Although Kathleen is understandably upset by the conduct of the small number of abusive students, she is adamant that many of them are taking a cue from the influential adults around them. “I don’t think they’ve actually read what I think. There’s a lot of enabling, or inciting, of individuals in this story,” she says.
“Many of these academics contribute to an environment in which some pretty terrible things are happening to, for instance, children in gender identity clinics. I can see why they had a vested interest in shutting me down.”
She stresses: “I absolutely believe that trans people should be protected in law, so I’m never going to waiver from that. I just disagree about the laws that should be used.”
Like a number of other women in the public eye who have been deemed to be transphobic, Kathleen is tired of being “lumped in with holocaust deniers” as the personification of all evil.
“I’m not even a free speech absolutist,” she says. “This is preposterous framing and entirely set up by our enemies to mean that we can’t win. All we’re doing is insisting on basic obvious facts of biology and their social significance. Nearly 99% of the planet agrees with us. The most I can get out of people is a tentative ‘Well, we absolutely support Kathleen Stock’s right to say what she thinks’ but they won’t say ‘And yeah, of course we agree with her because it’s bloody obvious’.”
And this insistence on keeping silent has had a toxic impact on the transgender debate, allowing small groups of extremely vocal and aggressive activists to fill that gap. For example, Kathleen firmly believes that Stonewall is in large part responsible for the current witch hunt mentality. As someone who has experienced the ensuing vitriol first-hand, it is hard not to agree. During the past few years, its business model has prioritised promoting a very narrow conception of what they would call trans rights.
“I would say these rights don’t benefit trans people,” says Kathleen. “But they were already embedded in all these national institutions, government departments, the CPS, the EHRC, almost all of our universities, schools and local authorities. And being in one of their schemes means these institutions get a constant stream of instructions such as: ‘We would really appreciate it if you would put out a tweet lobbying for this project’. Our national institutions have almost unwittingly been instruments to be used by extremists.”
Those extremists are swift to accuse Kathleen of “weaponising her trauma” if she ever dares talk about how the attacks have affected her personally. Which they have, obviously. She insists on talking about it, though, because it’s not just affecting high-profile characters like us two. “It’s what’s happening now in every institution, not just universities, to women who feel like they’re choking,” she explains. “They cannot get their words out — or if they do, then they’re put through complaints systems, they’re socially ostracised, they are told by their bosses, ‘we’re watching your Twitter feed.’ There’s just this feeling of surveillance that is unacceptable. So that’s why we have to talk about the human cost.”
What was the final straw for Kathleen? She tells me it was when the Sussex branch of the University and College Union (UCU) put out a statement in support of “our trans and non-binary students” and against “institutional transphobia”.
“At that point I was just hanging on. I was teaching from home. I saw the posters. I was advised to stay at home for my own protection. The police were coming round. I’m getting security stuff delivered to my house, trying to think about the future. I thought I’d have to stay off campus for the rest of the term but at least I can teach on Zoom. I hoped they would support me.”
And then her UCU branch issued its damning statement. “It was a pompous peroration about ‘standing with our trans and non binary students against institutional transphobia’” Kathleen explains. “And all they could possibly mean by that is that I was there”.
“There’s nobody else who speaks out like I do. Plus, every second communication that comes out of the university is about trans and non-binary spaces in the library and trans or non-binary support groups and LGBT issues. There’s a staff network; there’s a Centre for Sexual Dissidence; there’s a Centre for Gender Studies.
“It’s literally saturated with positive messaging. It’s in Brighton, one of the most queer-friendly places in the world. So all they could mean by institutional transphobia is: ‘We haven’t shut that bitch up yet’. It came through on my email and it just felt like a punch in the gut.
“But this is a union! They are supposed to protect employees from their bosses and to offer solidarity with anyone who is an employee — especially in a university where they are being targeted for their academic research and their philosophical beliefs, which are also protected in law under the equality act.”
And, Kathleen tells me, this intolerance trickles all the way down from the top of UCU. As far back as 2019, for instance, Jo Grady, UCU’s general secretary, boasted of her decision to instal ‘Terf Blocker software’ on Twitter, which automatically blocks any account that has been deemed transphobic.
“Grady is not unusual in academia,” says Kathleen. “She has these relatively extreme views but they’ve become the norm and it’s all so moralised. These people are a small number of hardcore totalitarians.”
