UK Professor in "trans" row, urged to get bodyguards

[Serendipity]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3a39938e-2926-11ec-8027-e80d42947f8f?shareToken=3f31e03238bc5de8bfedc43c6e54b160

Enough of this hateful nonsense:

Kathleen Stock, the Sussex University professor in trans row, urged to get bodyguards

A university professor has told how she may need to be accompanied by bodyguards on campus and has been advised to install CCTV outside her home, following a row with students about her views on transgender rights.

Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, does not believe people can change their biological sex, an opinion she has been vocal about in her academic work and on social media. Critics have accused her of being transphobic.

As students have returned to university in recent weeks, tensions have escalated. Protesters, calling for Stock to be sacked, took to the university grounds in masks and balaclavas holding signs saying "Stock out". Online, she received a barrage of abuse and threats.

The backlash has led to police telling her she should stay off campus for now and teach classes online. Officers have become so concerned about her safety that she has been given a direct hotline to call.

In her first interview about her ordeal, Stock, 48, says she "fears for the future".

She filed a complaint against Sussex University in recent months because she believed it had failed to support her.

One social media user shared a picture of a man with a gun and the invitation "Kathleen Stock rest your weary head". Another post described her as "on the wrong side of history" and said she would die alone.

The academic, who is a lesbian, broke down in tears as she told of a "culture of fear" taking over university campuses. "I feel very on edge and a bit mad. I am not sleeping very well. It is surreal," she said.

She is also questioning her career. "I do not know if this will push me out of academia. I do not want to leave," she said. "When I think about my future, I do not know how that looks. How can I walk around Sussex? I am so notorious now."

Last week, on campus, Stock came across a poster defaced with the word "transphobe", with a student writing: "Fire her, I am not paying £9,250 for this."

"At that point I turned round, burst into tears and ran back to the train station and tried to get home," she said.

"[The police] have advised me to have cameras on my front door. They have given me advice about moving around. They have put a marker on my phone, if I phone 999 there is an automatic call-out to my house," she said. "I am vulnerable on campus. The police implied that I would need security guards accompanying me to go back on campus."

Yesterday the vice-chancellor at Sussex University stood up in support of Stock. Professor Adam Tickell told the BBC that staff had "an untrammelled right to say and believe what they think".


Stock, who has also had the backing of Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, praised Sussex for speaking out in support of her "academic freedom".

Criticism about her views on gender first started in 2018 with comments coming both from students and fellow academics. For the past three years she and a group of like-minded feminists have argued that men cannot become women by surgery and that it is important to protect women-only spaces in institutions such as prisons and refuges.

The views are anathema to some trans activists but universities have a duty to protect and defend academics' freedom of speech. It is understood that Stock filed a complaint to Sussex earlier this year saying that it had failed in its duty of care to protect her and safeguard her academic freedom. The university is investigating the claims.

Earlier this year, in a groundbreaking case, Essex University published a damning report by a barrister following an 18-month inquiry into the treatment of two female professors.

The report found that the university had failed to uphold free speech after Jo Phoenix and Rosa Freedman, who hold similar views to Stock's, were dropped from speaking events.

It comes as the government is legislating to crack down on universities that fail to protect free speech.

Yesterday, students at Sussex were critical of the professor's views.

Mercedes Dang, 20, who is in the first year of a media and communications degree, said: "The university can't fire someone because the students don't like them but I personally think that if she is not fired she should apologise for the comments she has made.

"She has said publicly that she does not believes trans men are men or trans women are women. It should not be acceptable for a professor to say things that might hurt someone but might also invalidate someone's identity and persona and who they are."

Rees, 20, who asked for his surname to be withheld, has a transgender girlfriend. He said: "I do not think she should be working at the university. Trans people are a marginalised group in society and institutions simply do not care about trans people. People I love very much are trans and are clearly upset by Professor Stock. There is the matter of academic freedom but these things should have limits. If someone wanted to espouse racist rhetoric in a lecture hall, should they be allowed to because of academic freedom?"

The campaigns against Stock date back to 2018 when a consultation was launched over the Gender Recognition Act and whether people should be able to decide for themselves which gender they wanted to identify as, without the need for a medical opinion. Stock spoke out against it. There were death threats at the time and a spy hole was set up in her office door for her safety.

Earlier this year, she was awarded an OBE, and her book, Material Girls, which sets out her views on gender, has also been published. Since then, the attacks have intensified. Hundreds of academics signed an open letter condemning the decision to give her the honour.

Despite the backlash, Stock said: "I do not regret doing this. I admire everyone taking risks to speak out."

[Prayerful]

There's been many instances of that. Troons are angry, mentally ill men.

[MaximGun]

Just think of the fun we have in store as these freaks age.

Boomers made this age the hell it is and these freaks are far more screwed up than boomers.

Stock is a lesbian, so this is good news.  The revolution is eating its own children.

[Serendipity]

I think it is a disgrace that Government Ministers are compelled to step in and state that biological facts are not intrinsically "hate" crimes

PS I do not give a damn about Kathleen's sexual orientation - what goes on between the sheets is her business that she will have to answer for in the fullness of time - I do however give a damn that this argument seeks to undermine the family, biological reality and the movement towards the alienation of family from their children/siblings etc. ad infinitum.

[ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez]

I know of Savile Row, but I had never heard of Trans Row.

Just another place not to visit the next time I'm in London, I guess.