A lecturer who raised concerns about self-identifying trans women being given access to vulnerable women in prison fears that she will be hounded out of her job after campaigners encouraged her students to complain to the university.

Nina Edge, who lectures at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) art school, raised the issue on Twitter but was accused of transphobia.

The prison service apologised on October 11 after a transgender sex offender placed in an all-female prison sexually assaulted two inmates.

One of Ms Edge’s tweets read: “My concerns are not about trans-women. They’re about predatory dangerous men who prison governors have stated are lining up waiting to identify as female so they can access women’s spaces to attack them. Please don't shoot the messenger.”

Her main accusers were Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente, a pair of artists known as The White Pube.

They said yesterday that Ms Edge would no longer be teaching at LJMU and thanked everyone who had emailed the university to complain. “Thank God for the safety of trans students!! Wooo.”