
Williams founded Cieo in 2019. A biography there states:
Joanna Williams is currently a Visiting Fellow at Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) in Budapest. She is the author of How Woke Won (2022); Women vs Feminism (2017); Academic Freedom in an Age of Conformity (2016) and Consuming Higher Education, Why Learning Can’t Be Bought (2012). She is a columnist for the online magazine Spiked and writes regularly for The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph.
Joanna began her career teaching English in secondary schools. She joined the University of Kent as lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice in 2007 where she later became director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education. Since leaving academia in 2019, Joanna has worked for think tanks including Policy Exchange, Civitas, Centre for Independent Studies (Australia) and MCC (Brussels).
Joanna’s most recent report for Civitas is Teachers or Parents: Who is responsible for raising the next generation?
References
Perez, Sylvie (June 20, 2022). [Portrait] Joanna Williams : la cuisine woke https://lincorrect.org/portrait-joanna-williams-en-guerre-contre-lelite-woke-lincorrect/
Hodgson, Naomi (2021). Author Interview: Joanna Williams. Philosophy of Education https://www.philosophy-of-education.org/author-interviews/author-interview-joanna-williams/
Selected anti-trans writing by Williams
Williams, Joanna (March 21, 2024). Trans ideology is far from defeated. Substack https://cieo.substack.com/p/trans-ideology-is-far-from-defeated
Williams, Joanna (June 20 2023). Sanity Across the Pond In the U.K.: government officials finally discuss openly the problems with gender ideology. City Journal https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-u-k-debates-transgenderism
Williams, Joanna (2021). Affirm my identity – or else! Cieo https://www.cieo.org.uk/research/affirm-my-identity/
Williams, Joanna (June 2020). The Corrosive Impact of Transgender Ideology. Civitas https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/2454-A-The-Corrosive-Impact-of-TI-ppi-110-WEB.pdf
Resources
X/Twitter (x.com)
Cieo (https://www.cieo.org.uk/)
- Joanna Williams, Director
- cieo.org.uk/joanna-williams
Substack (substack.com)
- Joanna Williams
- cieo.substack.com
Spiked (spiked-online.com)
- Joanna Williams
- spiked-online.com/author/joanna-williams
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Joanna Williams (joannawilliams.org) [2016–2019 – archive]