TV PRESENTER Lorraine Kelly has slammed a professor who resigned amid transphobia allegations.

The breakfast host interviewed Kathleen Stock after she stepped down from her role as a philosophy lecturer at the University of Sussex.

During a heated interview on ITV breakfast show Lorraine, she shut down the idea that Prof Stock had been “cancelled”.

While discussing cancel culture, Lorraine said: “You’ve not really been cancelled because you walked away from your job. You did resign. Why did you not stay? Because the university in the end supported you, didn’t they?”

She later added: “Again, with the cancel thing - you’re talking to me, you’ve been on Woman’s Hour. Your book’s been reprinted. You actually, in a way, have more of a voice now than you probably did before.”

The Argus: Professor Kathleen Stock on ITV's Lorraine Professor Kathleen Stock on ITV's Lorraine

The controversial professor has been repeatedly accused of transphobia over her views on gender identity, with a group of students actively campaigning for her to be fired.

The university said the institution would not tolerate threats to “academic freedoms”, but Prof Stock announced her resignation after “an absolutely horrible time” – 18 years after joining the institution.

Lorraine later took to social media after a viewer accused her of agreeing with Prof Stock’s views.

She tweeted: “I believe transwomen are women and transmen are men. Dr Stock doesn’t and we disagree on that.”

During the interview, Prof Stock claimed trans people often write to her to show support.

“They think it’s gone too far. They don’t agree with the campaigning groups speaking their name,” she said.

“As you’d expect, trans people are a diverse set of people with their own views. They argue with each other, so we should be able to as well.”

In response, Lorraine said: “It’s this thing of lumping everyone together – everyone is an individual and everybody is different.

“They’ve all got their ways of getting through life, which is all that we’re trying to do.

“We’ve been able to have a conversation, whereas I don’t agree with everything you’re saying at all. But that’s okay, because we can talk about it.”

The Argus: Protests at the University of Sussex Protests at the University of Sussex

Earlier this week, Prof Stock was offered the role of faculty fellow at the newly-founded University of Austin.

The institute said it is "building a university dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth."

On Twitter, Prof Stock said: "I accepted with alacrity. It's an exciting looking project, focused on free inquiry."

Speaking to BBC Radio Four's Woman's Hour, she claimed some academics at Sussex University may have fuelled protests against her.

"I don't know that the student activity would be there if the colleague activity hadn't been there,” she said.

"There's a small group of people who are absolutely opposed to the sorts of things I say and instead of getting involved in arguing with me using reason, evidence, the traditional university methods, they tell their students in lectures that I pose a harm to trans students."