A FEMINIST Oxford professor has been given security guards to protect her following threats from transgender activists.

Selina Todd, professor of Modern History at St Hilda's College, is accused of being 'transphobic'.

The international expert on women and the working class said transgender people 'harm the rights of women' and has been provided with 'routine security' after being alerted to potential threats to her safety by her own students.

She said in her research that women who posed as men in the past 'were often lesbians seeking to protect themselves'.

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Featuring on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, the professor said: "When I first heard about the threats the thing that worried me was that I knew from my experience of speaking at women's rights meetings that sometimes there had been attempts to disrupt those meetings.

"I was also struck that the university rightly I think did its own quick investigation and was convinced there was enough evidence to provide protection in the lectures.

"In the world today, democracy is under threat and therefore we all have to defend the right to freedom of speech and freedom of debate."