What should you do when a complaint is made against you in a university? Ask plenty of questions and record the interview.

In August last year I was taken from La Trobe university to the Austin hospital with a suspected heart attack. Between August 2025 and February this year I was prescribed anti-depressant medication, used four scripts for Valium, and took time away from my studies. I now limit interactions with people in my department.

I am a PhD student at La Trobe. This article is about the handling of a complaint against me last year.

This article is a personal account which describes my experience, and the effects on me. I have taken reasonable steps to de-identified people, while keeping events clear. Towards the end I suggest what to do if you are subject to a complaints procedure in a university.

How it began

I started the PhD in February 2025. I am deliberately not identifying the department I am enrolled in.

Shortly after starting, I had regular contact with another person, whom I’ll call Samantha or “Sam.” I am deliberately not stating in what capacity I first met her.

At the time of these events Sam used she/they in her emails and described herself as non-binary (This is a topic on which I have no opinion, and no reason to develop an opinion.)

I use “she” in this article as Sam used it in her email signature.

Over the next two months Sam and I had frequent conversations about various political matters. These included whether Russians are really Europeans (in her view, “No”), current events in the US, relations between her country of birth and one of its neighbours, and whether she should move money out of the stock market option in her superannuation when Donald Trump was causing volatility in the stock market. (I’m an ex-economist).

Sam comes across as a very forthright person. On one occasion she said, “I’m gonna say it. Donald Trump changes his mind like a woman on a period.”

During our conversations, Sam bought up a few gender-related topics. She said that people in her country of birth expected women to be better at maths than men, because they supposedly have better attention to detail. She complained about male students dominating tutorials. She complained about the lack of women in a certain type of conference, and that when women were included as speakers, they mostly spoke on “How can we get more women into [discipline X]?”

There was nothing about these conversations that seemed to be particularly different to thousands of conversations with hundreds of fellow left-wing people over decades.

Before last year’s federal election, Sam approached me and another student urging us to vote for the local Greens candidate.

I said I was one of a dozen to 20 people who resigned from the local Greens branch over the selection of that candidate, and, with her agreement, I forwarded her some blog articles which were critical of the internal culture of the Greens, particularly how the organization had changed in recent years from being focused on the environment, to constant infighting about gender-related issues.

Subsequently Sam lodged a complaint against me with Safer Community, a unit within the university that investigates complaints about sexual harassment, racial prejudice or threats by students against others. I was shocked.

The letter informing me of the complaint alleged that I had used “queerphobic speech,” but contained no details. I asked for more information (1 May). The only extra information I was given was that I had supposedly asked Sam out. No specific details about that were supplied.

Someone from Safer Community (whom I’ll call ‘Linda’) interviewed me on 8 May. Linda described herself as a “senior coordinator.” Linda summarised Sam’s claims as being that I was “Queerphobic.” I don’t know if this was Sam’s word or Linda’s. I got Linda to record that interview, and I also recorded it so there is a clear record of what was said. A person from Student Advocacy (“Kim”) sat in on the interview, and took notes, but did not participate. Kim later supplied me with her notes.

My description of this interview is based squarely on the recording and is confirmed by the notes Kim took.

For those unfamiliar with the law on recording conversations in Victoria, the key provisions are in sections 6 to 11 of the Surveillance Devices Act 1999. You can’t record a private conversation in which you are NOT a participant, but you CAN record a conversation in which you ARE a participant. (That is not legal advice applying to a specific situation of yours. If you have a specific situation, get legal advice.)

What am I accused of?

The first issue Linda raised was that Sam claimed that I was “constantly” questioning her pronouns, but Linda gave no examples of what I had supposedly said about pronouns. I only recall one conversation in which I described the difference between first, second and third person pronouns and said that nobody “addresses” anybody by third person pronouns. (I did freelance editing for a few years.) Linda was unaware of this conversation so I infer Sam did not describe it to her, so I believe it couldn’t have been what was complained about. I don’t know what other conversations we supposedly had, but one can’t have (say) ten conversations about the difference between first, second and third person pronouns. They are just not that interesting. As a result, I didn’t know what conversation was being referred to or what particular thing I said about pronouns that was being complained about.

Linda said Sam also claimed I was “constantly” questioning her gender identity, but Linda gave me no example of anything I supposedly said about non-binaryness.

