On September 16, 2024, Dr. Victoria Bucholtz, a MRU history professor, became known to the world. This is because Dr. Bucholtz was one of the participants in a struggle session with Jennifer Johnson, an Alberta MLA. In this interaction, Bucholtz demanded that Johnson state that “trans women are women”.
In January 2025, Mount Royal University celebrated Bucholtz’s accomplishments.
A year earlier, Bucholtz appeared on “The Breakdown” and discussed how Bucholtz approached trans issues in class and how it was inappropriate to refer to women as “biological women”, as “cis women” was the right term. Bucholtz also posted videos of doing a “black swan” routine, where a member of the audience was assaulted, and when Bucholtz was getting a tatoo that read DBD [“death before detransition”].
Bucholtz’s appearance on “The Breakdown”, led Widdowson, in February 2025, to invite Bucholtz to participate in a discussion about whether excluding men identifying as trans women from women’s sports was unfair. Before participating, Bucholtz asked Widdowson to state that “trans women are women”. Widdowson asked Bucholtz to define “women”, and Bucholtz refused further engagement because Bucholtz claimed that Widdowson was engaging in “word games”.
In August 2025, Frances Widdowson was invited by her gay friend and alumnus of MRU, Morrigan, to march with him in the pride parade. Widdowson was shooting a documentary on universities and academic freedom, and was investigating whether universities sponsoring pride had an impact on open inquiry and critical thinking. This led to the creation of a banner asking the question “Should Universities Sponsor Pride?”. Widdowson was not going to be criticizing any aspect of LGBTQ activism at the parade.
Before Widdowson and Morrigan even arrived at the “staging area”, they were accosted by Bucholtz who called security because Bucholtz said that Widdowson must be removed because she was a residential school denier and engaged in “hate”. Bucholtz would not answer any questions about how Widdowson was engaged in this.
on September 2 and September 4, Bucholtz then posted Twitter threads claiming that the filming being undertaken was “transphobic” and “anti-indigenous”, when Widdowson had never said anything of this nature. Bucholtz also made the accusation that there was an attempt at “filming children”, when all that was being recorded was a public drag queen story hour, and it was planned that the children’s faces watching the public event would be blurred.
Widdowson needed to post a response on her own account, as Bucholtz had blocked her.
