Prospect Magazine: Kathleen Stock v Robin Moira White

Thanks for the thread from Malcolm Clark. I’ll be returning to that, it was so comprehensive.

I wonder regarding Robin's voice, Robin means that Robin doesn't want to risk having surgery for this as if it went wrong that would cause problems with Robin earning a living due to one's voice being necessary to work as a barrister. The retention of the advantage of speaking with male authority could therefore just be seen as a side effect of this decision.

However, many trans women do not have vocal surgery but alter their voices through vocal training, which Robin could still do, so this is where this argument falls down.

And there is the reason that mixed sex facilities will never work for female people. The evidence is mounting up. Alongside the crashing, gobsmacking superiority and disregard for female people which makes it clear: you can call them all women in wording, but in actuality there are two sexes at all times and one is very clear on who is the boss and who owns the space. Including males in women's spaces involves subordinating, oppressing and excluding females.

That's a failure of women's spaces to do their essential job, which is provide for women. 99% of whom are female.

Thoughtful thread from twitter, which I reproduce here.

thread

"They have gender self-ID in [country] and it hasn't caused any problems."

I've seen this claim asserted many times over the past several years, and I started to wonder what evidence it would take for me to accept it as true.
🧵
1/8

Firstly, I'd need to know that there was actually research being done on the effects of the policy, particularly wrt those most likely to be affected by the loss of sex as a clearly defined category (women, gay people, anyone affected by safeguarding procedures).
2/8

I'd need to know it was somehow possible to gather and analyse these data reliably, despite the confusion between sex and gender.

I'd want to see the data tracking patterns over a long time period to monitor societal changes.
3/8

I'd want to see that there hadn't been an increase in crime against women.
I'd want evidence that women were not self-excluding from situations that they would have accessed on a single-sex basis.
I'd want to know that there was no reduction in the services that women need, 4/8

and that women were still willing to access them.
I'd want to know that women's chances in sport had not been affected.
I'd want to know that religious women hadn't suffered due to loss of single-sex spaces.
5/8

I'd want to know that safeguarding procedures were still robust, that children still had rights to single-sex facilities, that people could still request, and access, a health or care provider of their own sex when it was important to them.
6/8

I'd want to know that demographic data was still sound, that service planning hadn't been negatively impacted.
I'd want to track any effect on the pay gap and on women's employment.
I'd want to know there were no human rights abuses (such as mixed-sex prisons).
7/8

I'd want to know if the policy made things better, worse, or unchanged for the most vulnerable in society.

That's just off the top of my (non-expert) head.

What have I got wrong? What have I missed?
8/8

Source: twitter.com/ox_fem/status/1469152679138107394?t=cfhWx0QOQjBvxeeWOZNzEg&s=19

'And perhaps a greater proportion of trans people face discrimination than those with protected characteristics such as race or sex, which have been protected for longer'.

Perhaps. Depends whether what you mean is 'people can still tell what sex I am and don't pretend otherwise' or 'people actively disadvantage me because I am a male and they think I shouldn't present as female'. Probably both happen.

There is certainly overlap between the problems of women and those of men who present as women. Transwomen presumably get the gendered shit from sexists who think they are women, and also discrimination from the genuinely transphobic, if those people can tell they aren't women.

But while women get the gendered shit, we also have to deal with the bodily differences from the default male, and you can't identify out of that one.

Na, I think being-actually-female probably trumps being-thought-female-by-some-but-not-others.

The article doesn’t claim to be a debate. It states there is a “trans and women’s rights debate” and that it presents two perspectives on it.

Or did I miss something?

Yes I appear to have been blocked by Robin despite never interacting with Robin.

If Robin is so keen to debate why the fuck are we all blocked on Twitter ?

DialSquare

The police can't even have sexism as a 'hate crime' as they, and we, know that they would be inundated. So there are no stats on it.

Meanwhile someone is misgendered and 6 officers are called to the scene.

'And perhaps a greater proportion of trans people face discrimination than those with protected characteristics such as race or sex, which have been protected for longer'.

yeah.... I am not convinced. The degree of sex discrimination that is so very prevalent and yet is constantly declared not strong enough to fight in Employment Tribunals and court and such assures me that this probably not true. I mean, there seems to be a culture of knowing just how to get away with terminating employment with women are pregnant or of making decisions that are discriminatory but not enough to 'get into trouble'. And we know that much of it is so deeply ingrained.

For example, the study the Vet Association did last year. Nothing actually prosecutable, just plain old ingrained sex discrimination.

So, no. sorry. I remain unconvinced.

I thought the format of that piece - two completely separate answers to the same question - was in some ways better than a debate. While exchange of ideas and discussion etc is always a good idea, actual debates can too often be too much verbal fencing and point scoring. It's perhaps a format in which which a barrister might be at an advantage over an academic philosopher, I suppose.

'And perhaps a greater proportion of trans people face discrimination than those with protected characteristics such as race or sex, which have been protected for longer'.

