Why is Oxford indulging a lecturer who wears his plastic breasts at work?

Cross-dressing men are a cultural litmus test for tolerance: very funny when we are free to laugh at them, and bloody terrifying when we are not.

Oxford University biochemist Matt Rattley is the sort of man in a dress we are not supposed to snigger at. A tutor at the proudly inclusive St Hilda’s College, Oxford, he takes ‘bringing his whole self to work’ several cup sizes further, pairing a wispy beard and hulking frame with massive prosthetic plastic breasts. No one in his male-dominated department has publicly criticised his sexist sartorial choices, and he has been pictured and filmed at professional events looking as though he has wandered in from a stag do.

Of course, there will always be people who test the limits at work, but a confident employer ought to tell them to stop, especially an institution as venerable as the University of Oxford.

This is where personal liberty rubs up against the social norms and boundaries that protect us all. It is where JK Rowling’s famous ‘dress however you please’ entreaty to both truth and tolerance begins to fray. Rattley doesn’t claim to be a woman. He is just a man who wears low-cut frocks and a huge rubber rack. The question is not about his identity, or even his motivations, but whether his choices infringe on others.

The university clearly has a two-tier approach to what is deemed acceptable. While no one will tell Rattley to dress appropriately, academics who stray from the approved line on transgenderism have been investigated, disciplined and threatened.

Dr Ace North is a biologist who has found himself on the wrong side of Oxford’s inclusion inquisition. Recently, he was hauled into a meeting with human resources and branded ‘hateful’ by senior staff after questioning what he saw as the department’s increasingly overt ideological signalling, from Progress Pride flag displays to a ‘gender unicorn’ poster in shared office space. Commenting on this double standard, he said of Rattley on X: ‘As an employee of the university, I feel grossly insulted that this is tolerated, even celebrated, yet even mild criticism of gender-identity ideology is shouted down. I can’t imagine how young women in his classes may feel.’

The undergraduates Rattley tutors at Oxford are not children, but many are young and away from home for the first time. It is not unreasonable to expect basic professionalism and respect. Fellow Oxford professor Michael Biggs tells me there is ‘a strong case that Mr Rattley is creating a degrading and offensive environment, especially for female students, which would constitute sexual harassment’. ‘Adults should be free to explore their sexual interests in private with other consenting adults, but not to bring them to work’, he adds.

Dr Dionne Joseph, a clinical psychologist who has drawn attention to Rattley’s conduct, agrees. She described it as ‘highly anti-social, abnormal, boundary-violating, paraphilic’, and criticised the University of Oxford for failing to take action. ‘I see it as a form of (mental) sexual assault and institutional coercive control.’

Elite universities are always going to attract eccentrics and oddballs. Dr Victoria Bateman at the University of Cambridge has used public nudity as a USP in her campaigns to protest everything from Brexit to female modesty. But she doesn’t routinely turn up in the nude to teach.

Bateman’s exhibitionism may be uncomfortable and, frankly, weird – but it is also self-exposing in the most literal sense, placing her at personal risk. Male sexual display, by contrast, can read as an act of dominance. Rattley might as well mark his territory by pissing in the laboratory fume cupboard. He is clearly a man who enjoys pushing boundaries and, thanks to the taboo on kink-shaming and the institutional fear of ‘transphobia’, he has been indulged. And what ambitious student would risk making a complaint?

St Hilda’s was founded as a women’s college over a century ago, and prides itself on being ‘friendly, inclusive and welcoming’. Its equalities policies claim to tackle prejudice and promote understanding. Of course, the likes of Rattley are not expected to understand why wearing mock-ups of women’s anatomy might be insulting to female colleagues and students.

Ultimately, a university is not a stage, nor a fetish club. It is a place of learning, where young people ought to be able to study without being forced to navigate someone else’s exhibitionism. Oxford’s problem is not that it attracts weirdos. It is that it has forgotten how to say no to them. Regrettably, it seems Matt Rattley will be at liberty to display his plastic tits until university officials find their ovaries.

Jo Bartosch is co-author of Pornocracy. Order it here.