Professor Kathleen Stock has come under fire for her views on transgender women. Photo: Clara Malden for The Daily Telegraph
Rishi Sunak said Professor Kathleen Stock has a right to be heard as he encouraged students to share the views of feminist scholars, even if they disagree.
Professor Stock, who believes that transgender women are not women, is set to attend an event at the Oxford Union on Tuesday night, but her invitation has drawn backlash from trans activists.
In a rare intervention in the freedom debate words on campus the prime minister told The Telegraph that a few loud voices should not be allowed to end debate and that universities should support, not stifle, contentious discussions.
He said. : “A free society requires free debate. We should all encourage respect for the ideas of others.
“The university should be an environment where debate is encouraged, not stifled. We must not let a small number of votes close the discussion. Kathleen Stock's invitation to the Oxford Union must stand.
“Agree with her or disagree, Professor Stock is an important figure in this debate. Students should be allowed to hear and discuss her views.”
He added: “A tolerant society is a society that allows us to understand those with whom we disagree, and nowhere is this more important than in our great universities. ”
Freedom of speech under threat
The quarrel that engulfed Oxford University has become emblematic of a wider debate about free speech in society
In the coming days, the Prime Minister intends to announce Professor Arif Ahmed from the University of Cambridge as Director of Freedom of Expression. freedom of speech and academic freedom, charged with stopping scholars from abandoning the platform.
Security measures are understood to be in place for Professor Stock's appearance as protests are planned.
Union is a private member' club, which Oxford University students and others pay to join. It is independent of the university and the student union. It stated that its members would have “an opportunity to respectfully participate and challenge”; Professor Stock's views on the event, as well as the ability to ask questions anonymously.
More than 40 scientists, including Professor Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, and Professor Nigel Biggar, a theologian, wrote to The Telegraph earlier this month, in which he supported the appearance of Professor Stock.
Oxford University later intervened to protect free speech. The University's Students' Union said it would ban the Oxford Union from the Freshmen's Fair, accusing the historic debating club of a “toxic culture of bullying and harassment.”
The Students' Union, however, has changed its stance. after the university reminded its trustees of its free speech policy.
In a letter to The Telegraph, one of the university's provosts told students they should be prepared to “face and resist difficult views, including those which they find disturbing, extreme, or even offensive.”
More than a hundred Oxford students later said in a letter that those at the university who wanted to silence free speech “do not speak for us.”
Over the weekend, a separate group of Oxford academics and staff signed a letter saying, that opposition to Professor Stock's visit is not a matter of free speech, and it is argued that withdrawing the invitation “does not prevent them from speaking.”
There was dissatisfaction on both sides
Professor Stock said on Monday that she was “moderate” and that her opponents -transactivists were extremists, demanding to cancel the event.
In an interview with ITV's Good Morning Britain, she said: “In order for us to have freedom of speech, we need to be able to talk about it.
“Of course I'm causing an upset. The position I am fighting against is very upsetting: you have male rapists in women's prisons: this is very upsetting.
“You have kids who transition, do things with their bodies that they can’t get back: it upsets their parents. You have a huge number of women who can't talk about sex-based rights in their workplaces because they feel overwhelmed: it's frustrating.” about gender identity, saying, “We have to talk about things that are upsetting, because those are the moments where pressure groups and activists will try to steer the conversation in a certain direction.”
Gender differences have been around for centuries.< p>During an interview, Ed Balls, a former secretary of labor and one of the speakers, laid out a scenario in which he asked her, “Why would you want to tell a vulnerable young 21-year-old that he can’t be a woman because you decided he couldn’t is it allowed to be a woman?
Professor Stock said: “The world has decided as evolution has decided. It is crazy to think that just because I make some distinctions in categories that have existed for centuries and exist in every natural language, I decide who becomes a woman. No, I am describing the world I see.
“I think we need words to describe the differences between men and women because they have a social meaning.”
Professor Stock will also appear in the documentary “Gender Wars”, which will be aired on Channel 4 Tuesday at 10 p.m.
Mr. Sunak's comments come amid widespread public debate about transgender issues.
Last week, The Telegraph reported that the former executive the director of the trans charity Mermaids referred the children to the Tavistock National Health Service Gender Clinic, despite their doctor repeatedly refusing to do so, and despite the fact that she was unaware of it. medical education.
And British Cycling banned trans women from women's competition, prompting one trans cyclist to accuse the body of “assisting genocide.”
Police made three arrests over the weekend in Hyde Park after trans activists clashed with organizers of a gender-critical event.
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