Fantastic piece by Kathleen Stock

it’s more Joyce’s area of expertise perhaps, than Stock’s.

Only because Helen spoke to me for her book and Stock didn't. Had Stock have asked I'd have been happy to speak to her.

Not getting AGP actually might account for her success. The fact that she is so moderate, because she doesn't see the sexual motivations that a lot of other women do.

It was the only misstep in the article, as far as I'm concerned. That she thought her professional status, 'right' vocabulary and rounded vowels are what makes her more acceptable and is getting her coverage.

I don't think it is. I think it's the fact that not only doesn't she doesn't mention AGP, she's not motivated by the misogyny of it.

I think Datun has hit the nail on the head there. Stock’s book is more ‘palatable’ than Joyce’s because Stock’s book engages with the issue mainly as an intellectual concept and, unlike Joyce’s book, doesn’t set out very plainly the sexual motivations behind this movement. So for anyone keen to approach the topic in as inoffensive / don’t scare the horses/ naice a way as possible, then Stock’s book is a good starting point.

The page of the book linked to in Tinsel Angel’s post with the twitter link is the element of Stock’s book I disagreed with. I found it a bit cool girl, frankly. That’s possibly a bit mean on my part though. However, Stock was certainly presenting herself as the moderate compared to the more ‘hardline’ approach described on that page. So maybe not that mean on my part.

To be fair to Stock, she’s been put through the mill since she wrote her book, and I expect her perspective may well have changed as a result.

I don’t think she could have gone into the trans widows issue in that particular unherd article though - there’s word limit and focus/key message to consider in any article, and it’s more Joyce’s area of expertise perhaps, than Stock’s. But it’s a good thing that she’s raised the point about middle class v working class voices. Hopefully it may make some individuals in the media consider including a wider range of contributors.

Good article. Some good comments too, such as this one:

^If ‘trans’ means, as it has come to, a systematic denial of the rights of women to their own spaces apart from men, an insistence that lesbians’ refusal to sleep with men is tantamount to racism if the men in question call themselves women, and the ongoing project to poison, sterilise and/or mutilate the healthy bodies of confused teenagers, many of whom would simply grow up gay if left alone, then anyone who disclaims the appellation ‘anti-trans extremist’ or ‘transphobe’ has some explaining to do. At best they are spineless conformists; at worst, willing accessories to some of the worst human rights abuses we have seen since the abolition of slavery. Every human being with a working moral compass is
automatically a ‘transphobe’ in this sense.^

Likewise the grimly amusing sight of tweets replying to the Equalities minister with rage that she would dare to care about women and other people too, when equality should mean TQ+ lobby only.

Just fuck all this for a game of soldiers. It's insane.

Kemi tweeted about this article (same one, right?)

twitter.com/kemibadenoch/status/1666377035168509954?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

I know that paragraph looked a bit poncey, with all the 'ones'

For me, I've seen far too many people taken in by a manipulative AGP, (and I'm not even a transwidow,) to be able to read what she says, presumably about the likes of Debbie Hayton, without concluding that she doesn't get it.

I've watched women interact with these apparently pro women AGPs, and expose them in a few short paragraphs.

The experts on AGP men are their wives and ex-wives. And their children.

Whatever ones own opinion might be, one should, surely, concede that one is not in a position to understand it as well as them.

I think the libertarian Right has always been tolerant of transsexuality, because libertarian. Not so tolerant of women generally, because women’s lives are inconveniently constrained by the responsibilities that often come with being a woman, so women tend to eschew libertarianism.

Sorry, hit Post too quick!

Here's what I was trying to quote from her book:

LGBT activism also fails on intersectionality for trans people themselves. It has no interest in acknowledging the somewhat different political and social situations of trans men and trans women respectively, but insists on treating both as identical for the purposes of lobbying. As far as trans activism is apparently concerned, there is no relevant difference in the situations of a fourteen-year-old trans-identifying teenage female, attracted to other females, who is crowdfunding 'top surgery' and self-harming in the meantime, and a forty-one-year-old late-transitioning autogynephilic heterosexual male with no intention of divorcing his wife.

I've read her book and I think the point she was making is that autogynephilia is one of several pathways to adopting a trans identity, so it shouldn't be overemphasised. But also shouldn't be underemphasised or ignored, as she writes later in the chapter when criticising transactivism:

^LGBT activism

You know, when people were posting the Megyn Kelly speech I was skeptical of the claim that she had ever been a Trans ally given how awful and racist her coverage of Black issues has been when she was on Fox (defending blackface, “racist emails aren’t a big deal, they exist everywhere,” “Santa and Jesus are white,” smearing and attacking Black people killed by police/Trayvon Martin, etc. etc.) I thought she was just bs-ing about being a former ally because she’s been so terrible about racism even when she had post-Trump pivot onto NBC after he attacked her and has always been anti-progressive.

Kathleen Stock repeats that here so I went to look, and indeed, in 2016 Kelly was pushing back on so-called bathroom laws and saying it wasn’t really an issue.

This is interesting because at the same time she was absolutely wall to wall denying racism exists and smearing any Black people talking about systemic racism or police killings she actually was super pro Trans. I would have thought she would have been against Trans issues too just because of Democrats/the “left,” but like Trump she saw Trans as fine, and was really invested in using race. It’s an interesting reminder that despite the current idea that anyone questioning Trans ideology is a right winger and is being fooled and brainwashed by the right wing and so forth, in fact Fox News commentators were perfectly happy with TRA but we’re going heavily after Black people and it was in fact (as we know) feminists raising the issue of conflicting rights.

