One of the problems with feminist theories and politics being adopted by the mainstream is having to let go and rescind ownership, a bit like kids growing up and leaving the nest. This has happened with the debate over transgender ideology.
Unsurprisingly, because of our focus on male violence towards women, radical feminists have been at the forefront of this fight since the late 1970s. My foray into the transgender culture wars began in 2004 with the publication of a column in Guardian Weekend Magazine, in which I poured scorn on trans activists who tried to shut down a Canadian rape crisis centre.
At that time, it was a lonely battle with the majority of individuals and groups choosing to either say nothing or to side with the trans activists. But slowly things began to change. Eventually, one or two individuals spoke out, and it became obvious to many that feminists were being bullied for standing up for women’s sex-based rights.
Then, in 2017, A Women’s Place UK crashed onto the scene, responding to the outrageous suggestion by the Conservative government that in order to avoid red tape, trans-identified males could simply self-identify as female without the need for any medical or surgical intervention.
The war began in earnest and, one year later, the academic philosophy professor Kathleen Stock wrote a Medium article pegged on my Guardian column and the ensuing rage from transactivists. Seeing such a hard-hitting, uncompromising piece that so clearly set out the misogyny of what was going on was so refreshing.
The article ends with one of my top ten feminist responses to the trans madness: “So here’s a task for any progressive males reading. Next time a natal woman expresses herself in a way you find unattractive, unseemly, unkind, or downright rude about trans people, then, assuming they aren’t ‘screaming it in a trans person’s face’: why not shut the fuck up and keep it to yourself?”
With the publication in May of her book Material Girls, Stock has contributed an invaluable tool with which to tackle trans orthodoxy and re-establish the basis of feminist theory regarding sex and gender. So I wanted to catch up with Stock to ask how the book has been received.
“The sales are very encouraging for the book. In the first week, it was No 11 in the hardback non-fiction chart,” Stock says via Zoom from her Sussex home. “It’s been received very well in a lot of places. But because of the reluctance of the book industry to promote it, its success will rely on its quality and word of mouth recommendations.”
Stock is referring to the fact that the literary festivals which would normally jump at the chance to have established and high-profile philosophers speak have not, so far, invited her, and neither has the BBC’s flagship Woman’s Hour programme.
“I get emails every day from people telling me they’re read it and are really grateful for it, including teachers with multiple trans identified children in class, or social workers, or psychologists or lawyers.”
Referencing her own political leanings, Stock says: “I’m on the left but I’m not liberal in the ‘anything goes, all freedoms are great’ way. I was a feminist from the age of 17. Before I got involved in this, I started writing in a philosophical context on sexual objectification, to criticise and analyse it and say how rampant it is in culture.”
“I’m a reluctant activist, I am more of a thinker, which I think is my role. I’m a philosopher and the way I’ve been trained is not to just accept what I am told. My fundamental attitude to almost everything is ‘What’s wrong with this? Where are the flaws?’ So, I take that attitude to feminism, too.”
“I got increasingly fed up with the smugness of the academics around me, just mouthing the mantras without any idea of the costs,” says Stock.
During university in the 1990s Stock’s home bursar of her college transitioned, and the very next week was invited to a women’s dinner. This was a college where there were hardly any women at all. “Then when Stonewall adopted the mantra, ‘trans women are women, get over it’, I thought ‘That is ridiculously aggressive, people aren’t going to take that literally, it’s not true’.”
Within Stock’s own academic discipline, the Society for Women in Philosophy have fully embraced self ID, meaning that anyone can join the Society which also runs mentoring events for women, which today means anyone who identifies as a woman.
“I got increasingly fed up with the smugness of the academics around me, just mouthing the mantras without any idea of the costs,” says Stock.
Although embroiled in a debate seen as being between radical feminists and extreme trans activists Stock toes no party line. She has never claimed to be a radical feminist, and in fact has declared herself not to be on occasion.
