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The protester who glued themselves to the floor during Professor Kathleen Stock‘s speech is a former Oxford University student and an ardent republican who wants to abolish the Royal Family and once jumped security to pose on the King’s bed.
Riz Possnett, 19, staged an outlandish protest during a talk by the gender critical academic last night by gluing themselves to the front of the stage while wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: ‘No more dead trans kids’.
It comes just weeks after Possnett – who uses the pronouns they/them – appeared on Piers Morgan: Uncensored on TalkTV, arguing for the abolition of the monarchy, whom they called ‘parasites’. Possnett was also pictured kissing their partner, eating snacks and reading a copy of Prince Harry‘s Spare on the King’s bed at Windsor Castle after jumping the security rope earlier this year.
And the activist, who walked free after last night’s stunt, clashed with Lady Victoria Hervey and Dan Wootton on GB News during a debate in which they said ‘I don’t care’ what happens to King Charles following threats of disruption to the Coronation.
Despite claiming on their social media of being ‘working class broccoli’ Riz’s background is anything but working class. They enjoyed an incredibly privileged upbringing with wealthy businessman father Robert, who is himself a climate zealot.
Student activist Riz Possnett wore a T-shirt emblazoned with ‘No more dead trans kids’ and appeared to glue themselves to the floor in front of Prof Stock
Possnett, who was pictured after being forcibly removed from the talk, said: ‘Trans lives and rights should not be up for “debate”, but the Union did not even provide that’
Posnett (pictured right alongside Greta Thunberg) has jetted around Europe protesting climate change
Possnett was pictured kissing their partner, eating snacks and reading a copy of Prince Harry’s Spare on the King’s bed at Windsor Castle
Before studying at Oxford, Possnett attended Hockerill Anglo-European College in Hertfordshire, which charges up to £14,682 a year for high school boarders.
As well as Hockerill Anglo-European College in Hertfordshire, they were also for a period a pupil at the £41,000 per year Li Po Chun United World College in Hong Kong – which previously schooled politicians, artists and musicians from around the world.
Mr Possnett, of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, is an activist with Extinction Rebellion and he tweeted to praise his child’s disruption yesterday.
Robert, 61, is no stranger to arrest for selfish and disruptive protests having spraying red paint on the Guildhall in London before bragging he is ‘looking forward to my day in court.
His child has jetted around Europe protesting climate change alongside Greta Thunberg – and helped bring London to a standstill with anti-Brexit marches and marches against Donald Trump.
Despite the regular global carbon-emitting flights this involved at 15 Riz – under their original name – helped found the UK Student Climate Network activist group and organised the YouthStrike4Climate which saw thousands of students across the UK walk out of class.
Around the same time, pictures on social media accounts show Riz enjoying sunny holidays in apparently glamorous and exotic overseas destinations.
Riz would spend summers at their parents’ £850,000 six-bed detached cottage with a swimming pool in an upmarket Suffolk village.
It comes as Posnett frequently clashed with Morgan during a TalkTV debate ahead of the Coronation earlier this month, describing the monarchy as a ‘juxtaposition between modern Britain and what that looks like, and this archaic, weird set of institutions that just doesn’t sit right with that.’
After a fiery exchange, Morgan insisted it had been a ‘good exchange’ although his guest vehemently disagreed.
Morgan told Possnett: ‘Go back to Oxford and count yourself lucky with your privileged education.’
Possnett and their partner jumped a security rope to pose on the bed in March earlier this year
Activist Roz Possenett (right) was removed from the venue by police after glueing themselves to the front of the stage
Possnett bit back: ‘You’re insane. Shut up.’
‘You’re one of the most privileged women in the country. Right up there with Prince William,’ Morgan told Possnett as the interview concluded.
The following week, they appeared alongside Lady Hervey to debate the arrests of anti-monarchy protesters at the King’s Coronation.
They claimed attempts from the socialite to ‘belittle’ them were ‘so extremely deluded’.
They also referred to her as ‘completely dim’ in a tweet following the show on May 10.
In March, Possnett was pictured posing on the bed first constructed for King Charles II in 1670.
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Following the stunt, their partner Imogen told The Mirror it was ‘playful’ and ‘a bit silly’, adding: ‘People of our generation are done with bowing and curtseying to this family.’
On their Twitter, Posnett brands themselves as an ‘activist, student, professional light-speed gobs***e. trans and proud’.
Riz Possnett and Piers Morgan clashed when they appeared a debate about Not My King protests
During yesterday’s protest at the Oxford Union, trans rights campaigner refused to budge as officers were forced to use tools to prise the activist of the floor.
Eventually Possnett was removed by police, who were applauded by those in the assembly.
When press caught up with Possnett outside the 200-year-old venue, the student simply said they had been ‘de-arrested’ before refusing to answer more questions.
Possnett later took to Twitter to explain the reason for protesting at the event, stating: ‘I did not attempt to prevent Kathleen Stock from speaking. Whilst I believe her speech is dangerous and hateful, she is entitled to exercise her right to free speech.
‘I chose to exercise my own Article 10 and 11 rights to peacefully protest this speech.
‘Trans lives and rights should not be up for “debate”, but the Union did not even provide that.
‘My goal was to show the other side, to ensure everyone who listened to Stock’s talk also considered the dangerous consequences of those views for trans people.’
Prof Stock braved hundreds of screaming protesters to deliver her address at the debating club today.
Her speech had been the focus of one of the biggest free speech rows to ever engulf the institution, with activists labelling her ‘transphobic and trans-exclusionary’ in an attempt to have the event cancelled.
But despite their best efforts – including one protester glueing themselves to the floor inside the debating chamber – Prof Stock defended the rights of those who attempted to silence her.
She told the audience: ‘I didn’t mind that protest. It wasn’t traumatic for me.
‘But generally what I find more worrying is when institutions have listened to the protesters… and then basically become propaganda machines for a particular point of view.’
Around 200 trans rights protesters gathered at Bonn Square, far fewer than the 500 organisers had hoped to attract.
Riz Possnett appeared on TalkTV to debate about whether the monarchy should be abolished
Professor Kathleen Stock (right) gave a talk at the Oxford Union, which was marred by protests. Activist Riz Possenett (left) appear to glue herself in front of the stage
Professor Stock vowed to give her talk last night, despite promises of a large protest from trans rights activists
The held banners which read ‘resisting by existing’ and chanted ‘trans rights equal human rights’, before marching towards the 200-year-old debating society.
About five minutes into the event, two trans activists emerged from the audience waving rainbow flags and threw leaflets before they were drowned out by shouting from the crowd – who clapped and cheered as security pulled the pair out.
Police attended the event and began trying to remove Possnett, who was eventually freed from the floor.
The officers were applauded as they entered the chamber.
Several audience members then began shouting for the professor to ‘carry on’ in spite of the protester.
One supportive student yelled, ‘free speech is a human right,’ and was met with a large round of applause.
Speaking to attendees, Professor Stock said that those who think trans people are not violent ‘should speak to a criminologist’.
Arguing that trans women who were born male should not be able to access female-only spaces, she said: ‘In changing rooms where women are, we are supposed to do stuff [to protect them] and when we took males out as we did before, it was on the assumption that some males are predators.
‘We are not doing that as a society. We are supposed to care about women.
‘It is a risk of a man saying he is a woman and going into a space and taking advantage of that.’
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
