Tory equalities minister leaps to defence of anti-trans professor Kathleen Stock
Kemi Badenoch, minister for equalities, and Kathleen Stock. (Chris McAndrew/Official portrait of Kemi Badenoch)
Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch has defended anti-trans former Sussex University professor Kathleen Stock, insisting: “She is probably in step with the majority of the population.”
Stock, a professor who had faced weeks of anonymous student protests over her anti-trans rhetoric, resigned last week.
While the university’s vice chancellor maintained that he “vigorously and unequivocally defended” her expressing her anti-trans views, LGBT+ Sussex students celebrated and said trans and non-binary students would be “safer” on campus.
Now, equalities minister Badenoch has defended Stock, insisting she was “appalled at the way she was treated”.
She told the Sky News programme Trevor Phillips On Sunday: “I don’t think she should lose her job. I think that she has every right to hold the beliefs… I think she is probably in step with the majority of the population.”
Kathleen Stock’s “beliefs” include that she calling “many trans women still males with male genitalia“, and arguing for them to be banned from women’s single-sex spaces, something protected by the Equality Act 2010.
Badenoch continued: “What we in government are trying to do is show that we do believe that trans people should be free to live their lives as they wish, but where people see a conflict, and that conflict has tended to be around single-sex spaces and the definition of gender reassignment and how gender critical feminists, as they are known, believe that those rights are in conflict, what we can do in order to provide clarity.”
Addressing vital Gender Recognition Act reform, she said the government would do “everything we can to support trans people”, she added that “we do not think that goes as far as self-ID, we do believe that there should be a process to get a gender recognition certificate, and the process does mean involving medical professionals as well”.
Kemi Badenoch has met with LGB Alliance and ‘doesn’t care about colonialism’
Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch’s comments about Kathleen Stock are just the latest in a long list of horrifically bad takes.
Badenoch, who is responsible for “addressing the discrimination and inequalities that LGBT people face”, quietly met with the anti-trans hate group LGB Alliance last year.
She also declined to attend an inquiry into Gender Recognition Act reform, and has faced repeated calls to resign her post for “failing” LGBT+ people.
In September, Vice World News obtained a recording of Badenoch, made in 2018, a year after she had been elected as MP for Saffron Walden.
In the recording, Badenoch reportedly described trans women as “men using women’s bathrooms”, and asked: “We’ve got gay marriage, and civil partnerships, so what are transsexuals looking for?”
Later the same month, leaked WhatsApp messages showed the minister saying that she “doesn’t care about colonialism” and boasting that she almost made a critical race theory expert cry.
