Burn the book!
18th October 2023
“I don’t know too much about the book or the event, except the fact that many people who are in the gender studies and are well-educated, and queer studies have condemned the contents of the book; I trust their condemnation.”
So said a member of the University of Edinburgh’s academic staff when interviewed by a student journalist at a protest on the university campus last week. He was protesting the launch of Sex and Gender: a contemporary reader. Edited by Professor Alice Sullivan and Professor Selina Todd, it is published by one of the world’s largest and most prestigious academic publishers. Guests to the university were forced to clamber across protestors who not only sat in front of the barriers and refused to move, but grabbed guests’ ankles and legs to try to stop them reaching the venue, whilst chanting “Shame on you” and “Go home”. In one incident, the member of staff quoted above appeared to thrust his groin in front of a gap in the barrier, in what looked like an attempt to stop an older woman, escorted by security guards, from reaching the venue. Other protestors laughed and chanted as she picked her way through the jeering crowd and past a sign saying “FUCK TERFS”. The member of staff would later post accusations on Twitter/X that he’d been kicked, pushed, trodden on and shouted at, along with other accusations for which no evidence seems to exist.