Fantastic piece by Kathleen Stock

[RoyalCorgi]

I love this. It's a great rebuttal of Ed Balls (in his recent tv interview with her) and Matthew Parris's confused Times article - as well as a lovely tribute to the other brave and brilliant women campaigning on this issue. Thank you, Kathleen.

[[https://unherd.com/2023/06/the-gender-wars-are-not-a-gift-to-the-right/

Super article. She’s got a great turn of phrase -

Most ordinary people have not been educated into this level of stupidity.

That was an excellent essay across different levels. She explained the space that is MN FWR very well in those paragraphs, whether she meant just twitter or not. She encapsulated this board’s spirit in her words.

The breathtaking hypocrisy of saying in your book that radical feminists (and by extension trans widows) are extreme then saying the opposite, without ever actually admitting that you were wrong and all the ordinary women pointing it out to you at the time were right!

My friend Lang (late of this parish) rails about the gentry left never, ever admitting they're wrong, and though it will make her head even bigger, I admit she is proved right again.

Context for those who missed it at the time:

twitter.com/transwidows/status/1390947545422118919?s=46&t=PSGltfjrMyZmBtYq2-AVIQ

Thanks for posting this @RoyalCorgi. It's a really helpful overview.

Isn't it a great article? I love that there are so many articulate women - Helen Joyce, Maya, Stephanie Davies-Arai, Nic Williams, Janice Turner, Julie Bindel - to name just a few, who speak & write so clearly.
I was feeling quite miserable having read the nonsense about the Derbyshire school / pride / drag queen debacle and this has cheered me right up

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.

An old clip emerged the other day of Julie Bindel saying that trans women could be lesbians, which was either amusing or horrifying, depending on your stance.

I still think this is a cracking piece from Kathleen.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I hate elitism.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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 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.

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 there are a number of reasons Professor Stock is so popular with the media - she is intelligent, softly-spoken, extremely articulate, sometimes funny and always reasonable. But she is also very good-looking, strikingly so, and looks count for a lot in telly.

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.

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'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