The next issue raised was that I had criticised the internal culture of the Greens, in particular the on-going internal disagreements about gender identity. My blog articles definitely did do this.

In a passage Linda read out to me, Sam also said that I had asked her “some weird questions” (plural) about the safety of women. Sam had said that during the overthrow of a certain dictator, her mother (or maybe grandmother) had to step over puddles of blood in the street, and that people from that culture just expect the world to be a more dangerous place than do English speakers. She said, “I think about personal safety every day, but I don’t know if that’s because I’m a woman, or because I come from [country X].” Apart from a reference to this conversation, there were no specific examples of “some weird questions” (plural) I supposedly asked.

Sam has studied some psychology, and on one occasion Sam and I discussed what psychologists call the “big five” personality traits, and how they affect voting. I sent Sam a psychology journal article by Anna Vedel about how these personality traits were correlated with students’ fields of study. (“Big five personality differences across majors: a systematic review.”)

According to Linda, Sam believed I sent the article to prove that men and women were naturally suited to different jobs. This claim surprised me, so I sent Linda the article. It does not mention jobs or employment. According to Linda, Sam said that I subsequently asked her what she thought of the article. I do not recall any follow up conversation, and do not believe one occurred. I find it hard to imagine how a follow up conversation would have proceeded if she thought the article was about men, women and jobs, when it was about measurable personality traits and students’ fields of study.

My past dealings with gay and trans people

I’m 71 years old.

Growing up, I had one family member who was gay and one who is bi-sexual, and in the late 70s and early 80s they were mixing in the social circles of the very small number of drag/gay/trans cabarets in Melbourne. So, in the early 80s, I went to some of those venues with my relatives and their friends. I also met them at bar-b-qs at my mother’s house.

As a result, I was meeting gay and trans people 50 years ago, and have often had gay and sometimes trans friends. I’m still friends with the woman who was my girlfriend in 1974-75 and she remembers meeting trans people at my mother’s bar-b-qs back then. Consequently, the accusation of “Queerphobia” took me by surprise.

Again, What am I accused of?

Linda did not give me any specific examples of what I allegedly said that was ‘queerphobic,’ nor any standard by which ‘queerphobia’ was to be judged.

I suggested that in order to be judged ‘queerphobic”, I would have to have exhibited hatred, hostility or prejudice against some category of queer persons. Linda gave no response to this.

During the interview, Linda raised a suggestion I had made to Sam about continuing a conversation over lunch. (The university’s central square contains several food outlets.) Linda said that this had been understood as an invitation to go off campus, and I was “asking her out.” I felt surprised. I’ve done four degrees there, and I’ve never gone off campus to get lunch once.

I asked Linda, “Where were we going to go, supposedly?” She replied, “I’m not sure.” “OK,” I answered, sounding a little fed up in the recording.

I felt puzzled that the complaint may have been influenced by my criticisms of the Greens, but Linda said Sam didn’t tell her how the Greens came to figure in the conversations or that it was Sam who raised the Greens. In my view, for Linda to understand what had happened, she should have had the materials I sent Sam, and understand how the Greens first entered our conversation.

On 9 May I emailed Linda a 5,000-word summary of my conversations with Sam, the emails and blog articles, and the Anna Vedel article.

They also contained material that, in my view, reflected my supportive attitudes towards gay and trans people. I suggested that in my opinion, it was inconsistent to suggest that I had been accepting of gay and trans people for 50 years but was somehow opposed to non-binaryness.

I also sent two further emails (14 and 16 May) asking for more details of the accusations. None were provided.

The blog articles

The blog articles I sent to Sam contained the following passages.

In one of the articles (“How to understand the trans wars in the Victorian Greens”), from 2024, I referred to having a trans-male friend, whom I originally met as a woman.

I wrote, “I don’t spend my time asking myself “Is my friend really a male?” because I would have no use for the answer. There’s nothing that we do when we meet up that crucially depends on the definition of male, so where would be the benefit to me in spending mental energy on this? If he has achieved a happier life by transitioning, (which seems to be the case) I’m glad for him. Similarly, I have no view on the question “are transwomen really women?” because I have no use for the answer.” (end quote).

In my view, this does not exhibit hatred, hostility or prejudice against queer people:

The rest of this article, including responses by the university and people referred to can be read at http://rsnow.substack.com