An University of Oxford professor has said 'academic freedom' is under threat after being accused of running a transphobic Twitter account.

Professor Michael Biggs, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Fellow of St Cross College, made the comments after a story appeared in The Oxford Student newspaper on Friday which claimed he was using a pseudonymous twitter account to post offensive transphobic comments.

The account @MrHenryWimbush is registered to a Yahoo! email that is believed to be connected to Professor Biggs's official Oxford university email address.

One tweet from the account reads: “Transphobia is a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons”.

Screengrabs of tweets seen by The Telegraph also state that “the odd thing about transitioning is that it makes you LESS attractive”.

Professor Biggs did not say explicitly that the account - which was suspended yesterday afternoon by Twitter - belongs to him and he could not be reached yesterday for comment.

After he was approached for comment by student reporters, Professor Biggs published a statement on his website in which he outlined his stance on transphobia.

"It is not transphobic to discuss the merits of legislation or to debate theories about sex and gender. Dictionary definitions such as ‘woman: adult human female’ and ‘lesbian: female homosexual’ are not transphobic. Nor is it transphobic to call the convicted rapist Karen White—who was placed in a women’s prison—a man," it read.