Kathleen Stock. Now they are writing academic papers about how terfy she is

[Birdsweepsin]

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2022.2147915

In this article I write on the feminist rift within University culture and the wider impact it has had in the British media landscape. I will chronicle the case of Kathleen Stock and its reporting in the media principally through a focus on a selection of particularly relevant articles in the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph as a newspaper closely aligned with gender critical and UK Conservative government thinking.

OK, no worries. So a dispassionate look at both sides, considering media bias goes both ways, hey?

I want to consider Stock as a totemic figure for a trans-hostile media, and discuss the way her case has been used to spread misinformation around universities, and trans people. My focus here is on trans women as those on the receiving end of most gender critical hostility.

Oh. Sigh.

I've wandered into a pile-on before on social media. It's unpleasant.

Writing an article criticising a woman who was effectively terrorised out of her job, and was subject to sustained harassment and abuse, who doesn't have the ability to respond (as I understand it?), is in itself leveraging privilege to speak against someone who is in a much less powerful position.

In that context, receiving a few less-than-effusive responses on Mumsnet is not 'abuse'.

I wonder if Deborah bothered to read the counterpoint article to hers after FiLiA? Doesn't seem likely.

I knew there would be a protest against the conference as I had seen flyers for it. I was braced for that. What I wasn’t prepared for was for the protest to be overtly misogynistic.

For anyone who is sensitised, as I am, to language and images involving violent sexual fantasies towards women I suggest you don’t read the next bit. In an ideal, woman-friendly world, we could choose how, when and where we understand violence and sexual aggression towards women and we would be supported in doing so.

Some of the placards at the protestst^ read “Suck my dick, you transphobic cunts” and others read “Fuck TERFs”, (TERF being a term the trans community use for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists), “No TERFs on Pompey turf” while chalk drawingsgs^ depicted penises with accompanying instructions on what we should do to them. Someone had drawn a chalk picture and labelled it “This is my TERF beating stick”. Clearly this was not in any way respectful to women, or appropriate. Portsmouth City Council decided to fly flagsgs*^ ahead of and during the protest and conference, which represented LGBT groups and FiLiA flew the suffragette colours. I am hoping the Council seeks to distance itself from the subsequent extremist graffiti and placards.

On the end of the first day of the conference, hundreds of women poured out of the Guildhall and stood in the Squarere*^ to remember, grieve and mourn women killed by violent men. Of all the vigils, the protests and the non-violent actions I have been on, this one leaves with me an ongoing grief and sadness. That we should grieve women killed by men while standing on chalk messages representing the intention to harm us is unbearably and utterly sad. I feel so deeply for the women who stood up and told their stories of surviving violence and abuse and of those whose family members didn’t survive the abuse, while reminders that violence and abuse are at the forefront of some people’s minds were around us. I salute those women and I hope they found strength in all the women willing to listen and to support them.

www.starandcrescent.org.uk/2021/11/08/opinion-why-i-attended-the-filia-conference-in-portsmouth/

Thanks for this extract @Ereshkigalangcleg

Well, I've reluctantly started reading.

It all seems very certain that it's on the right side of history. Does nobody in academia ever suffer from any self doubt whatsoever? Are they all so wrapped in their own 'challenges' that they are completely unaware of how most people live?

'As Shon Faye argues, the media and gender critical feminists want to set the terms of the debate: ‘It turns out that when the media want to talk about trans issues, it means they want to talk about their issues with us, not the challenges facing us’.

It's true that the challenges of a white, Oxbridge educated lawyer do not really interest me as much as the challenges of women who are fighting for their privacy, dignity, and safety.

Does nobody in academia ever suffer from any self doubt whatsoever? Are they all so wrapped in their own 'challenges' that they are completely unaware of how most people live?

Lots of us suffer self doubt. However, there is a particular type of academic, who generally progress quite well in their careers, who consider their opinion/work/etc to be the areas worth focusing on. Everything else is either wrong or a waste of time.

The views of trans inclusive feminists are dominant among experts in the field as evidenced in an open letter signed by professional academic philosophers in opposition to Professor Stock being awarded an OBE.

