The one we alluded to the other day is now public. The first sentence reads:
We are professional academic philosophers committed to the inclusion and acceptance of trans and gender non-conforming people, both in the public at large, and within philosophy in particular.
I strongly agree with that and would have signed any statement whose message was that (as anyone paying attention knows). The rest of the letter, however, is a non-sequitur on that opening statement, whose shorter version is: "Fuck you Kathleen Stock." (Given the role of smarmy Jonathan Ichikawa in writing the statement, this is hardly a surprise.)
As the letter says, "Stock is best-known in recent years for her...public and academic discourse on sex and gender, especially for opposition to [reform of]* the UK Gender Recognition Act and the importance of self-identification to establish gender identity," and all of that is compatible with the opening sentence, above: support for trans and gender non-conforming people simply does not settle all the pertinent questions of law and policy that would be implicated by replacing biological sex with gender self-identification as a matter of law. But the point of the letter is to preempt consideration of these issues and heap disapprobation on those who would discuss them through the usual infantile expansion of the concept of "harm":
Trans people are already deeply marginalized in society, facing well-documented discrimination, ranging from government policy to physical violence. Discourse like that Stock is producing and amplifying contributes to these harms, serving to restrict trans people’s access to life-saving medical treatments, encourage the harassment of gender-non-conforming people, and otherwise reinforce the patriarchal status quo. We are dismayed that the British government has chosen to honour her for this harmful rhetoric.
These are claims about cause and effect for which there is literally no evidence. Undoubtedly Professor Stock's views are upsetting and offensive to some people, but offense is not harm. There is undoubtedly a great deal of abusive and cruel rhetoric directed at trans people on social media (and a great deal of abusive and cruel rhetoric directed at gender critical feminists as well), and it's all reprehensible, but none of this has anything to do with Professor Stock, whose writings are measured and substantive, including in cases where I find them unpersuasive.
As I said several years ago, the best "statement of principle" piece I've read on these issues is by the philosopher Sophie-Grace Chappell (Open University), who suggested that we should think of trans-gender persons the way we think about "adoptive parents." Adoptive parents should be treated and regarded as parents for almost all purposes and in all contexts, with some narrow exceptions where the fact that they are not biological parents matters. So, too, trans-women should be treated and regarded as women for almost all purposes and in all contexts, except when the fact that they are not biological women matters. The hard question is what are the contexts in which that matters. Professor Stock's work stakes out a position on this question, and even if she is wrong about some of the contexts, she is rather plainly right that there are major issues of law and policy here, whose resolution will affect real people, trans- and non-trans alike.
*It is the instigators of the letter who are opposed to the Gender Recognition Act, not Professor Stock, who is on record as supporting the Act and opposing a change to the process by which one legally changes gender.
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