It actually makes sense that Fox News Republicans didn’t see Trans as an issue precisely because it’s not actually progressive and has nothing to do with feminism or women’s rights. It’s just interesting that it really does show that pretending this criticism came from the right first is false.

I'd hope this will be forthcoming.

The voices of transwidows are so important, I think their testimony really needs to be heard and as KS now has a clear platform it's important she listens to and acknowledges this group of women (and the children of transitioners also).

One of the main things I notice in the stories of transwidows is the commonalities of experience e.g. the acronym that can't be written (the motivation for transition), the fact that most transwidows end up being the ones caring for and thinking about the negative consequences for their children.

Seemingly 'being a woman' doesn't extend to childcare or worrying about children's mental health, all the really unsexy stuff. I.e. all the stuff that actual biological women are supposed to do and demonised if they don't do. Apparently the male type of women get away without having the mental load, childcare and housework burden and the rest of it. Very much a picking and choosing of womanhood.

The idea that she has changed her stance is too nuasanced for those who have not previously followed the debate (though appreciate for those within it it may be frustrating).
I'd accept a personal apology. It doesn't have to be addressed to everyone.

I think that while more dissenting voices are being heard now, the GAP anagram still seems to be something of a taboo in public discourse … in general, the focus seems to be on people with dysphoria, and how self-ID is open to abuse.

Yes. The addition of transvestites to transsexuals appears to either go largely unnoticed or remains firmly in the realm of Dick Emery.

Great piece.

Having had a young, intelligent, highly-educated male family member once accuse me of 'gatekeeping womanhood' (WTF?) I particularly enjoyed this:

'At one point in our rather confused discussion, the former Labour cabinet minister exclaimed dramatically: “Why do you want to tell a vulnerable 21-year-old that they cannot be a woman because you’ve decided not to allow them to be one?”. He seemed to think that womanhood was in my personal gift, either to bestow upon troubled young men or to withhold cruelly from them, a bit like driving lessons or a gap year.'

I’ve not read the book either (yet). I’d be interested to know if Kathleen has ever spoken to any trans widows to get their take on things? What made her change her mind and take a less softly, softly approach? I think that while more dissenting voices are being heard now, the GAP anagram still seems to be something of a taboo in public discourse … in general, the focus seems to be on people with dysphoria, and how self-ID is open to abuse.

She has a careful line to tread. The media is finally waking up to the fact her views (for which she was vilified) are not that radical.
I think taking the public along one step at a time is a good strategy.
The idea that she has changed her stance is too nuasanced for those who have not previously followed the debate (though appreciate for those within it it may be frustrating).

Damn, that's disappointing.

Her article is really good, a blinder, and the level of insight is profound. So it's a shock to read that page.

I knew she didn't set much store by the effects of AGP, which I think is a massive mistake. But I hadn't realised that she actually doesn't get it.

She's clearly talking about Kelly J Kean in that article, among others, and Mumsnet. So I wonder if she has expanded her experience of women affected by the issue. KJK for one, makes no bones about the sexual motivation behind transition for many men.

Not getting AGP actually might account for her success. The fact that she is so moderate, because she doesn't see the sexual motivations that a lot of other women do.

It was the only misstep in the article, as far as I'm concerned. That she thought her professional status, 'right' vocabulary and rounded vowels are what makes her more acceptable and is getting her coverage.

I don't think it is. I think it's the fact that not only doesn't she doesn't mention AGP, she's not motivated by the misogyny of it.

So you are, largely, just left with loopholes to be exploited by whoever wants to do it. Rather than a deliberate push to force women into the service of men.

Disclaimer: I haven't read her book. I could be missing quite a lot, by a country mile.

If she has changed her mind about certain aspects, yes, I wish she would say so.

That's an incredible article. Admitting her own role in dismissing those who don't speak like academics would only have made the piece more powerful.

I hate elitism.

That's a fair point, Tinsel. I think Kathleen Stock has been on a learning journey, and she was probably inclined to be over-generous to the other side when she wrote the book. But you're right, she should have acknowledged that she was wrong.

We all get things wrong, there's no shame in it, but it's simple good manners to admit it and apologise and then we can all move on and work together.

Without that it feels like taking over the position of women you've denigrated rather than joining with them.

They say you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you, but I’m afraid that in this case I’m feeling quite carnivorous.

Love that sentence.

Kathleen is such a clear thinker and articulate writer, this article is spot on. Matthew Parris usually talks some sense too. However, his “gift to the right” article seemed to me like it was written from the aloof, slightly bemused perspective of a man with the absolute privilege of having no skin in the game.

But even with no vested interest in the issue, he could be decent enough to appreciate that women have real and valid concerns that do not amount to hate or extremism, and are far removed from the vitriol and violence coming from the militant trans activists.

Oh, how luxurious it would be to just ignore this clash of rights and hope it goes away. Lucky Matthew.

I too have not read the book. So I did not know this was a changed position.

I haven’t read her book. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s changed her position, lots of us have (and yes, it would be far better to acknowledge that, and to notice the dismissal of those inconvenient trans widows, with their awkward personal testimony)

nonetheless, that was an excellent article