This was supposedly evidenced adequately by a letter signed by 600 academics. Devorah, those were academics around the world and seem to be across many different fields. I think that you are really pushing to use this to support your assertion.

In the UK alone, there are 224 530 academic staff. (www.hesa.ac.uk/news/01-02-2022/sb261-higher-education-staff-statistics). How many of these are Philosophy focused?

How have you defined the 'field' that you say trans inclusive feminists dominates?
Perhaps it is just that I come from a field that requires proper analysis before making such statistical claims that I find your assertion completely unconvincing.

Did you check each and every one of those supposed 600 academics to see if they really were Philosophy academics? For instance, Hind Fiddah for instance? They don't seem to an academic in Philosophy. Did you check?

When this was 'peer reviewed' what information did you provide them that satisfied them that this was a 'sound' assertion?

Nonetheless, these alternative views are rarely reported in the media despite the fact that a refusal to debate is an accusation that Stock (see her below cited BBC Woman’s Hour interview as one example), and parts of the press have levelled at students and Stock’s colleagues.

Again. Another assertion that you have simply put out there. "rarely".... if this is supposed to be a piece of rigorous academic thought, do you have anything at all to back that up. Any actual analysis of the prevalence of support from 'media'? Because that would be interesting to see! And the definition of 'media' too though. Because it surely must include Pink News and The Guardian and the BBC?

Then comes

As Shon Faye argues, the media and gender critical feminists want to set the terms of the debate: ‘It turns out that when the media want to talk about trans issues, it means they want to talk about their issues with us, not the challenges facing us’.15 Rather than justifying their existence, trans people prefer to debate issues that affect them in a trans-hostile world, such as ‘a broken healthcare system’, ‘family rejection, bullying, homelessness and unemployment’,16 none of which are of interest in the right-wing press or to gender critical feminists. Stonewall, the LGBT rights organisation, shares this view:
Trans people and trans allies are keen to have robust and honest debates about how to make trans equality a reality in the UK. What they’re not prepared to do is debate whether or not they have the right to be themselves, or have rights as citizens under the law.
The first issue in any ‘debate’ between trans inclusive and trans exclusionary feminists thus needs to be on the terms of the discussion.

I notice that you have failed to present the balance here.

You have failed to acknowledge that feminists disagree because feminists HAVE actually been reduced to discussion about whether they have the 'right to be themselves, or have rights as citizens under the law'.

Seriously? I am not very far through and even I can see the gaping holes of balance in your article.

We can see the influence of Raymond’s beliefs in the position of gender critical feminists who both deny the reality of trans women and present them as sexual predators

And here starts the misrepresentations of what feminists are actually saying.

If you ever had read what prominent feminists are saying, it is that the 'reality' of transitioned male is that they are not female and should not be treated as female when sex matters. And that those males are in no way committing sex crimes at the rate of females and so for safeguarding purposes retain the risk that ALL males have.

It is not controversial. And it is not denying the 'reality' of anyone. It is in fact, baldly acknowledging people's reality. Their material reality. When it counts. When female people may potentially be harmed by the impact of including males.

The bias and lack of balance in your article is very plain to see. As pp's have asked, just who 'peer reviewed' it and what did they assess it on. Because from what I have read so far, it reads like a grad student making overinflated and emotive assertions, and indulging in polarised language and concepts, in a plea for people to be kind and do feminism the way you want feminism to be done.

And again. You stated "My aim is not to engage in a personal attack on Stock", yet engage in misrepresentations to indeed portray academics and feminists you don't agree with in the worst light with statements just like this:

We can see the influence of Raymond’s beliefs in the position of gender critical feminists who both deny the reality of trans women and present them as sexual predators

I find this approach to be very dishonest.

I know and for @devorah to dismiss those signs, the chalk writing on the pavement and the violent sexual threats shouted by the crowd as a bit misogynistic is just fucking unbelievable knowing there were women in that conference and speaking at it who had been victims of appalling violence and sexual abuse at the hands of men. And the 'crime' these women at the conference had committed? Not agreeing that TWAW, that in @devorah's world justifies those women being told to suck or choke on a man's dick you think that's the right side of history do you @devorah ? And no, @devorah you are NOT a feminist when you condone, cover up, deny, excuse and enable this.

