After an intervention by the Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF), three colleges at the University of Cambridge have amended their free-speech codes and reaffirmed protections under the Equality Act 2010 for students with gender-critical beliefs, including those concerning the importance of biological sex in law and everyday life.
In December 2025, CAF wrote to the Vice-Chancellor raising concerns about the treatment of gender-critical students, including Christ’s College student Thea Sewell, one of the founders of the Cambridge University Society for Women (CUSW), a student society advocating women’s sex-based rights and the only openly single-sex society for women at Cambridge.
Sewell, a second-year philosophy undergraduate, experienced sustained hostility after fellow students discovered that she had attended a talk by Dr Helen Joyce and read Joyce’s bestselling book, Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality – copies of which, incidentally, are also available in the College library. Returning to Cambridge for Easter Term, she mentioned the book to another undergraduate who had expressed an interest in politics and suggested she might find it worth reading.
Within days, relations within her college community began to deteriorate. A fellow student heard about her thoughtcrime, discussed it with others, and confronted her in a shared kitchen with the McCarthyite question: “Are you a TERF?”
Thea owned “some gender-critical books”, she said. Thea had been to a Helen Joyce talk, she added. Thea owning books by bigots was “the same as being a bigot”, this representative of one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious universities concluded.
When Thea rang the original friend to ask what was going on, she was put on speakerphone, with others listening in. The denunciation, when it came, was delivered in a tone completely different to anything she’d heard from her friend before. Thea was a “bigot” (a go-to word for some at Christ’s, it would seem, and one that invites an obvious question about projection) and everyone deserved to know her “hateful views on trans people”.
Most of her friends ceased contact. Apparently, they couldn’t be seen with her for “social optics”. Messages even arrived from members of her philosophy cohort telling her that her views were “completely reprehensible”.
Around the same time, the Junior Common Room circulated an open letter “in support of trans students” which, though it didn’t name her, many students took to imply was about her, and that whatever she’d done must have been so heinous, so discriminatory, that it couldn’t “just” be about her choice of reading matter.
The ostracism became so severe that Sewell returned home for several weeks. During her absence, fellow students speculated about whether she had taken her own life. None contacted her to check on her welfare.
On her return, she felt unable to use the shared facilities in her accommodation without encountering hostility. So she was moved to another room in a different building, and had to transport her belongings during the night so as not to be seen. When she went back one final time – again under cover of darkness – to collect what remained, she discovered the derogatory slur “TERF” had been scratched into her door.
In our letter to the Vice-Chancellor, we pointed out that gender-critical belief is a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010 and that conduct directed at Thea and her CUSW colleagues because they hold such beliefs may therefore fall within the University’s own definitions of harassment and abusive behaviour.
We also noted that the University’s Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech, together with the Rules of Behaviour for students and the Harassment and Sexual Misconduct procedures, already contains clear provisions prohibiting conduct that interferes with lawful speech or creates an intimidating or hostile environment for members of the University community. On that basis, we asked what steps Christ’s, in particular, had taken to enforce those policies and ensure such conduct was recognised and addressed.
The letter also raised concerns about inconsistency between colleges. Accounts provided to CAF by Sewell and others suggested that students known to hold gender-critical beliefs may receive markedly different levels of pastoral support depending on their college and the stance taken by individual tutors or senior staff.
We therefore asked the University to explain how its freedom-of-speech duties are embedded in practice across the collegiate system, including what students are told about their rights during induction, how concerns about interference with lawful speech can be raised, and how such concerns are recorded and monitored.
Relatedly, we identified inaccuracies in several college Codes of Practice on Freedom of Speech, which incorrectly stated that the Office for Students’ free-speech complaints scheme was already operational. As a result, students consulting those codes were being directed to a route of escalation that does not yet exist, without clear guidance on the alternatives available.
In its response, received by CAF in March, the University confirmed that Christ’s, Newnham and Lucy Cavendish – the three colleges associated with founder members of CUSW – have now updated their Codes of Practice on Freedom of Speech to remove the incorrect references to the OfS scheme. It also confirmed that the colleges have engaged with their student communities to reaffirm the rules governing freedom of expression and harassment, including in relation to protected characteristics such as philosophical beliefs.
You can watch CAF’s interview with Thea about her experience here.
CAF Research Manager Freddie Attenborough has also written about her case for The Critic here.