Thea Sewell: ‘I was ostracised for my views on the sex-gender debate at Cambridge University’

The founder of Cambridge University’s controversial women’s society claimed she was “systematically ostracised” by her peers as a result of her views on the “sex-gender” debate.

Writing for The Telegraph, Thea Sewell explained how her stance “that biological sex and women’s rights must trump gender identity” resulted in people, who she had previously viewed friends, being unwilling to speak to her.

Before arriving at Cambridge, Thea was under the impression the university was “a place where everything was up for discussion”. However, after she raised ideas she had taken from Helen Joyce’s book “Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality” and Kathleen Stock’s “Material Girls”, Thea recalled being told: “Buying books written by bigots was morally equivalent to being one.”

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It wasn’t long until Thea was experiencing what she deemed to be “social exclusion”. Speaking on what “unsettled” her the most, she said: “Friends told me they still cared about me but could no longer be seen with me in public: The optics were wrong, the risk too great.”

Thea explained: “Many told me they could no longer speak to me because of my views. I was branded a Terf (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) and the word was scratched into the board on my door.”

However, Thea did end up finding a like-minded person at Cambridge University. She recalled meeting two women at a Helen Joyce talk, who then visited her college and offered companionship.

Alongside fellow students Maeve Halligan and Serena Worley, Thea founded Cambridge University Society of Women, a group that defines gender “in terms of biological sex”.

The society has since been branded “transphobic”, with Thea noting incidents of the group members being shouted at in the street or photographed without permission.

Recently, Thea reported an incident where she was refused service at a London pub due to her “gender-critical” views. The pub has since apologised and admitted Thea “should not have been barred on the grounds of her views”.

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In December last year, Cambridge University’s Students’ Union (SU) reluctantly approved the Society of Women, claiming it was legally obliged to do so despite believing the group “contradicts” its ethos.

As part of a statement, Cambridge SU Student Community and Societies sabbatical officer, Olivia Ledger, said: “We value, support and celebrate trans-inclusivity” but explained it is the SU’s “role and legal responsibility […] to register all eligible societies – even if they contradict [our] ethos”.

President of CUSW, Maeve, previously told The Cambridge Tab her thoughts on the approval: “We are very pleased that the SU registered us at the conclusion of what was a very busy term for us. They unfortunately felt it necessary to upload articles to their website providing explanations for why they did so.

“The SU purports to represent all students, but this unusual treatment of an openly and proudly women-only society, that they perceive as challenging to their ‘ethos’, raises questions about how they can truly claim to do so”.

The Cambridge University Society of Women’s emergence also influenced a statement from Gender Agenda, Cambridge’s Feminist Collective, which said: “Trans women are women” and that “feminism without intersectionality is not effective, considerate, or productive”.

Speaking on behalf of Cambridge University Society of Women, Maeve said: “CUSW is an openly and proudly single-sex society for women studying at Cambridge. The backlash we have faced and the SU’s abnormal treatment of our society only emphasise the necessity of our existence: when a women-only space is met with hostility simply for being single-sex, that space becomes more necessary than ever. Women’s right to single-sex association is clearly under attack.

“We champion freedom of speech and have built a space where it thrives. Calls for us to be banned or left un-registered are, in effect, calls to curtail our rights to free speech and association. We do not call for other societies to be banned, as we believe that universities should be places where differing viewpoints coexist and are debated civilly.

“CUSW has stress-tested a growing problem across UK universities: A system of suppressing those who question supposedly dominant beliefs or offer alternative views, across issues beyond only gender and women’s rights. Deplatforming and cancellation harm the entire university community. Disagreement is essential to learning – censorship is not.”

Cambridge University and Cambridge SU have been contacted for comment. 

Featured image via Unsplash and Instagram @cusocietyofwomen