To deny the examples of women and women's rights being threatened by the TRA agenda when you were at that demonstration and could witness it for yourself shows at the very least that you cover your eyes and ears to anything that you don't want to see or hear @devorah.

It is dishonest. What does "deny the reality of TW" mean? I certainly don't deny that male people claiming to be women exist.

Unless it means "agree with anything they say, even if one trans woman says something that directly contradicts another"?

The only thing I don't "believe" is that male people are, or can be, female. I believe that sex is real and on some occasions it matters, and that "female" and "feminine" can be mutually exclusive (ditto male and masculine).

Did it mean "all GC feminists", or "specifically those GC feminists who..."? Grammatically I would expect the latter, but it is not clear.

despite the fact that a refusal to debate is an accusation that Stock (see her below cited BBC Woman’s Hour interview as one example), and parts of the press have levelled at students and Stock’s colleagues

Good thing @devorah is here to prove that no-one is refusing to debate.

On a completely different note, I will say that a thread - any thread, be it about evening wedding invitations or Important Politics - where your own name or username is repeated can actually seem quite overwhelming and unpleasant if it's not in a supportive way. It's easy to post like this, because it's a simple way of referencing who is saying what. Yet, having been on online forums for decades, I have felt quite anxious by people "naming" me and I project an angry, interrogative tone that likely wasn't intended by the poster. Particularly if you're new to the forum and haven't absorbed the general vibe yet (MN is huge and very active compared to most). You do see people get upset in AIBU for blunt responses to their (usually clumsily worded) OPs that seem quite innocuous to a casual reader.

So I'm not saying "be kind" or that people shouldn't be questioned robustly - academics should bloody well expect it - but this is a small acknowledgement of how it feels when everyone is "looking at you" and asking you stuff.

I wouldn't call it abuse, mind. I've been here long enough to know that regulars are usually posting in good faith.

”Rather than justifying their existence, trans people prefer to debate issues that affect them in a trans-hostile world, such as ‘a broken healthcare system’, ‘family rejection, bullying, homelessness and unemployment’,16 none of which are of interest in the right-wing press or to gender critical feminists.”

Translation:

Rather than justifying their claim to be the opposite sex, or alternatively the demand that they should be treated under all circumstances as if they were the opposite sex, trans people prefer to centre issues that they feel affect them in a world they feel is trans-hostile, such as ‘a broken healthcare system’ ‘family rejection, bullying, homelessness and unemployment’,16 none of which have any relevance to the claim to be the opposite sex or the demand that they should be treated under all circumstances as if they were the opposite sex, which is the current main demand being made by lobbyists.”*

Very fair point @LaughingPriest.

Surely a broken healthcare system in that sentence is:

1. not specific in any way. There is no single international healthcare system. The issues patients face in accessing healthcare vary enormously between systems.
2. not referring to the various problems that a whole variety of people face in accessing healthcare within particular systems, but ‘brokenness’ is defined somewhere in the vicinity of ‘doesn’t give us fake boobs and hormones on demand with no questions asked’.

This is a peer reviewed academic part throwing around statements like this.

You don’t even have to do more than vaguely glance at that to think the paper may contain many other poorly defined and unevidenced claims.

Confession: I just skim read the article. Maybe I'm just unsophisticated and naive, but I expected the Women's History Journal to publish articles on Women and History. This article is really about men in the last few years, albeit cloaked in words like feminism, and citing authors with women's names. Fortunately for the author, the "totemic" Kathleen Stock is a woman, so the author can claim this is about women and submit it to a journal about women. The opinions the author argues against could be held by men or women. What Kathleen Stock experienced because she is a woman, (which should have been of interest to a journal on Women and History) is conveniently ignored. And thus continues the erasure of women and invasion of women's spaces.

+1

trans people prefer to debate issues that affect them in a trans-hostile world, such as ‘a broken healthcare system’, ‘family rejection, bullying, homelessness and unemployment’,16 none of which are of interest in the right-wing press or to gender critical feminists.

