Trans row professor criticises book stores

A PROFESSOR at the centre of a row with transgender activists has urged bookshop managers to “show some mettle” and display her work.

Prof Kathleen Stock spoke out after she was told that a member of staff at a Waterstones outlet did not want to have her book, Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, displayed too prominently.

“Any chance that bookshop managers could start showing some mettle by putting my reasonable and warmly reviewed book on display in bookshops?” Prof Stock wrote on Twitter.

The Sussex University academic has faced calls from students to be removed from her post amid accusations of “transphobia”.

The book published by Prof Stock, an expert in analytic philosophy, questions the idea that gender identity is more “socially significant” than biological sex.

She has also previously questioned the notion that men who feel like women should have automatic access to female-only facilities such as changing rooms.

She denies claims that she is a transphobe.

Julie Bindel, a veteran feminist, also said her book Feminism for Women was “nowhere in sight” when she checked out five branches of Waterstones in London.

“But when I asked if they have it in stock, they all said ‘yes’, and got it from the back. What a disgrace,” she tweeted.

A group of pro-transgender activists described Prof Stock online as “one of this wretched island’s most prominent transphobes, espousing a bastardised variation of radical feminism”.

Prof Stock, who has received death threats over her views, is being backed by the university. Police have advised her to install CCTV at home.

Waterstones said that both Bindel’s and Prof Stock’s books were being treated “like any other”.

A spokesman said that they were “available in many Waterstones shops and at waterstones.com, with stockholding reflecting current demand”.