Prospect Magazine: Kathleen Stock v Robin Moira White

At the other end of the spectrum, while I look female, I sound male as I have done little to alter my speaking voice, as it is something I rely on in my job as a barrister

This the exact quote. The interpretation being put on it by some posters here actually displays a quite astonishing degree of sexism and prejudice.

In a profession which now has over 50% female entry and good female representation at lower courts and tribunals ( higher courts have a wee bit to go) do posters really think the courts care more for "manly gravitas" than a well argued and presented case?

Can you (general you) not see what a sexist spin you've put on this?

I meant to say male children, obviously many girls begin puberty much earlier than that.

However, had it been an option for me not to have endured male puberty, then I would not face this difficulty, which is one reason from personal experience why I support tht being an option for trans young people who are sufficiently mature to take that decsion.

Given that many children begin puberty before theage of twelve/ thirteen, how many would you think have the mental maturity to undertake treatment which will render them infertile and may even result in never experiencing sexual fulfillment?

However, had it been an option for me not to have endured male puberty, then I would not face this difficulty, which is one reason from personal experience why I support tht being an option for trans young people who are sufficiently mature to take that decsion.

Someone who has not been through puberty means they are prepubescent. Prepubescent. A child.

How can any child, anywhere, at any time understand the implications of a lifetime of infertility, a compromised, if not non existent, sex life, and being dependent upon drugs and/or treatment for the rest of their lives?

And you appear to be basing this opinion on your voice being too deep??

Good lord.

One of the many dis-incentives for trans people to engage publicly with any form of discussion, is the general vileness we are exposed to on forums such as this, which go far beyond comments on the substance of what we say. Reading the thread above are comments about my appearance and my professionalism, for example, most of which are just plain spiteful. Feminists who have my respect dont deply such tactics.

But if those who do think tht is a tactic which is likely to win hearts and minds, then carry on. I wont be adopting it - I just pity those who do.

RobinMoiraWhite

I've asked for my first post to be deleted as it's unfair to you.

When I first read the comment I took it to mean what you have just said and what NoNotMeNoSiree also posted.

I'm afraid I started doubting myself after all the posts putting a quite different interpretation.

I worked with a nationally recognised voice coach but to raise the pitch of my voice sufficiently left me in a position where to produce enought power to hold a court room was too much of a strain. We are all different and the same might not be true for another transwoman.

The relevant vocal-cord tightening operation has a number of associated risks and I decided that they were risks too far.

I see that this thread, particularly in the early pages is full of those who wish to judge my appearance. Well, my experience is that I dont get misgendered when I am seen as well as heard, and I will live with that.

However, had it been an option for me not to have endured male puberty, then I would not face this difficulty, which is one reason from personal experience why I support tht being an option for trans young people who are sufficiently mature to take that decsion.

NoNotMeNoSiree

When I first read the comment I took it the way you did. There's then post after post going on about "male gravitas" etc.etc.

That's really not how a court or tribunal works.

I've just said that I find it quite an extraordinary comment if that is how Robin meant it, but I agree your interpretation makes much more sense.

I took @robinmoirawhite 's comment about voice and power to mean that to have it altered would affect her voice strength wise, which wouldn't be good if you use it a lot for work.
Nothing to do with being male pitch which others are jumping to.
I find it fascinating how people' s minds interpret the same things completely differently.

I don't expect RMW to be aware of that discussion

I would expect that the author of a book that covers related issues to should be aware of the methodological flaws and matters arising even if unaware of the specific and related discussion on a social media forum that the author frequents.

We have had self-declaration in the workplace since the 2010 Equality Act came into effect and industry hasn’t ground to a halt, nor have service providers experienced any real difficulty. One US study found that laws in Massachusetts that allow transgender people to use public toilets and changing rooms in accordance with their gender identity have not impacted on safety as measured by criminal reports.

We discussed that study on this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3994546-stats-on-attack-on-women-by-men-self-identifying-as-women?pg=4

I've linked to page 4 where Kantastic explained some of the methodological issues with that study in a number of comments, starting 15/08/2020 at 00:00. (continued onto page 5 and 6).

I then went into more detail in this comment on page 12:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3994546-stats-on-attack-on-women-by-men-self-identifying-as-women?msgid=99299061#99299061

showing that in 6 out of the 9 localities studied, the law changes had taken effect less than 12 months prior to the fieldwork, the laws were not actual self-id laws but rather aspirational bylaws on equality for all that would have gone largely unnoticed, and that the data collection differences between localities did not allow any comparisons to be made that were statistically sound.

I don't expect RMW to be aware of that discussion, but didn't want to let this claim go unchallenged. The study provides no evidence at all that self-id laws will not impact on women's safety and should not be cited as doing so.