Well, I don't know about the right-wing press or its readers, as I am not one of them, but as a feminist (of the old-fashioned 2nd wave kind) I think that difficulties with

• healthcare (read Caroline Criado Perez for a multitude of examples)
• domestic violence & homelessness
• unemployment and lower wages because of our sex - 15% sex pay gap, anyone? (it's within my living memory that women resigned permanent posts in various professions on marriage; it's within my memory when we were awarded equal pay for equal work)

are very much concerns of pretty much any feminist I know, and concerns of a heck of a lot of women.

Women are also kept pretty busy trying to avoid being murdered or sexually assaulted because of our sex

I could go on.

I don't think any feminist would deny that transwomen face particular prejudices, but not because they are women. Quite the reverse: it's because they are men who transgress the coercive roles & stereotypes for masculinity in our society.

They are bullied because they are feminine men, not because they try to present as women.

Having read this. I am disappointed in what counts as supposed academic thought and analysis these days that is worthy of publishing.

After reading studies and articles over the past two years, I used to think ‘peer reviewed’ meant something. But now I think there are blog posts with more rigour and more honest and balanced analysis than some of the papers being published. This is not a statement aimed specifically at this paper, but in general.

I find it interesting that there is a quote by Serano in this paper

As trans author Julia Serano (2017) notes: ‘While some cisgender people refuse to take our experiences seriously, the fact of the matter is that transgender people can be found in virtually every culture and throughout history […]. In other words, we simply exist’.

How remarkable that a supposed feminist would quote such a person when they have also said this:

"While I never really believed the cliche about women being good for only one thing, I found that that sentiment kept creeping into my fantasies. I would imagine myself being sold into sex slavery and having strange men take advantage of me."

'It's called forced feminisation, and it's not really about sex, it is about turning the humiliation you feel into pleasure, transforming the loss of male privilege into the best fuck ever"

Julia Serano (Whipping Girl 2007)

Or, does feminist academics not consider decade old quotes to be relevant when choosing something they wish to use as 'evidence' in a peer reviewed academic paper and using a quote about people taking that person's experiences seriously.

Particularly when Serano is being used to discredit Dr Stock's with :

Kathleen Stock, for instance, asserts that trans women are living ‘immersed in a fiction’.

According to Stock, this ‘immersive fiction’ leads to all sorts of dangers in what could be described as a gender critical moral panic greatest hits, all of which code trans women as predatory, deceptive and delusional men.

and then

The idea of immersive fiction can itself be read as a gender critical fiction, a theory Stock has made up to deny the realities, theories or lived experiences of trans women. The idea of trans women as sexual predators is also a fiction spread within much popular culture. This is a damaging transphobic trope that the Netflix documentary Disclosure (Feder 2020) chronicles very effectively, demonstrating how a number of popular thrillers coded trans women or ‘transvestites’ as deviant, violent murders. These include Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960); Dressed to Kill (De Palma, 1980), and Silence of the Lambs (Demme 1991) with Disclosure revealing how earlier representations of trans women have shifted between figures of ridicule, figures of pity and figures of fear. This has evolved in more recent times in the UK and US with trans-positive representations particularly in television streamed series such as Pose (2018–2021) Sense8 (2015–2018), Sex Education (2019–), and Heartstopper (2022–), and the involvement of more trans creatives in their production.

This is merely distraction from the facts. I will just repeat what has already been said time and time again. The use of polarised language here that implies that feminists believe that 'all transwomen are predatory'. This is that misrepresentation again.

I will just repeat that readers should look at the UK prison statistics of sex crimes committed by the males in prison that have declared themselves to be women. No feminist I know of has said 'all'. I believe that many have said that there is no evidence to say that males who transition commit sex crimes at a rate anywhere close to females.

Oh wait they discount it here:

To follow up with the contentious issue of ‘male rapists’ in women’s prisons, again the evidence does not support the above-cited alarmist assertions. On 14th January 2022 the then British Ministry of Justice Minister Victoria Atkins confirmed that the vast majority of trans women are held in men’s prisons (compromising their safety), and spoke of existing safeguards with any high-risk prisoners ‘held separately with only supervised contact with other women’.

