Kathleen Stock on BBC Woman's Hour today

[Justme56]

Just seen this on twitter.

@ExcessivelyDisorganised

Going to listen later, thanks for posting. I was at the Sussex Uni Open Day last month when there was a demo by masked, hooded, protestors. They were handing out flyers with highly defamatory (and badly written) statements about Prof. Stock, no contact details of course. It was noisy and intimidating even though I was fully aware that it might happen. Needless to say my DC won't be applying there, in fact couldn't get off campus fast enough even though the course sounded excellent.

I would love you to write to Sussex and tell them that your dd would not dream of applying their due to the treatment of Kathleen Stock.

I think they need to hear that students are being put off

@KnightonShiningArmour

I’m sorry! I stand corrected! I completely misheard!

Easily done.

I was a bit surprised because Bottomley turned out for the recent LGB Alliance conference which was courageous of him but all's well now.

@lanadelgrey

So who was he referring to ie who is the honorary doctor who spoke out against KS?

I don't know. I had a look at the list of notable recipients, and I saw Shami Chakrabati on there who might be a contender iykwim.

I doubt it's Richard Dawkins. Or Paul McCartney.

@nettie434

As an addendum, Sir Peter Bottomley MP is being interviewed on World at One about Owen Patterson case. I'd just like to add, he said, that Sussex Uni should withdraw the honorary doctorate from the person who called Professor Kathleen Stock transphobic. I don't know who he's referring to but it shows that it's becoming much more common to question the threats she's received.

Oh I'm so pleased!

I had it on in the background and wasn't listening, I heard him mention Kathleen Stock, and I thought he was against her, so pleased to hear he was backing her!

I've submitted my (positive) feedback. Such a relief that WH are finally covering this issue after studiously ignoring it for so long.

Grace Lavery apparently did a Master's at Sussex. Might they have accrued an honorary doctorate from there?

I've already told DS he's not getting a cent of help from me to do
a postgraduate degree at Sussex or any of the other malignant intellectual shitholes of note.

Happily, he agrees. He doesn't need to be paying good money to look at any more power point biology slides referring to 'the gender of organisms' and 'the gender of mammals'. In the UK. They may as well be teaching creationism.

@fibs

Thank goodness that Women's Hour are airing this issue at last. I missed the start of the interview so I'm not clear why she has resigned. She had previously said that she felt she had been well supported by Sussex University through this so I'm not sure if they can shoulder any blame. I do hope that Women's Hour continue to look at these issues. So many people I talk to are unaware of them.

In the interview she spoke about the harassment on campus, posters and stickers everywhere slandering her name, and over 3 years of colleagues (although not within the philosophy department) trying to tarnish her reputation and turn students against her. She spoke about how Sussex Uni is a closed campus and how she can feel people looking daggers at her as she walks across campus. She said another tipping point was when the union turned against her and effectively made a statement in support of her harassers. The university may have made supportive statements recently, but had not necessarily done enough over the last few years when colleagues have been publicly slandering her, trashing her reputation online, and organizing students against her - there should have been consequences for that years ago, before it escalated to this point.

For some reason on a university campus this is tolerated - but imagine going to any other workplace: an office, a school, a building site, etc. and seeing your name plastered all over slanderous posters at every corner, with people yelling that you should be fired, your reputation being trashed online, and everyone staring at you as if you're some kind of Disney villain. I can't imagine how shit that would feel.

Bravo Kathleen.

It is really quite useful to hear the interview and then the trotted out mantras and cliches at the end, it's impossible to hear those and not think... you what??

I hope the academics who instigated this campaign of bullying are shitting themselvs now.
But Im evil, so...

So happy they are having a baby. Lovely.
Yes indeed, to Prof Stock and wife, so pleased they have something 100% amazing to look forward to whatever else is going on.

Also particularly chuffed to hear about her getting positive feedback from former trans student recently. Whoever you are, you did a good thing getting in touch at this time, must be reassuring for the professor.

I listened to the Stonewall statement about working to ensure that all LGBTQ+ people feel safe and comfortable at work and thought how utterly they’d failed lesbian Prof Stock. Wankers!

I find Peter Bottomley's comments fantastic, when you consider that Stock has been abandoned by the Left, with Taiwo Owatemi actually criticising her.
It makes me think of that wonderful sketch in the Mitchell and Webb experience where 2 nazis start to think that they might be the bad guys. Except, of course, Labour (and the Greens, and Lib Dems) will NEVER learn.

