Kathleen Stock, the gender-critical feminist whose forthcoming address to Oxford university students on Tuesday has prompted planned protests, has insisted that she is a “moderate” and has a right to upset people.
Before her contested appearance at the Oxford Union, Stock said it was her trans activist opponents, who want the event cancelled, who were extreme.
On Monday night, the prime minister backed Stock. Rishi Sunak told the Telegraph: “University should be an environment where debate is supported, not stifled. We mustn’t allow a small but vocal few to shut down discussion. Kathleen Stock’s invitation to the Oxford Union should stand.”
Stock, a former university professor who argues that transgender people cannot expect all the rights afforded by biological sex, said: “We have to have freedom of speech, we have to be able to talk about this.”
Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, she added: “Of course I am causing upset. The position I am fighting against causes a lot of upset. You’ve got male rapists in female prisons: that causes a lot of upset. You’ve got children transitioning, doing things to their bodies that they can’t take back: that causes upset to their parents. You’ve got huge numbers of women unable to talk about sex-based rights in their workplaces because they feel stifled: that causes upset.”
Stock’s invitation to speak has polarised opinion among students and academics. Hundreds of students are expected to take part in protests and counter-protests in Oxford on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, more than 40 Oxford dons wrote a letter to the Telegraph saying it was “indispensable” for universities to hear “contentious views”. They also condemned Oxford’s students’ union for splitting with the Oxford Union after Stock’s invitation.
Over the weekend, a rival group of more than 100 academics and staff objected to Stock’s invitation to speak and claimed that cancelling the event would not flout free speech because it would not stop her airing her views.
“We believe that trans students should not be made to debate their existence,” their letter said. “We also refute that this is a free speech issue – disinviting someone is not preventing them from speaking.
“Freedom of speech matters, but we shouldn’t forget the right to protest … debate is essential for a vibrant democracy and we champion it.”
In his intervention, Sunak said: “Agree or disagree with her, Professor Stock is an important figure in this argument. Students should be allowed to hear and debate her views.”
In 2021, Stock left her job at the University of Sussex after protests against her from students after the publication of her book Material Girls, which argues that transgender people cannot expect all the rights afforded by biological sex.
Stock urged her opponents to read her book and called for a “calmer, more in-depth” approach to the dispute. She said: “I’m trying to find solutions. I’m actually a moderate. The trouble is the extremes on the other side, who do not represent ordinary trans people, who are asking for extreme measures.”
She added: “There’s more people affected than just a small group of trans people, because the policies being argued for are very radical and would change all sorts of things about British society, including women-only spaces, women’s sports and all the rest of it.”
