When her OBE was announced in December 2020, Kathleen Stock – then a philosophy professor at the University of Sussex – said she was “delighted to get this award in recognition of my attempts to open up academic discussion on important issues around sex and gender identity”.
Stock had been a specialist in aesthetics, with relatively little public profile, until 2018. A blog post opposing Theresa May’s promised reforms to gender recognition legislation changed that, gaining her attention within wider academic circles. She has since become a fixture of media discussions about free speech in academia, arguing that so-called ‘gender critical’ voices are being suppressed.
But Stock’s commitment to free speech – and that of her allies – has been questioned by students at Sussex and beyond, who have found themselves subject to online abuse, facing legal threats, and risking their careers in academia after criticising ‘gender critical’ views as transphobic.
