Being and Otherness: the Dilemmas of Genderr Identity

[Stavros]

Earlier his year I recommended Material Girls, by Kathleeen Stock-
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...nd-then/page55

Kathleen Stock has been the target of a campaign on the campus of the University of Sussex where she teaches Philosophy, accusing her of transphobia, generating a defensive posture by the University seeking to defend both Trans Rights throughout the University, and Academic Freedom.

It has generated a confusing debate in which science appears to conflict with social attitudes, but where some feel the science is being relegated to a nonsense to appease the 'trans lobby' on the basis that Trans Rights Matter.

A good example of this was on BBC-1's Question Time last night (Thursday 14th October) in which Professor, Lord Winston insisted it is not possible to change sex, as sex is in every cell of the body and the brain, but failed to acknowledge that 2-3 out of every 100 children is born with no clearly defined genitals, with a mix of male and female chromosones, ie a confusing and insecure biology- -and that it is Heterosexual Society that demands the new born be fit into one of two categories of being.

In the case of Stock and the lobby against her, a neat point was made in The Guardian reviewing Material Girls, and Helen Joyce's Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. The reviewer, Gaby Hinsliff makes to me the pertinent point that these two groups are talking past each other, thus:

"To gender-critical thinkers, gender is a social construct imposed on women and to be resisted, since it’s driven by what men want them to be (Stock describes herself as a gender non-conforming lesbian). But trans people use the phrase “gender identity” to mean an innate sense of being male or female, which is fundamental to their identity because it explains why they reject the sex others perceive them as. To one side, gender is a terrible trap; to the other, it’s liberation from a trap."
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...-stock-reviews

To the 'Conservative' Telegraph, this debate on gender identity has gone beyond natural debate, as one article describes an advert for John Lewis Home Insurance as 'everything that's wrong with Modern Britain'- because it features a small boy in make up and his mum's dress trashing the house...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnis...odern-britain/

What, one wonders, would the Telegraph make of Zoe Williams making the point that the word 'Mother' might not be the best word to use when addressing her in the company of her chldren, thus-

"It’s a huge bugbear on rightwing news sites such as Breitbart and the Federalist that all trans people are trying to ban the word “mother”....I too hate being called “mum” in medical appointments. Even as a cis woman, it forces you to choose between being an adult, with your name in the notes right there, and a biological function with clothes on (ideally)."
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...e-debate-words

Should 'breastfeeding' be replaced with 'chestfeeding'? No
Should 'mother' be repaced with 'Caregiver'? No.
Should 'woman' be replaced by 'womxn'? No.

On the one hand I understand the campaign for trans rights, and on the basis that there are not that many people who are transgendering, and that it doesn't cost much to grant them their rights, I dont see a problem that cannot be resolved politically.

The problem is with a small lobby of militants who have not grasped an essential fact about politics and campaigns -to be successful you need to have the support of a majority of people. Asking -or demanding- that the general public refer to women with the unpronouncable 'womxn' nails the point. They are losing the support of the people they need.

Yes, as Zoe Williams points out, over time, language changes, policies change, and yes, people change, and I accept that life is hard for many, if not all people undergoing a profound change in their being. Whether or not everyone has the right to self-identify seems to me to be an easy issue, because democracy confers rights on the individual, and I don't see how any democratic society can use the State and the Law to deny an individual their right to self-identify their gender and or sexuality- as long as this does not harm others, or infringe their rights. And after all, why would anyone transgendering want to harm others, or infrnge their rights?

A calmer and more rational approach to this ought to heal the divisions between the Trans Lobby and the 'Radical Feminists', indeed, society in general, or we risk the public sphere being commandeered by people whose commitment to Democracy is unreliable, and use cultural issues chained to Biology to privilege one against the other, when they should be working together.