The Times- Kathleen Stock: professor in trans row splits Labour and Tories

Kathleen Stock: professor in trans row splits Labour and Tories

October 14th 2021

Kathleen Stock says fake Twitter accounts had been set up to attack her

Nicola Woolcock, Education Editor | Eleni Courea

Wednesday October 13 2021, 12.00pm, 

A senior Labour figure has criticised an academic at the centre of a transphobia row while the Conservative universities minister has condemned abuse of her as “illiberal madness”.

Taiwo Owatemi, a shadow women’s minister, criticised Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at Sussex University, for her involvement in the LGB Alliance, a charity which says it “defends the rights of gays, lesbians and bisexuals whose rights in law are based on sexual orientation not gender identity”.

Owatemi agreed with the University and College Union, which has backed students who accuse Stock of transphobia. The students have called for Stock to be sacked.

In a letter to a feminist group in Coventry, Owatemi said that the lecturers’ union had made a “strong and principled request that the university live up to its own trans equality statement”.

She added: “While I’m not familiar with Professor Stock’s philosophical writings, I am greatly concerned by her work as a trustee for the LGB Alliance.”

Owatemi said that the alliance should be “rejected by all those who believe in equality” as it opposed reform of the Gender Recognition Act, did not want adolescents to be prescribed puberty blockers and “rejects the existence of non-binary people”.

She added last night: “I was clear in this letter that I was not passing judgment on Professor Stock’s academic work, and did not call for action to be taken against her.”

Writing for today’s Times Red Box, Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, said: “Something fundamental seems to be changing at the heart of our world-class institutions. Where once we had debate and critical argument, we increasingly have physical threats and often complete intolerance of all opposing ideas.

“The threats made to an academic at the University of Sussex are particularly harrowing — and show quite clearly why the government needs to legislate to help end this illiberal madness.

I find it completely deplorable that an academic is having to be protected by the police due to threats against her physical safety for her views, while she contends with a toxic campaign on social media.”

Hundreds of academics have come out in support of Stock, saying that attacks on her are part of a “pernicious erosion of academic freedom”. Two campaigns gathered momentum yesterday. More than 1,100 people, mainly university staff, have signed a statement of solidarity with the professor.

Academics including Selina Todd, an Oxford history professor, and Rosa Freedman, a law professor at Reading University, who have also been subjected to attacks, signed the statement, which says: “The targeting of a highprofile individual such as Professor Stock . . . is one of the symptoms of a pernicious erosion of academic freedom and freedom of expression that has happened on university campuses in recent years, especially (although not exclusively) in relation to discussions of sex and gender identity.”

A second petition was organised by two academics at Sussex University, seeking support from philosophers. It was signed by about 150 academics from universities across the UK.

Cambridge University’s students union has published a guide entitled How to Spot Terf Ideology, which accuses some feminists of being “transphobic” or linked to the “far right”. Written by the new women’s officer, Milo Eyre-Morgan, the guide accuses so-called trans-exclusionary radical feminists, of “a deep hatred for trans women”, Mail Online reported.