Prospect Magazine: Kathleen Stock v Robin Moira White

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

Great discussion.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/gender-wars-two-opposing-perspectives-on-the-trans-and-womens-rights-debate

Gender wars: two opposing perspectives on the trans and women’s rights debate
A lawyer and philosopher respond to seven propositions—ranging from single-sex spaces to puberty blockers for children

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.

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'?

@RoyalCorgi

Applause from me for WeeBisom's post too. Brilliant.

CheeseMmmm This bit Moira made my jaw drop- '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'. Yowzers. Woah. Sex well of course would say that. Race? Bold move. IMO not a clever one.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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'.

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.

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.

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

DialSquare

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

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?

'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.

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

@EricCartmansUnderpants

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'?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

" 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.

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.

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.

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.

@PermanentTemporary

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.

I have seen the same trans actress in two films now and the mismatch between voice (masculine) and appearance (feminine) is so jarring it boots me straight out of the film and back into reality. I’m surprised that person hasn’t felt it worth taking coaching.