Any yet Stock has come in for some criticism from so-called ‘gender critical’ women, some of whom are not feminists and ally with right wing anti-feminists in the US and can often appear to be in the fight merely for the fun of it. But Stock is clear, she did not write Material Girls to satisfy those already in the trenches, but rather for those well-intentioned liberals who consider themselves to be neutral on the matter and who think that caving in to extreme transgender ideology is simply to ‘be kind’.
“I wrote it for those who want to understand what’s going on,” says Stock. “I could have written a polemic and it would have been a completely different kind of book.”
“If we could talk more about autogynephilia in a less toxic way, fewer men would feel they had to transition, and fewer men would feel so ashamed of it that they had to deny it existed.”
We broach the topic of autogynephilia – a term used to describe those men, some of whom identify as trans women, being sexually aroused by the idea of being or becoming a woman.
“Autogynephilia is a result of a power imbalance in favour of males,” says Stock, “but I also think that women’s capacity to ingest the sexual fantasies of submission is because of male power, so in that case they’re similar.”
Stock came in for some criticism for merely attempting to understand the role that autogynephilia may or may not have when it comes to males transitioning to live as women.
“Of course, changing rooms, bathrooms, all the rest of it, should be single sex,” says Stock. “If we could talk more about autogynephilia in a less toxic way, fewer men would feel they had to transition, and fewer men would feel so ashamed of it that they had to deny it existed. But I do not say this to let men off the hook for wanking in changing rooms.”
For Stock, an ideal world would be free of gender ideology, but as ever, she is a pragmatist.
“Trans women are not literally women. Trans men are not literally men, but we can’t do anything about those that have already chosen to transition and wish to live their lives as if they are the opposite sex.”
This reasoned, nuanced approach is what makes her a brilliant academic and, for some of the more extreme faction on the so-called ‘gender critical’ side of the fence, too liberal and compromising. But there is nothing of the capitulator about Stock, she simply refused to be fed a party line.
“As I make clear in the book, there are people for whom transition seems to work psychologically, and many others for whom it does not,” says Stock. “None of them change sex. No trans woman is literally a woman, and no trans man is literally a man. These things are fictions, at most.”
“Radical feminists have been brave when most others have been silent, and they have been punished for it. I personally owe them a lot,” she says. “But they don’t own this debate because, I would argue, the whole of the human race, including trans people, has an interest in us being able to name biological reality accurately and to make policies that refer unambiguously to it.”
The bullying and harassment from trans activists, including many of her own colleagues, must have taken its toll, but there is nothing of the martyr about her.
“When I talk about being de-platformed or bullied or harassed, which I am in my workplace, I am not doing it in a ‘poor me, I’m such a victim’ way. This is terrible for universities. The moral of the story is this is happening to women.”
“Radical feminists have been brave when most others have been silent, and they have been punished for it. I personally owe them a lot,” she says. “But they don’t own this debate because, I would argue, the whole of the human race, including trans people, has an interest in us being able to name biological reality accurately and to make policies that refer unambiguously to it.”
There is Kathleen Stock for you: stubborn, uncompromising and sometimes even wrong. But the woman is as bright as the Blackpool illuminations, which is why she knew that this was a fight worth having. But one thing Stock is not is an appeaser. She doesn’t belong to anyone, which is why some individual feminists who think this fight is theirs alone appear so disappointed with her.
“I know it’s not a book for everybody, but I would like politicians, educationalists, psychologists, medics, lawyers and as broad a range of people as possible to read it. They don’t have to agree with it, but at least understand what the other side is saying.”
For Stock, if we want to reach a point where conversation between the warring factions is remotely possible we have to be brave enough to confront bigotry in the so-called ‘gender critical camp, lest it does damage to the feminist cause.
“We have to make room for critical, healthy discussion,” says Stock. “Or we will be seen as behaving like the trans activists.”
Photo: Sonali Fernando
Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleen Stock is published by Fleet.
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