Kathleen Stock OBE: Trans Women Aren't Women : A discussion

[Childrenofthestones]

It's a view held by most people, so why has it become so controversial to state that trans women aren't women? On this episode of "So What You're Saying Is..." (#SWYI) we are joined by Prof. Kathleen Stock OBE, professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex and author of the best-selling book: "Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism".

Prof. Stock discusses the issues of sex vs. gender and gender identity, and explains how trans activists, arguing that gender is psychological not physical, now claim that womanhood & manhood are genders in a social, rather than biological, sense.

She discusses the possible motives for Stonewall's decision to become so actively involved in trans rights, as well as the vilification of its outspoken critics such as Germaine Greer and Julie Bindell. Prof. Stock has herself been the target of campaigns to silence, cancel and no platform.

Prof. Stock also discusses the negative impact the more extreme trans rights positions are having on women (changing rooms, public toilets, prisons etc.) as well as the young, and gays & lesbians.

As a lapsed catholic I think I can say that @ErrolTheDragon wasn't making light of anything . Simply stating a fact. A biochemical analysis of the host pre and post transubstantiation would yield no biochemical differences. Same a as analysis of DNA pre and post transition

People can believe anything they like - but it don't make it so. And they certainly cant compel others to believe things that can be proven otherwise.

I agree with just

I don’t think errol was making light at all

I dunno what the collective term for people who go through the menopause is though - anyone got any ideas?

Invisible?

@allmywhat

I interpreted the rest of it, I think: the grammar fails; the missing negative; the deep confusion about what views and haircuts looked like in 1977; and the warped TRA definition of harm (if a woman gets raped, it's a statistic, if a man gets his feelings hurt, it's a tragedy.) But I fell at the last hurdle on the blender thing.

All told you did a sterling job to make that much headway allmywhat.

It was such a profound and compelling argument and the name sounds like a bender was the absolute coup de grace. Amazing, just truly amazing.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

I believe that transwomen who have fully transitioned are in fact women. Indulge me. Tell me how! Or what that actually means to you.

I'll start.

• Human beings cannot change sex
• Anyone who 'transitions' does so socially and may have a wide range of body modifications, but they then only more closely resemble the sex they wish to 'transition' to
• A GRC gives a transitioned person the legal fiction of having changed sex, with certain caveats - ie they are not actually that sex. but should be treated so in most, but not all , situation.s. That's why it is a Gender recognition Certificate,
• Sex is immutable, based in biology - please don't spout seahorses or 'intersex'
• Gender is the sociological stereotypes, expectations, shorthand, box, imposed upon people within a given society. It changes over time and across societies. One most right minded individuals reject any gender restrictions!
• No amount of dysphoria can make a human being change sex. Society allows that a dysphoric individual can apply for a GRC, can live presenting themselves as whatever it is they think is appropriate for them, the sex they wish to be/be seen as. Most people in society choose to accommodate this. Some don't.

This is half the problem, labels, definitions, etc they always deflect from any meaningful discussion.

In the real world a transwoman who has had surgery and is taking body altering hormones has changed their sex.

You don't have to accept that but in reality most people wether they approve or not accept that is what is meant by changing sex.

@DialSquare

I dunno what the collective term for people who go through the menopause is though - anyone got any ideas?

Invisible?

Very good. I'll offer a surplus? As in surplus to requirements.

This is half the problem, labels, definitions, etc they always deflect from any meaningful discussion. What are you talking about? Labels, definitions?!?! A simple question and I gave you my belief, my understadning. Why can you not reciprocate?

In the real world a transwoman who has had surgery and is taking body altering hormones has changed their sex. Again HOW? What is it that has changed that you equate to their sex?

You don't have to accept that but in reality most people wether they approve or not accept that is what is meant by changing sex. Sex change is not a legal term, it's a vox pop description that is lacking in accuracy, as you well know.

Look - I can and have answered my own questions, your questions/suggestions and that of many others here.

You have simply sidestepped them. Why is that?

Do you not want to say out loud:

• sex change is a misnomer. I do indeed mean a change in gender identity, how a person 'presents' themselves to the world
• All I want is that transpeople are recognised as trans people, to be safe and accepted as trans people, to be valued as trans people

Oh those pesky definitions! They really get in the way of making arguments, don't they? But the problem is, unless you can explain what you mean by your words, it's pretty hard to make a case for their being right. For example, when you say "transwoman", it may be that you mean any man who says he's a woman; any man with medically diagnosed dysphoria; any man who doesn't like/identify with masculine stereotypes... fur example. Those things are different from one another, and if you are putting forward an argument it matters which one you mean. Etc etc with all the terms you used - hence your being asked. It's not pedantry, it's rigour.

Plus your argument is circular. Anyone who has had plastic surgery and cross-sex hormones has changed sex, if you define changing sex as having plastic surgery and cross-sex hormones. Do you believe that is really changing sex, or is that only "what is meant" when you say it?

@PearPickingPorky

I believe that transwomen who have fully transitioned are in fact women.

What do you mean by:

1. "transwomen"
2. "fully transitioned"
3. "are"
4. "in fact"
5. "women"

Thank you in advance, *Imasoulman"

Transwomen - Females assigned as Male at birth.

Fully Transitioned - After surgery

Are - second person singular present and first, second, third person plural present of be.

Infact - in reality or actuality

Women - Adult human females

This is half the problem, labels, definitions, etc they always deflect from any meaningful discussion

Being asked to explain what you mean is so bloody tiresome innit?

Transwomen - Females assigned as Male at birth. And that's the problem isn't it? Using words you can't/won't define to define other words!

