Woke mob can’t silence academic in trans row

KATHLEEN Stock warned against the ‘propaganda machine’ gripping British institutions as a woke mob attempted to disrupt her speech at the Oxford Union.

The feminist academic braved hundreds of screaming protesters to deliver her address at the debating club yesterday.

Her speech had been the focus of one of the biggest free speech rows to ever engulf the institution, with activists labelling her ‘transphobic and trans-exclusionary’ in an attempt to have the event cancelled.

But despite their best efforts – including one protester glueing themselves to the floor inside the debating chamber – Professor Stock, 51, was undeterred. She even defended the rights of those who attempted to silence her.

She told the audience: ‘I didn’t mind that protest. But what I find more worrying is when institutions have listened to the protesters and then basically become propaganda machines for a particular point of view... Then everyone else in that institution feels that they can’t say what they want to say.’

Officers rushed into the 200-yearold debating club when Riz Possnett, a self-professed ‘gobs **** ’, stuck themselves to the floor of the auditorium. Two others handed out leaflets and shouted ‘trans rights are human rights’ and ‘no more dead trans kids’ in a bid to disrupt the event.

After a 24-minute delay, five police officers removed the protester to applause from those within the chamber. The transgender activist gloated to the Mail that they were de-arrested and released ‘under further investigation’.

Speaking to attendees, Aberdeenborn Professor Stock said that those who think trans people are not violent ‘should speak to a criminologist’.

Arguing that trans women who were born male should not be able to access female-only spaces, she said: ‘In changing rooms where women are, we are supposed to [protect them]. It is a risk of a man saying he is a woman and going into a space and taking advantage of that.’

Before the event there had been warnings that many hundreds of activists would try to disrupt the event. But an underwhelming crowd of just 200 gathered outside the debating chamber.

Professor Stock quit her job at Sussex University in 2021 after being targeted by activists for saying biological sex cannot be changed. She received death threats and a hate mob plastered the campus with posters accusing her of ‘transphobia’.

A small group of counter-protesters, some carrying suffragette flags, confronted the activists yesterday.

Hilary Baxter, 64, said: ‘I’m just shocked that we are having to fight for woman’s rights in the 21st century.’ Former carer and mother-oftwo Rebecca, 60, said she came because Professor Stock has ‘suffered great injury personally and professionally and I know she was nervous about coming here today’.

Oxford University’s vice-chancellor Irene Tracey previously defended the right for Professor Stock to speak as a matter of ‘freedom of speech’. It comes amid a rise of ‘no-platforming’ that has seen high-profile speakers banned from holding talks on campuses, often at the 11th hour. They include former home secretary Amber Rudd, who was dis-invited by an Oxford University group over links with the Windrush Scandal.

‘I didn’t mind that protest’