Second attempt at thread, this time on computer so I don't mess up the quoting
//www.tortoisemedia.com/2021/10/11/the-kathleen-stock-case-is-about-much-more-than-trans-rights/
It's paywalled, but I think you just need an email address to read. IMO it's a pretty good long read, excerpts below:
"She [Stock] is one of a network of feminist scholars, writers and other professionals – Maya Forstater, Helen Joyce, Julie Bindel, Suzanne Moore, Janice Turner, Allison Bailey and others – who have collaborated in the most inhospitable of contexts to achieve a critical mass in the public space where their ideas can no longer be ignored. Predictably, retribution for their achievement has been swift and brutal."
"It is often claimed that this is, if nothing else, an even-handed controversy, with equal venom and adversity on both sides. But I invite you to pause for a moment and ask yourself what would have happened if a trans academic had been subjected to comparable intimidation on a British university campus. There would already have been a national day of reflection, a special ribbon available for purchase online, symbolic acts of solidarity on the pitch at sporting events, and supportive hashtags trending globally on Twitter. If you think this battle is being fought on a level-playing field, you haven’t been paying attention."
"The trans debate scratches at the conscience because it is part of a much broader and potentially dangerous reconfiguration of what constitutes reality. Amazingly, it has become heretical (at least in elite intellectual and political circles) to assert the reality of biological sex, on the post-modern grounds that biology is a minor matter compared to self-identified gender. On this basis, womanhood is not rooted in reproductive biology but entirely in self-perception."
"To suggest, as one might, that this [TWAW] is a purity test rather than a meaningful proposition is to identify oneself instantly as “transphobe”. To argue that a trans woman should be treated with dignity and respect, be addressed by her preferred pronouns, have access to the health care she needs, but is not literally, wholly and completely the same as a biological woman – well, that is (variously) to call for her “erasure”, to deny her “existence”, and even to encourage trans suicidality."
"Of course, all pluralist societies depend, in order to function, upon a constant process of negotiation between different groups to resolve the conflicts of rights that arise in any complex community. The warp and weft of diverse co-existence is compromise and give and take.
But not for the trans lobby: to an unprecedented extent, they insist upon total and complete compliance with their position, and the punishment and exile of anyone – such as Stock – who dares to question any of their demands. Men who do so will be called idiots and bigots, which, I suppose, comes with the territory. Women, on the other hand, who push back will be inundated with threats of death, rape and torture, viciously condemned as “Terfs” who deserve violent punishment."
"The response of trans activists to this would be: maybe, but what we say is morally correct, we are on “the right side of history,” and so the expulsion of those that transgress is demonstrably in the interests of the common good."
"And the truth is – in answer to the inquiry with which I began [why do all conversations always end up being about trans people]– that the trans debate is unavoidable because it is really a crossroads, and one that leads in all directions in our culture: to freedom, censorship, identity, truth, scientific reality, and Orwell’s “secret doctrine”. The whole nine yards, in other words."
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Feminism: Sex & gender discussions
The Kathleen Stock case is about much more than trans rights: Tortoise Media
13 replies
ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 17/10/2021 16:11
OP posts:
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.