It's worth looking at the rest of this edition of prospect magazine. Some other interesting articles on cancel culture, no platforming etc which some ppl on here are intereste in. Something by Jeanette Winterton, something by malala.

Thanks Robin for doing this interview.

"And perhaps a greater proportion of trans people face discrimination than those with protected characteristics such as race or sex."

Robin knows this isn't true as this is exactly the reason Robin has chosen to retain theit male voice.

Robin says ‘[transwomen]... are accepted into the female diaspora’

This diaspora comment? Surely that works out as Robin saying transwomen are accepted into male spaces? Which is hardly surprising....

Suggesting that a properly carried out, successful legal challenge created the “muddle” is about as ridiculous as it gets.

Rather like women raising concerns with the GMC over offenses so serious that the offender is suspended - second most serious possible penalty - is framed as a wholly unreasonable targeted campaign out of sheer cussedness by stupid women

and women making FoI requests to gain information on decisions made by responsible bodies and thereby exposing inconvenient facts that mess up the political lobby agenda is 'abusing the process' and another wholly unreasonable action by stupid women.

Women not doing what they're told and acting vigorously to co operate in their own oppression get called every name under the sun by this really rather deeply misogynist political movement.

Instead, the legal intervention midway through the process left the results of the census in a muddle.

Oh yeah.. That's right. The 'muddle'!! When prominent activists announced on social media how they just lied on their census papers .... yeah.... I remember.

So. We know how really reliable the data collection was, and how it would have been unreliable in any case. Almost like a subset of society doesn't want to acknowledge their biological reality and expects the census interrogators to make some sort of algorithm that will introduce even more errors into the data because of it.

Interesting questions, Purgatory.

Part of the problem I see, even if research is done, is that there are still relatively few men claiming they are women and using that claim to gain access to women’s spaces. In addition, many women never report sexual assault when it occurs, for various reasons. Even if predatory males abuse the privilege of being allowed to use opposite sex spaces (which by their nature, they will) the number of reported assaults are likely to be small enough to mean that it will take a long time to collect enough information to prove the change is statistically significant.

Of course, some misogynists argue that if it takes ages to prove statistically that allowing males in women’s spaces increases harm to women, then those harms are barely worth mentioning, ergo women should put up with it. But of course to the individual women affected, the harm is hugely significant.

And that, of course, is if you only count active physical harms. If you look at psychological harm… well Robin strongly implied that a male voice on a telephone line in a domestic violence shelter would be inappropriate, presumably on the grounds that would likely be harmful. And yet there are men who claim they are women now in many such spaces, both on the staff and claiming they are victims. Perhaps Robin can confirm a belief that those males are acting inappropriately?

From the article:

A better solution would have been to “reverse engineer” data on biological sex where it is genuinely needed by using the gender identity question to reverse the answer to the sex question for those individuals who answered yes to the question on gender identity.

This would only work if you were certain that all transitioners reliably recorded their “gender identity” when asked if they were male or female. Many might well record their sex as that is what the question traditionally required.

Instead, the legal intervention midway through the process left the results of the census in a muddle.

Nonsense. Those who chose to muddy the waters on the sex question when designing the census, who also chose to deliberately withhold the information that they were doing so, created the mess. Suggesting that a properly carried out, successful legal challenge created the “muddle” is about as ridiculous as it gets.

" This essentially means that no reason a female has is 'good' enough for the male person in question to judge it worth listening to."

That's ultimately the base line position of those who advocate male inclusion. Incarcerated women for example, traumatised from a lifetime of male abuse, who cannot leave and have no say in whether males who claim to ID as women should be housed alongside them, apparently are vulnerable because "... women prisoners may indeed “suffer fear and acute anxiety” when sharing prison space with fully intact male prisoners, and that the psychological impact is likely to be “significant”, and made worse if that male has a history of physical or sexual violence against women" (exert from FairPlayForWomen ) - yet even this isn't a 'good enough reason' to exclude males irrespective of self declared ID from female prisons.

Re voices again. It is a truly impressive thing to do, transition vocal change. Voice is so personal, it takes a hell of a lot for people to manage to do it and to change the way they're perceived - because it does: when trans people pass, they've always done the voice work. It's destabilising, though, to make yourself sound different. I don't blame anyone for being apprehensive about tackling it.

It also requires a male to take intense expert instruction. Interestingly, in an extremely female profession, there are 2 nationally prominent male speech therapists working in transgender voice (not the only therapists in the field by a long way). They're both excellent. But it's an interesting choice of specialism. Potentially a relatively high earning one too.