Philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) asked me to share her statement about recent events, which I'm happy to do (the title of this blog post is mine; Prof. Stock's statement follows):
I see that the blog of the Institute of Art and Ideas has taken down a piece ( Download The current transgender debate polarizes Western societies like no other) to which Holly Lawford-Smith and I contributed, alongside Julie Bindel, Robin Dembroff, Susan Stryker and Rebecca Kukla. I assume the reason to be the fuss the latter three have been making on social media and letters to the editor since the piece was published.
One complaint I’ve seen from them is that I have no relevant expertise in this area. Yet my contribution links to my forthcoming piece on sexual orientation, sex, and gender, in the Aristotelian Society proceedings. (Moreover this isn’t a criteria I’ve ever seen employed when the contributor agrees with self-ID in law and policy, as we obviously do not. As usual it’s a highly selective use of a norm).
This was the invitation, which went out verbatim to Holly Lawford-Smith and Julie Bindel and I assume to the others. Holly wrote to the editor who commissioned us a few days ago and hasn’t heard back.
“I'm writing on behalf of the Institute of Art and Ideas - we organise the world's largest music and philosophy festival, HowTheLightGetsIn, and also run an online magazine, IAI News, which receives around 100,000 views per month. Contributors so far have included Rebecca Goldstein, Martha Nussbaum, Anthony Appiah, Elizabeth Anderson, Homi Bhabha and others.
We are currently compiling an article where we ask leading thinkers 'How can philosophy change the way we understand the transgender experience and identity?' Given your influential work on the subject, I was wondering whether you would be interested in contributing a 200 word response?
I look forward to hearing from you”
This was my piece:
Philosophy can ask: what is a transgender identity? More generally, it can ask what “identity” is, and interrogate the central role that the notion now plays in contemporary politics. On one interpretation, one’s identity is wholly subjective: it’s whatever you believe you are, right now, where your beliefs guarantee success – if you now believe that you are such-and-such, then being such-and-such is your identity, and there’s no way you can be wrong about that. Sometimes we hear that identities include, not just being trans or not, but also having a sexual orientation: being gay, or heterosexual, or bisexual. But if, for instance,“subjectively believing you are heterosexual” is equivalent to “actually being heterosexual”, then this presumably means you are automatically heterosexual as long as you feel that term applies to you. And this looks wrong. Aren’t there independent, non-subjective conditions to be fulfilled, to count as being a heterosexual? You have to be genuinely attracted to the opposite sex, for one. Lots of people believe they’re straight but aren’t. Self-deception is possible. Sopossession of a heterosexual identity, in an interesting sense, seems to require more than just subjective belief. If that’s right, then we should think harder about making a transgender identity only a matter of what one subjectively feels is true about oneself right now.
Incidentally, another source of faux outrage from same quarters recently was the title of my draft paper for the Aristotelian Society, which was the same as one of Robin Dembroff, namely: “What is sexual orientation?”. This was actually due to a confusion on my part - I got Dembroff’s title wrong in the bibliography (I wrote “What Is A Sexual Orientation?” there, so then assumed I had done it differently in the title). This is the draft, remember. Even if it had been intentionally the same, generic “what is..” titles being reproduced is fairly common and titles are not copyright -able. These facts didn’t stop Professor Lori Gruen writing to me to express her concern that I had taken Dembroff’s title, arguing, in apparent ignorance of the referencing system, that people might well get confused between the two papers. I have since seen others complain on social media that I “plagiarised” the title. (Similarly anxious readers will be relieved to hear the title of the finished piece is now: “Sexual Orientation: What Is It?”)
A separate incident I’m told of recently involves Professor Sally Haslanger writing to the entire board of the NDPR to complain about my being asked to review Serene Khader’s latest book, and to ask them to review their policies moving forward so that a similar mistake isn’t made again.
In the meantime I’m told that a graduate student is compiling a spreadsheet of my past tweets; publicly encouraged by Professor Jonathan Ichikawa, whose only regret is that others aren’t helping
https://mobile.twitter.com/jichikawa/status/1166504879449239552
These philosophers are happy to use intimidation of editors, and attempted intimidation of gender-critical philosophers, under the guise of moral outrage, to shut us up, rather than intellectual engagement. Perhaps they even believe that we are such harmful individuals that any such tactics are appropriate. Either way, I’m embarrassed for them. Is there any other area of philosophy in which gate-keeping is so intense? Why is that, I wonder?
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