Trans activists fail to shut down Edinburgh Uni’s pro-biology book launch

A book launch at the University of Edinburgh has gone ahead despite attempts at intimidation by trans activists.

‘Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader’, edited by Professors Alice Sullivan and Selina Todd, addresses the importance of biological sex from a range of perspectives, including medicine, law and literature. One of its essays is written by Kathleen Stock OBE, who was hounded out of her post at the University of Sussex by trans activists.

Before the event, the University and College Union promoted a planned protest, while the Staff-Student Solidarity Network accused the book of attempting to give “a respectable scholarly veneer to purely ideological views that put trans people in real danger”.

‘Assaulted’

The book launch reportedly attracted around 70 protestors.

It’s incredible to think you can be assaulted at a book launch.

Marion Calder, co-director of campaign group For Women Scotland, claimed: “Women who came along for a book were crying because their legs were being grabbed by people as they tried to get by the barrier. It’s incredible to think you can be assaulted at a book launch.”

But speaking to a student journalist after the event, Prof Todd said they wrote the book because of such activists who have been “busy intimidating those of us who believe lawfully that sex exists and matters”.

“So we thought it was important to restate what some of those truths and to show the evidence behind those truths.”

Biology

Last year, LGBT activist protestors shut down an Edinburgh University screening of a documentary upholding the reality of biological sex.

‘Adult Human Female’, made by filmmakers Deirdre O’Neill and Mike Wayne, was due to be shown at a lecture hall in George Square, but the university cancelled the screening over safety concerns, after students prevented attendees from accessing the hall or an alternative venue.

The University of Edinburgh Academics for Academic Freedom rescheduled the event for April, but it was cancelled over a second demonstration backed by the University and College Union.