Following that first blog, Stock was interviewed in the Brighton Argus where, discussing single-sex spaces such as changing rooms, she noted that the vast majority of trans women retain male genitalia. “This is a fact,” she says, “but it was treated as the worst thing I could possibly say.” (Stock’s friend, Professor Mary Leng, calls such a statement of unacceptable truth a “reverse Voltaire”: ie “I agree with what you say, but I’ll fight to the death to prevent you from saying it.”) “That’s where everyone at Sussex’s ears pricked up.”
From what a pp has said, I understand that if you're not in academia, you won't see how things work, but to the outside world, it's massively undermining of academics and the entire system if they approve of censorship. Especially censorship of something which the rest of the world completely agrees with.
Perhaps they thought that the rest of the world would never be aware of their desire to shut down reality. Fortunately, now we are.
I hope they never live it down.
Frustration and outrage is a gimmee in this fight to maintain reality, I can't imagine how it would feel when it becomes so personal.
What a brave woman.