Eddie Izzard’s award speaks to the sexism of trans

Try to get your head around this: Sussex University has given Eddie Izzard an honorary doctorate. Yes, the university from which Kathleen Stock was so viciously hounded for saying men aren’t women has decorated a man who pretends to be a woman. The university at which a feral mob of trans extremists persecuted Professor Stock for the blasphemy of saying women’s biology matters is now gushing over a bloke who wears fake tits. The university where real women are punished for speaking the truth falls at the feet of a hulking fella whose claims of womanhood are entirely fake.

And there it is, the misogyny and hypocrisy of the trans cult, for all to see. It was for his work as an ‘actor, comedian, activist and philanthropist’ that Eddie – or ‘Suzy’, as he likes to be called – was given his honorary doctorate. He’s thrilled, not least because he grew up in Sussex, meaning this place ‘holds a special place in my heart’, he says. I bet it feels a little less special to Stock, the professor of philosophy who resigned from Sussex University in 2021 after suffering a storm of abuse and even death threats for her radical belief that people with cocks aren’t women.

Sussex University was fined a record £585,000 by the UK government’s Office for Students (OfS) earlier this year over its shabby and frankly shocking failure to defend Stock’s liberty of conscience against the campus mobs who harried her. The uni’s governing documents fail to ‘uphold freedom of speech and academic freedom’, said the OfS in its stinging judgement. They certainly failed where Stock was concerned. Simply for opposing gender self-ID and saying men can’t be lesbians – a universal truth till about six years ago – Stock was menaced by mobs of frothing protesters and her craven university failed to stand up for her.

The mob called for her sacking. Some called for her death – one social-media post showed a man holding a gun alongside the words: ‘Kathleen Stock rest your weary head.’ Stock described it as a ‘medieval experience’ and said she started to feel unsafe on her own campus. You know who does feel safe there? ‘Suzy’ Izzard. He picked up his honorary doctorate in his wig and plastic breasts and the same people who spat bile at Stock were likely cheering. Welcome to Sussex, where philosopher women fear to tread but blokes in comedy boobs win awards.

The sexism of it all is undeniable now. I’ll put it plainly: if yours is an institution where it’s a risky business to defend lesbian rights but it’s fine and dandy for a fella to call himself a ‘woman’, then you are lost to misogyny. You can call it ‘trans rights’ and ‘Be Kind’ until the cows come home, but the brutal truth is that you have created an environment in which standing up for women is perilous but masquerading as a woman is celebrated. Is Sussex University institutionally misogynistic? It will say it isn’t, of course. But I, for one, need a tad more convincing.

And this isn’t just campus insanity. Witness the glee with which mainstream media outlets are referring to Eddie Izzard as ‘Suzy’ and ‘she’. Even the Daily Mail says Izzard was recognised for ‘her charity work’ – his charity work, guys. The BBC is fully on the Suzy bandwagon. ‘Suzy Izzard has received an honorary doctorate… for her work’, it says. I trust the BBC’s ‘disinformation correspondent’, Marianna Spring, will be all over this. After all, she’s rained judgement on people who dislike ‘15-minute cities’ or who say hyperbolic things about mass immigration, so surely she’ll have a word with her own bosses for falsely calling a bloke a lady. Now that’s disinformation.

It’s time for some truth. Eddie Izzard is a man, blokes can’t be lesbians, and it is shameful that universities and the media fall at the feet of men in dresses while sneering at women with beliefs. A society that elevates the feelings of men over the rights of women has entirely forfeited the right to be considered fair or equal or even rational. It is a testament to the lunacy of our times that even a high seat of learning like Sussex will refuse to tolerate a woman who states scientific facts while fawning over a man who says ‘Call me Suzy’.

Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His new book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy