Julia Gasper

Julia Gasper is a British independent academic specialising in historical literature and a right-wing political activist currently affiliated with the English Democrats. She was formerly a member of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) prior to her defection in 2012. A vociferous critic of LGBT rights, she has generated controversy in the British media for her comments regarding LGBT people, which have widely been deemed homophobic and transphobic.

In 1987, Gasper obtained a D.Phil in English Literature from the University of Oxford after studying at Somerville College. She converted her D.Phil thesis – a study of the role of Protestantism in the work of Thomas Dekker – into her first book; published in 1990, it received a mixed critical reception. She has since published two further books on eighteenth-century European history, on Theodore of Corsica and the Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens respectively.

Involved in local politics within the Oxford area, she has served as a parish councillor for Risinghurst. In 2012 Gasper was selected as UKIP's Parliamentary candidate for Oxford East. She was scrutinised for her anti-LGBT blog posts by LGBT-themed news service Pink News, whose readers she then asserted were mentally ill. When The Sunday Mirror exposed further anti-LGBT comments that she had made on a UKIP members forum, she was denounced by party leader Nigel Farage and stepped down from her position. Changing her allegiance to the English Democrats, she unsuccessfully stood for them in the European Parliament elections, 2014 and for Oxford City Council in a local by-election. She meanwhile continued to attract strong criticism for her public condemnation of LGBT rights issues from the LGBT community, political commentators, and mainstream media.

Academic career

In 1987, Gasper obtained a D.Phil in English Literature from the University of Oxford after studying at Somerville College.^[1][2] Her thesis examined the Protestant plays of Elizabethan English playwright Thomas Dekker.^[2] In 1990, Clarendon Press published Gasper's work The Dragon and the Dove: The Plays of Thomas Dekker. Writing in The Yearbook of English Studies, John Stachniewski of the University of Manchester described the book as "trenchant and well-informed" and expressed the view that he found Gasper's thesis – that Dekker's dramatic works subscribed to a militant Protestant ideology – to be "convincing".^[3] John Harmon of Syracuse University reviewed Gasper's book for the English Studies journal, describing it as "crisply researched" and "eminently readable" although thought that she argued "somewhat defensively" that scholars should take Dekker's work more seriously.^[4] Reviewing the book for The Review of English Studies, T. H. Howard-Hill of the University of South Carolina noted that despite the work's title, it did not examine all of Dekker's twenty-six plays but only a selection of them. While noting that the work was "thoroughly researched, well documented, and densely written", Hill also opined that it was "disjointed, digressive, repetitive, and rambling" and felt that it did not "convincingly illustrate Decker's militant Protestant orientation" in some of the plays that she had discussed.^[5]

In 2013 the University of Delaware Press published her book Theodore von Neuhoff, King of Corsica: The Man behind the Legend. Reviewing the tome for the European Review of History: Revue europeenne d'histoire, José Miguel Escribano Páeza of the European University Institute noted that Gasper brought a novel approach to her examination of the Corsican monarch. Although describing the "exciting" work as an "interesting exercise in historical biography", he noted that Gasper paints a "hagiographic image" of von Neuhoff, for instance by unconvincingly portraying him as a "military genius" and by falling into "the trap of seeing things in black and white by frequently presenting Neuhoff and his followers as heroes fighting against villains."^[6]

Political career and media attention

Gasper occasionally lectured at Oxford University, served as a parish councillor for Risinghurst, and had founded the Windmill Road Residents' Association and the Friends of Bury Knowle Library.^[7] The International Business Times characterised her as a "right-wing political activist".^[8]

UKIP candidacy: 2012–13

Oxford East parliamentary election 2010 candidates (Gasper on far left)

In early 2012, UKIP selected Gasper to represent them as their Parliamentary candidate for Oxford East, while she also began campaigning to be elected onto Oxford City Council.^[9] Asserting that "my central message is to take back control of this country", she campaigned on a platform of promoting the UK's removal from the European Union, opposing "mass immigration", abolishing university tuition fees, and increasing the state pension.^[10]