This is quite telling, because if Robin Moira is a woman, then surely she experiences the same sex discrimination as other women face. This seems to be an acknowledgement that she doesn't.

Male for the power and money
Trans for the vulnerability
Women for the toilets.

As clearly evidenced in just one thread by just one person. And blatant about it.

You have a reasonable point Datun. Which is why I said I'm sure Robin is not a risk (as much as I can be) meaning I haven't seen any online evidence of that fact. But without a doubt we have no idea what people really get up to away from their online persona, and whether they are a risk or not.

As we do however know that it is men who are responsible for the majority of sexual violence towards women, it makes perfect sense to exclude all born males from female sex segregated spaces.

Women have no idea if Robin has a risk or not. There's absolutely nothing to go on.

Women cant tell. At all.

Indeed many fall in love with, marry and have families with men before they find out what a dreadful risk they are.

But no, might well not say that, because it is an admission that sex, not gender, is the protected characteristic.

As for a greater proportion of trans people facing discrimination than those with protected characteristics such as race, go tell it to the Uygar Muslims, or the indigenous Australians or Canadians. Or come to that people in this country who happen to have a different skin colour from that of the more-or-less-indegenes, Race Relations Act 1976 notwithstanding.

Because it is the case that it is illegal to discriminate against someone on the grounds of their race (etc) in the fields of employment, the provision of goods and services, education and public functions, does not mean there is no discrimination against them on a continuous basis, just as it is illegal to commit rape or sexual assault but there is constant anxiety for women because law or no law, those things do still happen. In the one case, the negative discrimination is because of the person's ethnicity; in the other, it's because of her sex. In neither case can the individual whom the law is not actually protecting identify out of their status, whether race or sex.

When I am at my local supermarket on a Saturday morning and need to pee, there is no good reason to exclude me from the female lavatories

There is a good reason though. The safety and dignity of women and girls. It's not to say that you are a risk Robin personally. I am quite sure, (as much as I can be) that you are not. But how are women supposed to know the difference between you ,(not a risk) and another born male (potentially a risk.) You are intelligent enough to know that men do present a risk to women. Knowing this, why would you want to increase those risks to women, by opening the door to males and giving them free access to their sex segregated spaces? After all, this is the sex that you identify with and really wish you were. Where's the solidarity you should have for your 'sisters'?

I continue to be astonished that Robin is a barrister, a profession I have always associated with a degree of intelligence and an ability to argue a case.

But Robin fared so poorly in the debate with Kathleen Stock, whose arguments were much more thoughtful and coherent. And I'd put money on Stock knowing the correct definition of the word "diaspora".

Jane Clare Jones then wiped the floor with Robin on Twitter.

And now Robin's response to a well-argued point about the difference between male and female voices is "whatever".

I imagine that any prospective client looking for a barrister would read Robin's contributions and run 100 miles.

Robin: you're not doing yourself any favours. My advice to you is to shut up so you don't expose yourself any further.

'Whatever' lol

Spoken like a true tantrumming teen.

That's made my day.

I would like to pipe up for Robin here, it must be hard to be the lone voice on a thread of people who disagree.

See, I feel exactly the opposite. I don't care if RMW doesn't feel welcome enough. I'm not interested in pandering to selfishness and I'm not interested in being kind to some loaded barrister used to getting own way. And for someone who charges a lot of money for the use of language within a specific context, to flounce off Vicky Pollard style is genuinely very funny.

But to describe it as a 'debate' means that someone has a different idea of what a debate is from me.

Who described it as a debate? I don't think the article itself was described by Prospect as a 'debate'.

The title of the article is: Gender wars: two opposing perspectives on the trans and women’s rights debate, and it says in the opening paragraphs: Here, we bring you two perspectives from opposing sides of the debate in the hope of illuminating points of contention as well as areas of agreement.

There is currently a debate taking place about the conflict between women's rights and trans 'rights'. The Q&A is part of this debate, as is the discussion on this thread, but that article isn't actually called 'A debate between Kathleen Stock and Robin Moira White'. Because that's not what it is.

I would like to pipe up for Robin here, it must be hard to be the lone voice on a thread of people who disagree.

It would be great to hear more of your thoughts, Robin.

I have a question, if I may:

When I am at my local supermarket on a Saturday morning and need to pee, there is no good reason to exclude me from the female lavatories.

What about my fear of males in confined spaces? Why is that not a good reason for you to allow me the comfort and dignity of a female only space?

I hope you aren't offended by this question, I have tried to word it in as sensitive a manner as I can. Thank you.

But to describe it as a 'debate' means that someone has a different idea of what a debate is from me.

It's not just "debate" this applies to.

But to describe it as a 'debate' means that someone has a different idea of what a debate is from me.

So what’s your idea of debate? You’re regularly asked questions here when you pop onto threads then you disappear. You replied to one discussion point on this thread with “whatever”. If that’s your definition of debate, then what do you call answering a series of questions posed by a highly experienced journalist?