OK. So to work this out, there is now an admission that there are 'male rapists' held in women's prisons. But they are ‘held separately with only supervised contact with other women’.

What about just the sex abusers? What about the direct anecdotal reports from women to a researcher in Scotland of males who immediately 'detransitioned' upon release, or the males who got moved to the female prisons in Scotland because they desired sex with the female inmates. There is only a small number of transitioned male prisoners in female estates in Scotland, yet, there is anecdotal evidence of misconduct in a study released around 12 months ago. One that was overwhelmingly positive towards inclusivity.

Did the author miss it? Or just didn't think it was necessary to actually consider any evidence that might put their assertions at risk of being so polarised.

A fact that the author of this article seems to never acknowledge, yet attempts to use media representations as evidence. I have not seen this author also acknowledge how glamourising trans people impacts young viewers. But I have not finished reading. It is quite slow going as there seems to be quite a lot of very sloppy conclusions being drawn and absolutely no balance at all.

Like this:

The root of much gender critical thought is, then, that trans women are delusional men (with trans men often unmentioned), and that their rights undermine sex-based rights through a discriminatory assumption of sexual violence/predatory behaviour.

Again, the author distracts from the reality by focus on 'predatory' behaviour.

This section is hypocritically called "The context: gender critical feminism and trans inclusive feminism". Yet it does not even reach the heart of what so called 'gender critical' feminism actually is. Does the author know or has the author simply picked up the lazy tropes? Or does the author know but thinks that focusing on safeguarding concerns in the way they have is going to convince others that what feminists are saying is based on this ridiculous accusation of ignorance?

I mean, this author even quotes Faye ('im (sic) a woman because I say I am sorry you've lost - even law says so - enjoy ur erasure') as some kind of expert in moral panics.

Citing the Independent Press Standards Organisation, Jay Prosser notes that since 2009 there has been ‘a 400% increase in reporting in trans issues accompanied by “increased hostility” in the media towards transgender people’. Shon Faye’s research cited in a CNN report on the UK as one of the most trans-hostile media countries, revealed that ‘in 2020 the Times and the Sunday Times published over 300 articles (on the subject of trans identity), almost one a day, and they were all negative’.

Just a note about this.

What is really interesting is when you go and look at some of the data (I only went so far as to look at the report from the consultants that IPSO had do the research), that data is from 2009 to 2019.

I notice that the author doesn't go into any depth about it. However, the event spiking the reporting on trans issues for that time period was.... drum roll.... Willoughby appearing on Big Brother.

What the author fails to also mention which would then explain much of that 'increase' is that of course, the numbers of transitioners grew substantially during that time. Concerns were starting to be discussed about young transitioners.

Also that the report itself shows the number of events that were 'newsworthy' increased dramatically. So it is a logical correlation. FFS. It doesn't take a genius to understand that if there are more events associated with trans people, and that there are laws being changed, language demands, events where males are being 'celebrated' as females such as Jenner, then of course there will be more news articles.

Also, that 400% increase to be clear is not 400% in 'hostile' coverage. In fact, reading even their deeper analysis of 11 selected events that were widely covered - most of the coverage was 'neutral'.

www.ipso.co.uk/media/1986/mediatique-report-on-coverage-of-transgender-issues.pdf

see Exhibit 2: transgender-related stories published each month vs some key events

‘a 400% increase in reporting in trans issues accompanied by “increased hostility” in the media towards transgender people’.

Just repeating a biased viewpoint as evidence, surely cannot be considered adequate for the purpose of this reputationally damaging article.

If the author wishes, I am very happy to compile a spreadsheet of 'questioning' toned articles from the pdf for the 11 articles, but surely if you are using a quote from someone you would verify the information yourself. Isn't that what academics are supposed to do?

I would say that Jay Prosser probably took two areas of a study and mashed it into one sentence that made that sentence misrepresentation of the reality. Simply repeating without checking makes for misleading information being replicated.

Oh. look... Exhibit 7: Editorial position of articles surveyed as % of total for each case study

www.ipso.co.uk/media/1986/mediatique-report-on-coverage-of-transgender-issues.pdf

Page 13 has a lovely chart that shows the break down. I guess if you want to misrepresent the reality, you might judge this as 'hostile' in that the numbers of 'questioning' articles is not 0.

