Oxford students call for feminist Kathleen Stock to be no-platformed at Union over trans views

Oxford University students have called for the gender-critical feminist Kathleen Stock to be no-platformed in “solidarity with the trans community”.

The university’s LGBTQ+ society has urged the Oxford Union to rescind its “misguided” invitation to the academic, who is scheduled to speak about her views on gender identity theory at the end of May.

In a statement posted on social media, the LGBTQ+ society said it was “dismayed and appalled” that the historic debating society had “decided to platform the transphobic and trans exclusionary speaker Kathleen Stock”.

It accused the union of “disregarding the welfare of its LGBTQ+ members under the guise of free speech”.

Ms Stock, 50, is a former philosophy professor who resigned from her post at Sussex University in 2021 after a campaign of intimidation by trans rights activists.

She is a married lesbian who argues that womanhood and manhood reflect biological sex, not gender or gender identity.

Ms Stock has said that the claim that “transwomen are women” is a fiction, and argued that spaces where women undress and sleep should remain “genuinely single-sex”.

Trans activists have labelled her views “hate speech” and accused feminist academics at other universities of transphobia for supporting Ms Stock.

Ms Stock, who is now a writer and visiting fellow at the University of Austin, Texas, said the statement from Oxford University’s LGBTQ+ society makes it look “utterly ridiculous”.

Society statement is ‘probably defamatory’

The statement, which also alleged she has called “for the exclusion of trans people from the LGBTQ+ movement”, supported conversion therapy, and supported “hate groups such as the LGB Alliance and Lesbian Project” contains “several falsehoods” and “is probably defamatory”, Ms Stock said.

The society alleged that the academic would “bring her campaign of hate and misinformation to Oxford”, shortly before “pride month and at a time when the trans community is facing a constant attack on its lives and rights”.

It added: “We call on the Union to rescind its misguided invite, and on all Oxford students to stand in solidarity with the trans community and express their dissent with these views.”

The Oxford Union said on Monday that it will reject calls to no-platform Ms Stock as it affirmed its commitment to free speech. However, it said that “welfare spaces” will be provided during the event.

Oxford Union ‘will uphold freedom of expression’

A spokesperson added: “The Union aims to challenge Professor Kathleen Stock’s views and provide a platform for members to question her beliefs in a ‘mini-debate’ format, where members will have an automatic right of reply to their questions, so to uphold the freedom of expression of our members as well that of Professor Stock.”

Oxford’s LGBTQ+ society is led by Amiad Haran Diman, a PhD politics student at Lincoln College, and Zoë-Rose Guy, a computer science student at Hertford College.

In a post retweeted by Mr Diman, Ms Guy said: “As an Oxford student, I view the Union in the same way as the rest of the world seems to view Oxford - a bunch of privileged gits vying to be the next PM, there to stroke their already massive egos. They cannot be allowed to throw trans people under the bus unchallenged.”

Mr Diman, who is the beneficiary of a scholarship scheme for Israeli students, has described himself as an activist for peace and democracy in Israel and is researching the roots and dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He has retweeted anti-monarchist posts and calls for MP Rosie Duffield to have the Labour whip removed over her gender-critical views.

The LGBTQ+ society said on Monday that it “stands by the opinions expressed in our statement”.

LGBTQ activists are ‘losing the argument’

Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, said: “For the past five years, LGBTQ activists have been refusing to debate gender critical feminists, claiming their views are ‘harmful’ and smearing them as bigots and TERFS [trans-exclusionary radical feminists]. As a consequence, they’re losing the argument in the public square and setting the cause of trans rights backwards.”

A spokesman for Oxford University said: “This event is being held by the Oxford Union which is an independent debating society and is not part of the university.”

He said that the university “does not support the no-platforming of any lawful speech at university events or on university premises”.