Transwomen - Females assigned as Male at birth

Try removing the penis and testicles of an adult male horse and then seeing if it can gestate a foal

I do not think ‘female’ means what you think it means

And don’t do ‘but infertile women’ please, it’s boring

The existence of one legged people doesn’t mean humans aren’t bipedal

This is half the problem, labels, definitions, etc they always deflect from any meaningful discussion.

Seriously? In order to have a meaningful discussion, the definitions of the words being used must be agreed on. Or by 'meaningful' do you mean 'meaningless'?

In the real world a transwoman who has had surgery and is taking body altering hormones has changed their sex.

In the real world, a male person who has taken opposite sex hormones and had surgery is a male who has made cosmetic changes to his body. His chromosomes remain the same.

You don't have to accept that but in reality most people wether they approve or not accept that is what is meant by changing sex.

'Most people'? Do you have a source for that?

I know the answer - for anyone lurking, trying to get their heads round the subject. But really, I wonder why we bother sometimes.

Those with little logic have the same infinite patience for posting 'it' as we have for debunking 'it'!

Transwomen - Females assigned as Male at birth.

Women - Adult human females

What do you mean by 'female' here?

You don't have to accept that but in reality most people wether they approve or not accept that is what is meant by changing sex

Religious belief is similar. Not everyone accepts nor approves a person's belief system, but most accept that the believers have a faith in the unproven creed (aren't all religious beliefs unprovable-that's why faith is needed). We can respect the believers and not discriminate against them, make reasonable accommodations for them like allowing their own places of worship, but we don't have to allow any religion creed to dictate how the public at large lives and thinks, and we don't allow one religion to erode or risk the rights of any class of people.

To add another layer to how magled language is becoming, many many people I talk about this issue on think transwoman means...female person who is trans. Actual female person. Who has whatever trans identity. So a transman..

I have found the above to be one of the biggest hurdles to getting people to see the issues actually. As of course, saying female people who have a trans identity should not access areas reserved for female people, sounds awful to many. Once its cleared up, that its about restricting male peoples acess to female areas, people 'get it' quite easily. Generally speaking.

Transwomen - Females assigned as Male at birth.

1. What is a "female"?
2. Why were they "assigned male at birth"?

Fully Transitioned - After surgery

3. What surgery, specifically?

Yeah @HeadIsFucked But we are not allowed to use a different term that would make the sex of the transindividual obvious. It is, apparently, insulting. Much as many of the terms we read here about women are... difference is we, MN posters, get deleted and banned for using those terms and the posters who drop in to chastise us just carry on regardless - some even get an apology and second chance from MNHQ!

Yes HeadIsFucked - good point!

I've seen this especially in GenX and Boomer age groups - kindly people not invested nor involved in this discussion, who think a woman or girl who doesn't fit the "look" of a stereotypical female is a transwoman. OR think a lesbian who tries to look manly is a transwoman. So why shouldn't a grown tomboy use the women's changing room?

Staniland Question can resolve this, but it's a jarring idea to interject into a convo when everyone has such a different understanding. Nobody wants to clarify because asking intimate questions about sexuality, clothing and feelings is impolite. Even older people feel asking any intimate questions about women is very invasive.

Yes I’ve only recently realised how many people think “transwoman” = female trans person = trans man. Probably not helped much by wokesters asserting “TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN” all the time. A great many people don’t think TW are really women (much like most transsexuals themselves never used to think that) so maybe this leads them to think that TWAW must mean trans men are women.

The thing is soul man if you say that a transwoman is an actual female woman, that does need a definition especially if it is going to affect things like laws and where people go to prison and so on. You may not like definitions much but I imagine you’d suddenly find they have their uses if you were wrongly accused of a crime and had to be defended in court. If people could just make up what “fraud” or “burglary” meant in order to convict you, you’d probably be quite alarmed.

So therefore we need to know what is meant by female if we are to agree a TW is female. Up until recently female meant one of the two types of reproductive sex classes in sexually reproductive species. And still does in actual discussions that are about these issues and not about trans ideology.

If you are genetically male, no matter what you do, you cannot become genetically female and you cannot become of the female sex class in terms of reproduction. So in what sense is a TW female? What is your definition of female? If it’s just clothes, feelings, make-up, shoes etc etc etc then why can’t these things mean a person can change race, age, height etc? If it’s not just these things then what is it?

Oh dear, another blenderbender making a fuss about nothing!

No one says you can't call yourself a blender. We're just saying, if you started out as a teapot, you can't really become a blender.

That's just going to keep on giving isn't it?

We have a new term, it has no actual meaning, we didn't coin it but we have adopted it and we will use it, whenever and however we want to

Aargh, this is the point at which my brain always explodes. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Meanwhile, what's the difference between a teapot and a blender? One brews your drink and the other one makes you think. Any better?

I don’t think Errol made light of religion at all either. Catholics believe in transubstantiation. I have read an essay trying to justify why gluten free bread should be offered in Catholic communion (something about the residual after transubstantiation).

Some may believe that, despite the absence of female internal organs such as ovaries, womb, cervix, despite the XY chromosomes in every single cell and despite the completely different hormone levels, transwomen for some reason are women.

I don’t understand this belief. I do know it has something to do with surgery on external parts of the body and an unquantifiable “feeling”. I completely respect that people believe this. I respect that people believe in transubstantiation as well.

But I don’t believe in either. And the catholics don’t try to force me to believe in transubstantiation. But transwomen seem to want me to believe what they do. And I don’t think that is right. I think that we should respect each other’s beliefs.