I saw on Twitter it was Liam Hackett, dunno if it’s true

@JoodyBlue

The thing that really strikes me is she and the other academics who have the same courage are standing up for the right of all students to say 2+2 = 4. This is never highlighted in interview. It is always painted as one generation against another. The reality is that I suspect there is a large percentage of the student population silenced on a issue they want to question themselves. There are very few people standing for their right to think. Prof Stock is one. These women are epic! If they lose, we lose the right to think, it is very stark isn't it?

You have no idea just how important this aspect is. I thought that those references to 2+2=4 were symbolic, merely quoting Orwell. It wasn't until I listened to a podcast about the attempts to deconstruct other sciences in the same vein as biology that I realised just how vital those academics, scientists and thinkers standing up for stating objective truth will be for us.

There really are people (by which I mean academics) out there arguing that 2+2=5 and anyone who disagrees is a bigot.

That's what KS was up against. That's what we are up against.

Here

Peter Bottomley is a very brave and honourable man. When the Peace Process first started I went to see Martin McGuinness speak. Bottomley was among the people on the platform. Not many Tories would take that risk. So I'm not too surprised he has spoken out in defence of Professor Stock.

@BettyFilous

I listened to the Stonewall statement about working to ensure that all LGBTQ+ people feel safe and comfortable at work and thought how utterly they’d failed lesbian Prof Stock. Wankers!

Yes.

Seeing again this creep towards 'LGBTQ+ is not a characteristic shared by widely diverse people but is a name for a political position. LGBTQ+ people not sharing that view are other, and not entitled to the letters or protections or support from the charities claiming to represent them'.

Which means, essentially, having bounced all the LGBTQ+ out of LGBTQ+ who don't hold that political position, the lobby groups representing them can give the impression that all LGBTQ+ people hold these views and want these things and that LGBTQ+ people are being heard and supported. Instead of it actually being a political group who has successfully disenfranchised and hidden the voices of LGBTQ+ people who have other needs, opinions, politics and views.

Thanks for the heads-up. I deleted the WH podcast as it had clearly lost its way. I've just re-installed (and I note that Kathleen is named in the descriptor).

As others have said, she's everything I'd have valued in a university lecturer and exactly what I'd want for my children: intelligent, informed, decent, measured. I have a copy of her book so I'm now just wondering who I should buy copies for.

@YearsSinceISawYou

Peter Bottomley. Was a man ever better named...a total arse!

So Sorry, Peter Bottomley-I'm another who misunderstood. You are not an arse!

@ExcessivelyDisorganised

Going to listen later, thanks for posting. I was at the Sussex Uni Open Day last month when there was a demo by masked, hooded, protestors. They were handing out flyers with highly defamatory (and badly written) statements about Prof. Stock, no contact details of course. It was noisy and intimidating even though I was fully aware that it might happen. Needless to say my DC won't be applying there, in fact couldn't get off campus fast enough even though the course sounded excellent.

We were at Sussex open day and saw the demo too. We didn't find it threatening - it felt rather toothless to us - the demonstrators were standing in a straight line and even with the chanting and the masks looked a bit lack lustre. DD's take was that they're idiots, but have a right to demonstrate. She made a good point, as the University can't and shouldn't stop students demonstrating - if she'd seen them being silenced, that would have put her off far more. Threatening and agitating for violence against Kathleen Stock would of course be very different, but the leaflet we picked up wasn't saying anything like that. I wish I'd kept it now!

@littlbrowndog

Here

Ah, Liam, I don't give a shit about the opinions of a man who has a public sulky tantrum about not being allowed in to a mammogram waiting room where vulnerable women are in a state of undress and tries to shame them to let him in. Jog on.

@ClawedButler

Sickening, isn't it.

Woman bullied because she objected to sexism.

Interesting letter in last week's Private Eye from a transwoman. Saying that there isn't a debate, and there shouldn't be a debate, trotting out the "my existence is not up for debate". Mind you, if my ideology was incredibly shaky and depended on the subjugation of other groups, I probably wouldn't want to subject it to the scrutiny of debate either.

There isn't a debate and there shouldn't be a debate - he is right.

TW exist, they should be able to express their unprovable and nonsensical inner sense of gender any which way they want, so long as there is no attempt to deceive others, they should have exactly the same rights to single sex spaces as any other man. It really doesn't need debate.

@Aber77 Did it feel ok to you or your daughter that they would call for a lecturer to be fired because they didn't agree with her views? Setting the bar at agitating for violence seems to allow for an awful lot of unacceptable behaviour.

I wasn't there but it smacks of mob-rule. And the mob has ruled.

I support freedom of speech, but in the same way as we legislate to prevent protestors surrounding abortion clinics for example, I think it is reasonable that there are some limits places on where and how you can protest and maybe that includes at someone's place of work.

Kathleen getting huge support on Twitter from a lot of people many blue ticks 💪