A University of Oxford professor has cancelled a series of lectures discussing gender law after pro-trans activists interrupted the first two talks and hurled abuse at him. The Mail has more.
Michael Foran, an Associate Professor of Law at the university, was interrupted by demonstrators while attempting to deliver the lectures at Keble College.
Dr Foran was using the lectures to discuss the themes in his new book Sex, Gender Identity and the Law, which looks at how the history of sex changed within the law and what this means for single-sex spaces, freedom of expression and privacy.
The first incident on May 29th saw two activists walk to the front of the lecture hall as Dr Foran prepared to begin, and address the audience in front of his lectern.
Video footage from the ‘How Sex Changed’ talk showed the man reading a statement claiming Dr Foran “masks his transphobia behind a thin veneer of academia”.
The protester added: “If you are here in a critical capacity to challenge his ideas… that is not the same as refusing to platform him. He will not be convinced by your arguments. Please join me in walking out and refusing to platform this bigot.”
The clips posted by feminist author Julie Bindel – who was sent them by a disgruntled student – show the same two activists disrupted a second lecture on ‘Single-Sex Spaces’ last Friday. But on this occasion, the audience shouted at them to leave.
After the duo had gone, two more protesters who seemed to have planted themselves in the audience stood up and carried on the demonstration before being escorted out.
Dr Foran, 32, delivered both talks despite the interruptions at the start – but has now decided to cancel his remaining two lectures on ‘Gender Critical and Gender Identity Belief’ this Friday and ‘Sexual Assault by Deception’ on June 19th.
The professor wrote on X yesterday: “Due to escalating disruptive protests, I have decided to cancel the remainder of these lectures.
“This is deeply lamentable, but the disruption has undermined the academic nature of this series. Students shouldn’t face bullying or harassment when attending academic events.
“It is unfortunate that these protesters have chosen disruption over genuine intellectual engagement grounded in academic charity and rigour.
“In attempting to shame students into deplatforming these lectures, they manifest the antithesis of what a university stands for.”
Dr Foran later shared a recording on X of the ‘Single-Sex Spaces’ lecture without the disruption.
He wrote: “Before this lecture, protesters disrupted the event for about 10 minutes. I’ve chosen not to include the recording of this disruption because it is my view that it distracts from the academic nature of the lecture series.
“I have made the decision to cancel the remaining lectures in the series as I cannot guarantee for attendees, including students, that further disruption won’t occur.”
The events at Keble College’s HB Allen Lecture Theatre, which can seat up to 120 people, were open to students and the public.
Reform UK’s Education Spokeswoman Suella Braverman said what had happened was “unacceptable” and that she had written to Oxford Chancellor William Hague “urging him to investigate this matter and put in place the measures to enable these lectures to proceed peacefully”.
Worth reading in full.
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The grown-up thing to do is to let the speaker express their thoughts, and then demolish them with convincing counter-arguments. Even if you don’t change the speaker’s mind, at least you furnish everyone else present with both sides of the argument, so that they can then make up their own minds. This kind of censorship merely demonstrates the protestors’ lack of conviction and sense of inadequacy.
But of course, these morons are utterly puerile, and have no valid arguments. They behave like toddlers throwing tantrums.Long gone are the days where universities fostered proper debate.
No.
Free speech is freedom to have their own lectures.
They engage in disrupting other peoples’ events because no one but their supporters want to listen to them.
That is because they don’t have convincing arguments.
Generally normal people ie. not the deranged, aren’t interested.
Maybe the good Professor’s mistake is to hold a public lecture instead of a public debate.
Online search – Lectures and public meetings
Pro-trans / trans-affirming lectures, talks, public meetings, awareness events – at least 11 – These are easy to find: trans-history lectures, trans-inclusion events, EHRC/Supreme Court response meetings, Trans+ History Week events, workplace/health/inclusion sessions.
Academic/legal/policy events addressing contested sex/gender issues in a more analytical or adversarial way – about 3 – These are much rarer in the search results. The clearest example is Michael Foran’s Oxford lecture series on sex, gender identity and law; it was reportedly disrupted and partly cancelled.
Examples on the pro-trans/trans-affirming side include York’s Before Gender LGBT+ History Month lecture, the Trans Day of Remembrance Lecture at the People’s History Museum, a Susan Stryker Trans Lives, Histories and Activism* lecture, Trans+ History Week events, and several Eventbrite-listed public events such as Everyone is Trans, Telling Trans History, Transphobia, racism & the rise of fascism, an EHRC draft-code emergency meeting, and a Trans Inclusion in a Changing Landscape talk.
