Feminist academic Kathleen Stock has welcomed the backing of Rishi Sunak as she prepared to face down a protest by supporters of trans rights at a debate on Tuesday night at Oxford University.
Professor Stock said she was “glad that senior politicians are recognising the value of free speech” and that she hoped they paid similar attention to the “underlying issues” in the controversy that has erupted about her views.
Her comments came as the Prime Minister said it would be wrong for a “vocal few to shut down discussion” by stopping Professor Stock from airing her views on gender identity at the debate at the Oxford Union.
It is understood security measures will be in place for her appearance, with up to 1,000 protesters and counter-protesters set to attend.
Critics have sought to portray the academic as transphobic — which she denies — for disputing in a book and elsewhere the idea that gender identity is more important than a person’s biological sex.
Some are arguing against her participation in tonight’s debate, but Mr Sunak said that Professor Stock’s views should be heard and that hearing contentious views was part of a “tolerant society” and open debate.
“We mustn’t allow a small but vocal few to shut down discussion,” Mr Sunak told the Telegraph. “A tolerant society is one which allows us to understand those we disagree with, and nowhere is that more important than within our great universities.”
Professor Stock told Times Radio that her views on trans people had been presented by some in a “ridiculous” way and said she was not questioning “their existence or their legal protection” but instead “the form the legal protection takes and whether it interacts with legal protections for biological sex and female sex in particular”.
Oxford’s vice-chancellor Professor Irene Tracey has defended Professor Stock’s right to speak but a group of 100 academics and staff have written a letter backing a planned protest by the university’s LGBTQ+ Society.
