New Year Honours - Professor Stock, OBE

Congrats Doc! And Molly - thanks for the link to the Hines thread. Outstanding.

a woman is anyone who is oppressed. On her theory woman is a term you want to get rid of - no one should be a woman

Silly sally is right. What a daft idea. Is she so much of a 'big deal' that nobody will tell her she's talking mince?

As for Scotland - eurgh. I apologise. I really hope that as the woke pioneers here push things too far, we'll also be one of the first places to robustly challenge the nonsense .

Woke = same old misogyny repackaged.

Scotland is truly the land of the woke - not sure why happened over the last 30 years.

I hope she sues.

What I find so weird is these "philosophical researchers" can't even be bothered to research or read what Kathleen Stock actually says.

They just fabricate their hot takes based on some out of context screenshots that US PhD students have misrepresented because they don't understand UK laws and have zero cultural awareness of the fact that in the UK, trans people have the same rights as everyone else in law.

Do they think the general public can't see through their lies and misrepresentations?

As Professor Stock tweeted, they completely misrepresented her stance on the GRA in the letter:

"I've just read bit where they say I'm "well known" for my opposition to GRA - except that I am actually against repeal of the GRA, and am definitely pro retention of protection of gender reassignment under Equality Act. But details, right?"
twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1346505244243603457?s=20

"If you are going to slander me to colleagues
@jIchikawa and @lastpositivist
can you not even get the basic details about my view right? (You won't see this obviously, because you blocked me months ago as potentially harmful to your presumably delicate eyeballs)."
twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1346505868813234177?s=20

It's just really depressing to see people in trusted positions completely lacking in basic integrity. At least so far it's mostly foreign academics signing (who patently don't have a clue what's going on here) and a handful of blokes from UK universities - mainly Scotland.

‘woman is anyone who is oppressed’ - what a silly sally... and there’s money in spouting balloon juice is there? 🤪

Look at all those men lining up to tell a female professor to stop talking about women's rights and biological sex as the root of women's oppression. Like we haven't been here before. Yawn.

Academic philosophy used to be my field and it’s so embarrassing to see open letters like this. One of the signatories , Sally Haslanger, is a big deal. What’s interesting is she is famous for her revisionary definition of woman - a woman is anyone who is oppressed. On her theory woman is a term you want to get rid of - no one should be a woman. She thinks for instance that the queen isn’t a woman because she suffers no oppression. I’ve always thought her theory is kind of pointless because it isn’t how we actually use the word woman, and no one will change it to mean this. And why call oppressed people women? What does this even achieve? I guess it makes feminism all about everyone, which is very male pleasing I suppose. But I just wanted to chime in to point out that loads of people in philosophy have been sick of this childish nonsense for sometimes. It’s not what I think philosophy should be about.

I hope Keira Bell gets one next year for what she has done to protect vulnerable children.

Oh, are some of these people students? I see.

Arabella I think maybe that’s a bit generous calling them a ‘bunch of philosophers’.
Unless I became a part of bunch of by doing my undergrad degree..?

I googled a couple of UK signatories and they’re not anywhere near Stock’s peers or experience level. Also, even if a handful of senior academics did sign it, that’s fine they have views, they don’t like her, but a silly letter like this is hopefully nothing for prof Stock to lose sleep over. Nobody who signed this was arsed to write an actual rebuttal to anything she’s said, they just added their names and their institutions (but no personal job title ) in a signally way..

No use asking me! How many angels dance on the head of a penis?

:)

Does a soul have a sex though?

Hm. I suppose plenty of people believe in souls. That is about the only way that I can see this stuff making any kind of internal sense. Gendered souls, sexed bodies. Of course, anyone is free to believe in souls, but I don't think we should base legislation on ideas about the state of anyone's soul.

Because... it’s magic isn’t it? I used to blame JKR for the nonsense belief in magic (and lack of critical thinking) by the young ‘uns who were brought up on Harry Potter.

Totally, ThatIs. Surely there must be somebody who argues this stuff in a clear, logical manner? All those gender-studies departments and doctorologies in woo. Someone has to have a decent argument?

Interesting list. I keep seeing gender studies type areas popping up. Laugh? I almost did...

I’d love to actually see a tantrum well thought out argument with facts... just once...

Predictably, a bunch of philosophers have written a really thrilling open letter condemning transphobia and Professor Stock's OBE. It's just as vague and bleugh as you'd imagine.

sites.google.com/view/trans-phil-letter/

'Discourse like that Stock is producing and amplifying contributes to these harms, serving to restrict trans people’s access to life-saving medical treatments, encourage the harassment of gender-non-conforming people, and otherwise reinforce the patriarchal status quo' - I'm not clever enough to have a degree, but even I can tell this is utter bollocks. Highly disappointing that these people who are presumably qualified in thinking have signed such a silly letter.

plus every celebration icon we have here!

Wonderful news! So thoroughly deserved, no less for her courage as her great intellectual contributions.

Ooh.. quick! Scrub it from your bios Christine Hunt MBE who was a key figure in Press for Change! Take it out as the key scene from your tv documentary, Captain Hannah Graf MBE (and 2019 Stonewall Trans role model of the year)!
www.stonewall.org.uk/people/trans-role-model-year-2019-captain-hannah-graf
Pulp your biography ‘The First Lady’, April Ashley MBE! (who was discriminated against for lack of same sex marriage which resulted in Corbett v Corbett legal case, which then influenced the UK to bring in the Gender Recognition Act in 2004)..

I think it’s fine for people to accept or refuse political honours as suits their politics (and fine for others to comment according to theirs, so long as critics do not threaten anyone or stop others from speaking out peacefully and within the law).

I take the awarding of this OBE to Prof Stock as a helpful sign that (at least) the freedom of speech aspect of this debate is being thought about by the government. Congratulations again to Prof Stock for the award and congratulations to her for using her Twitter feed very effectively to highlight the institutional-level silencing, personal threatening and harassment on social media and and deplatforming from public and professional debate that’s been happening to multiple other female academics who have also tried to talk about how these issues affect women.

Congratulations. Well deserved.

Yeah, free speech and women's rights are 'fringe interests' to some, I guess.