On the more legal/contested-analysis side, the strongest examples I found were Foran’s Oxford series Sex, Gender Identity and the Law, UCL’s Current Legal Problems lecture Understanding Gender and Sex in the Shadow of Law, and the Battle of Ideas North 2026 session Women and gender: Supreme Court ruling, one year on. Foran’s series is especially relevant because it was explicitly about single-sex spaces, freedom of expression, privacy, sport and sexual intimacy, and was reportedly cancelled after repeated disruptive protests.
Provisional ratio: on this search pass, roughly 11 pro-trans/trans-affirming lecture or meeting events to about 3 analytical/legal/contested events — about 3–4 to 1. If counted by individual Foran sessions rather than series, the ratio narrows slightly, but the public search landscape is still weighted towards trans-affirming/advocacy events.
Pro-trans protests and demonstrations v demonstrations againstCategory
Minimum identifiable examples found
Pro-trans protests/demonstrations – at least 40+
One post-Supreme Court wave alone was reported as 38 demonstrations planned across the UK and beyond. Add London Trans+ Pride 2025, Brighton Trans Pride, Tower Hamlets Trans+ Pride, and later emergency demos.
Gender-critical / sex-based-rights / anti-gender-identity-policy protests – about 4–7 clearly identifiable – I found examples, but far fewer publicly reported or indexed instances than pro-trans demonstrations. Some additional events appear on social media but are harder to verify cleanly.
The strongest single figure is The Independent’s report that, after the April 2025 Supreme Court ruling, 38 demonstrations were planned, including across the UK and one outside the British embassy in the Netherlands.
Large pro-trans demonstrations were also reported in London and Edinburgh, and London Trans+ Pride 2025 was reported by its organisers and by press coverage as drawing over 100,000 people; its own site describes it as a grassroots community-led protest.
On the gender-critical/sex-based-rights side, I found the For Women Scotland rally outside Holyrood in September 2025, Let Women Speak/Kellie-Jay Keen-related rallies or events in Aberdeen, Bristol, London and other locations, and social-media-reported Women Won’t Wheesht/Let Women Speak counter-protest situations.
The Holyrood rally is the best-documented example in mainstream reporting; some other examples are visible mainly through local media, image agencies or social platforms.
Provisional ratio: for protests/demonstrations, the public record I found is much more lopsided: at least 40 pro-trans demonstrations/events versus roughly 4–7 gender-critical or opposing-policy demonstrations. That is somewhere around 6:1 to 10:1, depending on how strictly one counts social-media-only examples.
Bottom line
On public-source evidence, pro-trans/trans-affirming activity is much more visible and much more numerous than events presenting the legal, evidential, women’s-rights, single-sex-space, or child-medicalisation issues in a balanced or adversarial format.
For protests, the imbalance is stronger: the post-Supreme Court mobilisation alone produced a reported 38-demonstration wave, whereas I found only a small number of clearly reported gender-critical/sex-based-rights demonstrations.
Conclusion: ordinary people don’t really give a shit about trans ‘rights’.
They are more concerned about the facts that:
As you can see, normal people have far more engaging worries than which toilets chicks with dicks can masturbate in.
And the university disciplined the disrupters?
But of course, immediately, so that future lectures could continue uninterrupted!…or not.
Boot them out if they can’t behave civilly. And tell us their names. How come so many of these gender botherers are plug ugly?
Name and shame the disruptors.
No. Don’t give them publicity.
I’m guessing the person on the left in the picture is the man. I’m pretty sure my man boobs are bigger than his.
How dare you! I am not a man, I am a Thing and I waste oxygen. I also know everything (what person of that age doesn’t? ) so you must obey my ill-considered whims or I will skweem and I’ll swkeem.
As a philosopher, I wonder which is morally worse: wasting space or wasting oxygen?
This establishment appears to have a problem with discipline. Students exhibiting such appalling manners should be expelled – not hard.
Students that do this need kicking off their courses with no refund. If you don’t like it, don’t listen.
Expulsion seems a proportional response. They already know everything anyway
Screams of Heresy! HERESY! HERESY!
Thus, Oxford “University” steps further into the New Dark Age.
Interesting point about the Loony Left in this FaceBook video.
Its easier to scream for free this and that and this and that right, than it is to be disciplined and take the difficult decisions.
Yes lets have freedom for everything and free everything.
I would much rather we could defend our country and our borders first.
Do you notice how Labour, the Greens and LibDems are always bleating about welfare and freebies? The new thing is help with energy bills from the LibDems instead of abolishing Net Stupid Zero which is totally illogical.