A talk by a controversial US academic has been cancelled by the University of Western Australia on safety grounds after students protested against the transgender sceptic.

American paediatrician Quentin Van Meter, who is known for denying much of the science around transgender people, was scheduled to speak at an Australian Family Association (AFA) event on the campus this evening.

UWA had initially declined calls to cancel the event, citing freedom of expression, despite protests by students.

In a statement today, the university said the event had since been cancelled because the organisers did not provide risk assessment paperwork in time.

"We have been advised the risk surrounding the event has been elevated to a higher level, which mandates a more robust event management plan," it said.

However, organisers "were unable to provide the requested information to meet the venue hire conditions", resulting in the cancellation of the talk.

UWA said the decision to cancel the talk was based on safety grounds. ( ABC News )

The university said it "holds firm on the principles of freedom of expression and maintains its position that it does not wish to set a precedent for the exclusion of objectionable views from the campus".

It comes after UWA's social media pages were inundated with protests and a petition calling for the event to be cancelled secured more than 5,000 signatures in a matter of days.

Dr Van Meter is president of the American College of Paediatricians (ACP), a small conservative group known for its opposition to gay marriage, gender reassignment, abortion and premarital sex.

He has regularly denied proven science surrounding transgender people, instead saying they are simply delusional.

The ACP is listed as a hate group by the US not-for-profit Southern Poverty Law Centre due to its views on LGBTI people.

Freedom of speech concerns

A spokeswoman for the AFA said the association was disappointed by the university's decision.

"We are disturbed at the denial of freedom of speech in a place of academic learning," she said.

UWA Student Guild president Megan Lee welcomed the cancellation but said the official reasoning made it bittersweet.

"We are very relieved that the event is not going ahead, especially for the safety and wellbeing of our trans students on campus, but we are disappointed the reasons were administrative," she said.

"We would have liked to see the university hold true to its values and policies in support of the LGBTIQ Plus community.

"We want to make clear to the university that students in the Student Guild do not believe that there is a place for hate speech on campus."

Ms Lee said respect for freedom of expression did not oblige UWA to provide the group with a platform.

"This is very much a place of academic learning and freedom of discussion, but that requires that we're rooting our science in facts and reputable sources of information," she said.

"The AFA and Dr Quentin Van Meter is very much basing his decisions on pseudo-science and a university is not an appropriate place for those discussions."

Omar Khorshid says the AMA is opposed to Dr Van Meter's views. ( ABC News: Alisha O'Flaherty )

The Australian Medical Association of WA said it did not agree with the American College of Paediatricians' views on transgender issues, describing them as "archaic, outdated and completely contradict(ing) most reputable research in this area."

"We do not want to shut down discourse on these topics, and universities are the best placed institutions to discuss conflicting ideas," AMA WA president Omar Khorshid said.

"However, these messages are anti-health, devoid of any robust evidence and could ostracise an already vulnerable group of people."