During her campaign, a resident in the Oxford area discovered a blog post which Gasper had authored in 2010; concerned about its contents, they contacted the LGBT-themed news service Pink News, who reported on it.^[9] Stating that homosexuality was not a sexual orientation but a "form of behaviour", in her post Gasper suggested that same-sex attraction was a choice,^[9] before criticising gay people for "complaining constantly of persecution" and being insufficiently grateful to heterosexuals for creating them.^{[9][7][8][11]} Asserting that legal support for LGBT rights had "gone too far", she condemned same-sex marriage and the adoption of children by same-sex couples as "wholly unacceptable",^[9] and claimed that there were strong links between male homosexuality and paedophilia.^[9][7][11] Her claims generated outrage,^[7] with a UKIP spokesperson commenting that while the party did not endorse Gasper's views on this issue, it did uphold her right to hold and express them.^[12][7]

Later that month Gasper complained that readers of Pink News had threatened her, declaring that they should be forcibly institutionalised under the Mental Health Act.^[12][8] In doing so, she compared her situation to that of Salman Rushdie during The Satanic Verses controversy.^[12] She then claimed that she had received email death threats and was under police protection; local police refused to either confirm or deny whether this was the case.^[7] When approached for comment by reporters from Cherwell, she claimed that her views on LGBT issues were "very, very middle ground" and that she had not said anything homophobic, instead being the victim of "a malicious witch hunt".^[11] Roweena Russell, the former chair of the International Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Youth and Student Organisation, emailed Gasper to discuss the latter's comments, to which Gasper responded that Russell too should be institutionalised.^[12] Russell proceeded to publicly condemn Gasper, stating that "as a long-term political activist I'm disgusted she used this kind of language. Using mental health as a slur on top of everything else she's doing is just unacceptable. I really can't believe it."^[12] Rafe Jeune, the chair of Oxford's Pride parade, was asked for comment by the local press; Jeune characterised Gasper's comments as "abhorrent" and "disgusting", noting that there was "absolutely no evidence" to link paedophilia and homosexuality.^[7] The general election was held in May 2010, with Gasper coming fifth with 2.3% of the vote; 1,202 votes had been cast for her.^[13]

UKIP leader Nigel Farage asserted that Gasper's "war against homosexuals is unacceptable".^[14]

In January 2013, The Sunday Mirror revealed posts that Gasper had made on an online UKIP members forum. Here, she had condemned LGBT rights as a "lunatic's charter" while claiming that some homosexuals prefer sex with animals over that with other humans, and reiterating her belief in a link between homosexuality and paedophilia.^[14][15] The newspaper characterised these comments as "extremist and offensive" and highlighted that the forum itself contained many homophobic and racist statements from UKIP members.^[16] When The Sunday Mirror asked for comment about her statements on the forum, Gasper stated that "I'm not going to talk about them. It's none of your business."^[14] Commenting on this situation in The Observer, the political commentator Nick Cohen described Gasper as an advocate of "dumb prejudice" and asserted that she was one of the UKIP members whom "you wouldn't want exercising power over your life or anybody else's."^[17]

Amid the ensuing scandal, the forum was shut down, Gasper resigned from her position as chairman of UKIP's Oxford branch, and a number of her supporters were also removed from the committee.^[16][18] A party spokesperson stated that she had stepped down "to avoid doing herself or the party any more damage",^[16] while Gasper insisted that stepping down was her own decision and she had not been forced to do so, adding that in her opinion she had been the victim of a "press vendetta".^[19] UKIP stated that while her resignation as Oxfordshire branch chair was welcome, she would not be forced out of the party altogether.^[18] However, UKIP leader Nigel Farage condemned Gasper's "war against homosexuals" as "unacceptable",^[14][16][20] while Olly Neville, the former chairman of UKIP's Young Independent wing, retweeted a message expressing support for Gasper's removal and stating that "her disgraceful views have no place as a rep[resentative] of a mainstream party".^[20]

Gasper subsequently lambasted UKIP as being "plagued with transsexuals", a reference to the transwomen Nikki Sinclaire and Kellie Maloney, both of whom have served as candidates for the party. Asserting that she refused to recognise transwomen as women, she declared Maloney to be "absolutely grotesque" and added that her transition was "totally barmy – and how pathetic that he [sic] can do nothing better with his [sic] life."^[21] In May, a former UKIP activist, Colin Cortbus, also publicly revealed to Cherwell that in emails Gasper had sent to him several months previously she had again emphasised a connection between homosexuality and paedophilia, and had moreover described the Quran as a "fascist" book, comparing it to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and describing Islam as "a severely oppressive ideology".^[11]

