On the Cancellation of Kathleen Stock

I have written before how the main cause of trauma in the great British debate over trans rights is an agenda of unnecessary polarisation and division promoted by a media that struggles to keep itself relevant.?The Today programme, for instance, is not actually interested in bring people together to find a consensus on an issue.?Its presenters sow discord at every opportunity in the hope of creating interesting radio and capturing sound bites.?For every BBC journalist like Evan Davis and Emma Barnett, who try to build constructive debates, I’m sorry to say there’s a Deborah Cohen or Justin Wells who seem intent on pursuing an ill-researched campaign to stoke outrage.

I’m sorry to say that there are people on both sides of the debate that have made their minds up and will never be prepared to hear, much less listen to the other side’s perspective.?And they jump on comments made by individuals that, in some cases (such as Rosie Duffield) may perhaps not have been the subject of a great deal of planning, wilfully misinterpreting them to put the individual concerned forward as an advocate of their cause.

I wrote before that I hadn’t been able to find anything in what Rosie Duffield had said before to indicate that she was in any sense trans-exclusionary.?It is possible to oppose self-certification without adopting the TERF mantle.?The same is also true of Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at Sussex university, who is now, according to reports, the subject of ‘cancellation’ at her institution, with trans rights activists apparently calling for her to be dismissed.

Again, I don’t think Kathleen Stock is in the Julie Bindel/Germaine Greer camp of dismissing dysphoria and transition entirely.?Which is to say, she is not trans-exclusionary.?She is, however, a radical feminist and a campaigner for the rights of women.?Her commentary on, for example, self-certification and the so-called ‘safe-space’ debate is not something with which I can agree.?But I can understand her point of view and it is entirely valid.?And more over, even if I couldn’t understand her position, she still had the right to make her case, whether I liked it or not.?After all, who am I to say that I am right??Who’s to say that my lived experience is more relevant than hers?

In “Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism”, Stock, in essence, argues that male genitalia should be excluded from women-only spaces because they are effectively still male and may be attracted to women.?I am probably massively over-simplifying her argument here.?But there is no doubt that there are women who will find the presence of male genitalia in their spaces to be something that creates alarm and perhaps distress, no matter how ‘transitioned’ the trans-woman concerned might otherwise be. ?

As with so much in life, everything depends on the context.?A close friend of mine is a survivor of multiple rapes and assaults as a child by a family member.?She is comfortable in the presence of men.?She is a strong, determined woman who has overcome a disability to raise four children, three of whom have been to or are at university, and a fourth who is brilliant but autistic.?But the sight or thought of male genitalia can send her into a downward spiral of PTSD from which it can be hard to extricate her.

On the other hand, I have two trans acquaintances, both long transitioned and neither have been through GRS.?One, who transitioned ten years ago, has been involved throughout with the same partner and has an active sex-life.?She told me she feared the very real risk that the operation would endanger her enjoyment of that, which was very important to her.?The other, who transitioned nearly 30 years ago, simply feared the general risks of the surgery, which, although very rare, are real, serious and very nasty, and for her, her anatomical condition is a relic of a genetic accident and is of no relevance to - and no use in - her life now.?In fact, I would go so far as to say that unless you actually knew, you would never guess that she is trans.

Both are attracted to women, both still have male genitalia, as Stock fears.?But neither present even the slightest danger to cis-women.?In fact, statistically, it’s arguable that women are more at risk from other cis-women than they are from trans women.?The crime survey of 2018, published by HMSO as was, indicated that around 80,000 assaults on women were committed by other women.?And although the survey didn’t break that figure down into cis- and trans-women, trawling through Google News for reports of trans-women being prosecuted for assaults on women over the last 5 years or so, I could find barely a handful of those committed by a trans-woman - and all but one of those were committed by the same person.?And the one that wasn’t was an ABH.

Stock herself was the author of written evidence submitted to a High Court review over the inclusion of trans women in women’s prisons and her evidence makes convincing reading.?But again, it is about context.?Here, she looked at prisoners who had been convicted of rape or attempted rape.?The evidence she gave did not extend to how many of those offences were carried out post-transition. ?

Another close friend of mine, who works daily in the criminal courts, said she feared for my safety in attending a football match because the only trans-women she came across in her work are victims of hate-crimes and assaults.?Whereas in over two years, I have had one scruffy bloke at a bus stop say something under his breath as I walked past, only to be pulled up by a woman standing next to him before I could say anything.?And that’s it.

It’s clear that in a women’s prison, just like a rape shelter or a Crown Court, the context is such that the greatest levels of sensitivity must be applied.?But this is very different to the experience of trans-people in the general hubbub of daily life.

Because, to echo what I said on our inclusion in women’s sport, sexual assaults are not committed by datasets, they are committed by individuals.?But at the same time, we have to give careful time to consider the concerns expressed by others, because if even one woman suffers a sexual assault at the hands of a trans woman, that is too many.?We can’t solve this conundrum through objective classification.?At its essence, it’s a matter of intense subjectivity.?And quite possibly there is no single solution.

This is a debate in which everybody has a right to be heard.?The only qualification for entry is that you don’t shout down people with whom you do not agree.?Let us make like the Scandinavians and find a way for everybody to be heard.