THE University of WA has refused to bow to pressure to bar a controversial American doctor who says the transgender movement is based on ideology, not science, from speaking at one of its lecture theatres.

UWA said it had received “a large number of protests” from within and outside the university urging it to deny access to paediatric endocrinologist Quentin Van Meter, who is booked to appear on Friday at an event hosted by the Australian Family Association.

A student petition calling on UWA to cancel the event, which also includes the launch of a book on the movement’s legal consequences by Patrick Byrnes, has gathered nearly 5000 signatures.

An email sent to UWA students and staff yesterday said the speakers’ previously expressed views on transgender people were at odds with the university’s values of respect for human dignity and diversity.

But cancelling the event would create “an undesirable precedent for the exclusion of objectionable views from the campus”. “It would also give rise to arguments that the values we hold are supported by intolerant and repressive policies against those who do not share those values,” it said.

The email, signed by vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater and chancellor Robert French, said UWA’s executive was only informed of the booking this week.

UWA acknowledged concerns of those who did not want the event to proceed.

“Plainly it does not endorse the opinions of the speakers on any of the matters on which they are likely to speak,” it said.

Dr Van Meter said his talk on the transgender movement’s origins and how theory was trumping science would include his concerns that using puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria was akin to child abuse. “Transgender is actually a delusional disorder,” he said. “It’s a state of mind with no biologic basis for it that can be found.”

UWA student guild president Megan Lee said Dr Van Meter’s presence would be “deeply hurtful and traumatising” to some students.