But then, look at the events selected and then make a mature judgement on whether those articles should be affirming only or whether there should be 'questions' raised.

FFS. I find this really hard to believe that this is an academic writing this:

In this context, the Stock narrative might appear to be ‘just another story’, yet there is no doubt that her case has fitted neatly into a pre-existing trans-hostile right-wing media narrative seeking free-speech martyrs, and been weaponised by those seeking to attack trans people and universities. All of these stories take the point of view of Professor Stock and defend her position. Accordingly, in this section I will focus on the way the story has been presented in The Daily Telegraph through a selection of apposite articles. This broadsheet paper closely aligns with the UK Conservative government in terms of its wider politics and its negative views on trans rights.

Read that and wonder where the balance is. Where is the Pink News coverage??? Oh wait .... here it is.... discussing Phipps and Phipps' encouragement that trans flags be posted on doors as an act of solidarity for trans people.... that supposedly is not 'targeting Stock'. This is a very transparent positioning by the author and really shows the lack of balance. The Daily Telegraphy = bad. Pink News = good. Just more polarisation and absolutism.

When we actually look closer at the story and the actions of Phipps from her point of view another story emerges of a positive and symbolic act of supporting trans students without targeting Stock. In one of the few media outlets that presents her side of the story, the LGBTQ community paper Pink News, we learn that Phipps requested that colleagues post the trans flag on their door as an act of solidarity with trans students.52 This can be argued to be an appropriate act from an academic who teaches and is tutor to trans and non-binary students and at the time Director and Professor of Gender Studies at Sussex University at a time of increased trans-hostility. Her email to colleagues, reprinted in Pink News reads as follows (and I will reproduce it all as it has gone under-reported outside of the community outlet):

But seriously. What planet do people live where having people post trans flags on their door when that group of people have specifically targeted Dr Stock is not further victimising Dr Stock?

I really cannot believe the denial of bullying while claiming victimhood that is going on here in this article.

Speaking out as a gender critical feminist does have consequences in the university system, but before we censor this, we need to be aware of the consequences for our colleagues and students who identify as trans and non-binary. Threats of violence are never acceptable and the need for security is alarming and should be condemned whether that violence is directed at trans people, trans inclusive feminists or gender critical feminists. Yet, gender critical feminism does present a cause for concern. In a blog post Alison Phipps notes this concern by the Institute of Race Relations over the links between gender critical feminism and the far right.61 However gender critical feminists identify politically, it is clear that their viewpoints are being co-opted by those who do not have feminist interests at heart. While I am not accusing gender critical feminist of being racists, some of their allies are, and this should worry Universities who claim to prioritise equality, diversity and inclusion.

Ahh.... here we again have a call to discredit feminists because 'allies'. And more false links with 'far right'. The author has carefully put this in Phipps' name, I notice. The author doesn't, of course, cite any credible examples. Just leaves it as a vague sword dangling.

(Yet, the author conveniently never once has acknowledged the behaviour of 'trans allies'. )

Speaking out as a gender critical feminist does have consequences in the university system, but before we censor this, we need to be aware of the consequences for our colleagues and students who identify as trans and non-binary.

What about the women and children? Does the author write anything about being aware of the consequences for women and children for people under the trans umbrella having all their demands met without question??

If they did, I missed it.

finally on that list of pledges.

"Bullying and harassment"

Really? The author did indeed go there.

Particularly when Serano is being used to discredit Dr Stock's with :

Kathleen Stock, for instance, asserts that trans women are living ‘immersed in a fiction’.

It is also astonishing that Deborah Shaw doesn't mention that Serano is mentioned and quoted several times in Kathleen Stock's Material Girls.

If Non-birthing Parent Christmas could grant me one wish, it'd be that the word "link" in this context vanish whenever it's used in place of actually starting what the link specifically is.

Everything on Earth has links to every other thing on Earth. If you're stating they have a specific thing in common, or a causality, or whatever it is, you need to state that. "Has links to" has become as meaningless as "transphobia".