Trans activists are hounding women out of public life

The New Year Honours list included an OBE for Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex. Recognised for her services to universities and the higher education sector, Stock’s achievement was something that should have been celebrated by fellow academics. Instead, hundreds of her peers wrote an open letter denouncing her and many activists began to harass her. Why? Because Stock believes that people cannot change their sex.

This might sound like just another row between academics that has no relevance to the outside world. But it is emblematic of a much wider – and more sinister – phenomenon: the hounding of women who dare speak out on trans rights. Across our public institutions women are being harassed and, in some instances, fired for not adhering to the new gender identity orthodoxy.

It is possible that you may have heard Stock’s name mentioned alongside other female professors like Selina Todd and Alice Sullivan for the simple reason that they have appeared in the press following spats about being ‘cancelled’ or ‘de-platformed’.