In November 2013, she was then criticised for authoring an essay titled "The Myth of the Homocaust", which she uploaded to her academia.edu account. In this, she claimed that LGBT rights activists had fabricated the extent of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals.^[22] Olivia Marks-Woldman, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, criticised Gasper's claims as "disappointing", adding that "Whilst it is important to recognise the differences between the ways the Nazis persecuted different groups, this shouldn't lead us to question the fact that thousands of gay men suffered appalling persecution because of their sexuality."^[23]

English Democrats candidacy: 2014

After leaving UKIP, Gasper joined the English Democrats (campaign van pictured)

Disillusioned with UKIP, Gasper switched allegiance to the English Democrats.^[22] In April 2014, she publicly declared that there are "far too many" gay people in the Houses of Parliament, deeming this to be a "violation of democracy". Making the claim that only 1.5% of the population were gay, she stated that this could justify no more than ten gay Members of Parliament, far less than the hundreds that she claimed existed.^[24][25][26] In the same post, she called for the gay networking and dating app Grindr to be banned as a threat to "public health".^[25][26] When questioned by the BBC, party spokesman Steve Uncles defended Gasper's "personal opinion", which he claimed was based on a traditional, Christian understanding of sexuality, and further added that she was "factually correct" in her claims regarding the number of homosexuals in Parliament.^[24] Her statistics were however dismissed as "absurd" by the Oxford University Student Union's LGBT representative, who noted that Gasper's comments reflected the continuing existence of those with "alarming prejudices" who "wish to actively discriminate against LGBTQ people".^[26]

The following month, she commented on the resignation of Brendan Eich as CEO of Mozilla after it was revealed that he had financially supported a group campaigning to prevent the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in California. Gasper claimed that Eich had been "victimised by a queer mafia that takes a vindictive pleasure in bullying and abusing people" and that this "Homo fascism is a threat to fundamental human rights."^[24][27] Among those whom she accused of being parts of this campaign were US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the Labour Party, the United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the Bishop of Buckingham Alan Wilson, Pope Francis, the actor Daniel Radcliffe, all European and American universities, and media outlets such as The Guardian, The Daily Mail, and The Huffington Post.^[27] The following day, she attracted further attention for condemning World AIDS Day as a celebration of HIV/AIDS and homosexuality, claiming that it "congratulates" people for "spreading the disease".^[22][28] Several days later, she claimed that in campaigning for the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, "queer thugs and gangsters" had "used violence, threats, censorship, abuse, and every form of dirty tactic"; she commented that she hoped that "a twinge of guilt [...] kills them".^[29]

In May, Gasper stood as the English Democrats' candidate for the South East region in the European Parliament elections. There, she gained the support of 0.76% of the electorate, with 17,771 votes.^[31] Following the resignation of Laurence Baxter, the Labour councillor who represented Quarry and Risinghurst on the Oxford City Council, Gasper stood in the by-election as the English Democrats' candidate for the seat.^[32] The election saw a turnout of 38%, with Labour candidate Chewe Munkonge proving victorious; Gasper came last with 43 votes, behind candidates from the Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party.^[33][34]

Following this failure, she returned to her blog to argue that there were "far too many homosexual comedians on TV", focusing her criticism of Graham Norton, "the horrid little Alan Carr", and "the unctuous Stephen Fry [...] portly, preening and self-satisfied."^[30] She also posted that homosexuals were not persecuted anywhere in the world, and that claims to the contrary, such as those regarding the murders of Matthew Shepard and David Kato, were "fraudulent".^[30] She also made the claim that Pink News operated as a "mafia" and had placed the actor Rupert Everett on its "hit list", thus forcing him to obtain police protection.^[35][36][1] In October 2014, Pink News founder Benjamin Cohen claimed that this was untrue and constituted libel, subsequently threatening legal action against her.^[35][36][1] Gasper responded with the statement that she did not simply "stand by what I have said, [but] I am proud of it, and I have morality on my side".^[35] Commenting on this situation in an article in Cherwell, Samuel Rutishauser-Mills questioned why the media bothered reporting on Gasper's anti-LGBT comments, noting that as a parish councillor her "political significance is tenuous at best" and that the story that they were providing – that of "local homophobe makes homophobic comments" – is "scarcely newsworthy or interesting."^[36] He further warned that such "excessive coverage" of Gasper's opinions was actually counterproductive to the advancement of LGBT rights, because it makes her "extreme homophobia" seem more commonplace in British society than it really is. In turn he suggested that this coverage could provide validation for the minority who share her views while also giving Gasper "the attention she craves" and encouraging her to continue writing in her "sad little blog".^[36]

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