I ask Kathleen if there’s anything we can do. How can we enable students to critically examine controversial topics without being scared to speak out?
“What we can do is demand that universities reduce the influence of lobbying groups like Stonewall, and insist that senior management do not make politically loaded pronouncements in controversial areas of public dispute.”
She explains that having transgender flags on campuses, holding quasi-religious ceremonies such as Trans Day of Remembrance and so on are not neutral gestures, despite how they are presented. These are political gestures and managers should not be participating in them.
Despite all the abuse she’s received, Kathleen believes there is better news on the horizon. She has seen a tsunami of support from Government ministers, students, feminists and, of course, right-minded liberals who are now less afraid to speak out, having been inspired by Kathleen and others who have put their heads above the parapet.
“We’re obviously having some success because I see more and more people speaking out. I think as the public becomes better educated about the basic issues and our particular position, which is the opposite of how it has been represented.
“One thing that’s happened recently is that the Guardian and the BBC are no longer presenting our views as anti-trans or transphobic. And at least some of the people working there seem aware that there’s actually a proper intellectual dispute here. Beforehand, I honestly think Guardian readers hardly knew about any of the implications of self-identification. They just were being protected from that information, because it wasn’t serving the newspaper’s business model very well.”
What will Kathleen do next? “I’m not going to stop,” she tells me with defiance. “In leaving Sussex, I’ve become even more able to speak out and now I’ve got a bigger platform.”
What she does with that platform is yet to be seen. But I suspect it won’t be long until we find out.
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SubscribeGreat interview here and on Woman’s Hour. Thanks to you both.
I was especially glad, Kathleen, to hear you say despite everything you did not regret speaking up and it was the most worthwhile thing you have done. We all owe you a huge vote of thanks – and to step up and take up this challenge.
Is it a related matter: a prof with a book on their shelf entitled “How to Fight Anti-Semitism” might have fallen foul of today’s large BDS academic and student body. Was she thus double-targeted by stealth? I wonder.
It’s probably the Unherd office
Kathleen’s case is appalling. Her trade union acted appallingly and her university acted in a cowardly way. Yet there was no bitterness in that interview. Good luck to her in the future.
I do hope this sort of mania ends up with a great swing in the opposite direction, like the election of Youngkin in Virginia.
There is a real phenomenon of ‘Going Too Far’ which results in a hard push back.
These students are building up enough outrage it could result in ‘Defund the Universities’ of the social damaging insanity. I think it is in USA – I feel USA is about to make education a big issue – not because the students craziness, but the school teachers and administrators insanity.
I agree. However if you spend any time around academics you will find they are utterly indifferent to how bad their institutions are and they will remain that way right until their funding is cut. At that time they will start blathering about the role of the university in society, etc, but it will be too late. They deserve to be defunded.
Good news that there appears to be something positive on the horizon. The treatment of Kathleen Stock has been appalling.
Many in South Africa haven’t heard of the Woke, but the tendrils are obviously twining through universities, organisations and workplaces. This intolerance and anger and hypocrisy needs to be stamped out. The emphasis is on hypocrisy. They are frauds.
It’s the anti-science that gets me.
Well yes, me too.
But it’s on both sides in this case. JB is a social constructionist, so, against all the evidence, she believes that the personalities and behaviours of men and women, and the average differences between them, are all down to social conditioning.
in JBs case this seems to be up to and including sexual orientation. In spite of the massive evolutionary advantage of having a predominant sexual preference for the opposite sex, biology plays no, or a minimal, role.
in effect, this is an argument over just how malleable human beings are. With both sides arguing that they are far more malleable than is actually the case.
Interestingly, my MSc Psychology thesis was on ‘the essential difference’ (as per Simon Baron-Cohen’s theory of ‘male/female’ cognitive styles).
I was completely baffled by the apparent belief, in some of my subjects, that human beings are infinitely malleable. I wasn’t looking at the whys and wherefores or correlations, but there was a ‘taboo’ response amongst some individuals to the very idea that women and men can think differently. Mysterious.
I’ve got 6 brothers and 3 sisters – we were and are different; not better/worse, superior/inferior, more or less intelligent or aggressive (mum always said her girls were more aggressive than the boys), but different inclinations and priorities from birth.
Some women are not ‘feminine’ females and some men are not especially ‘masculine’ males, but we would be a very strange species indeed if biology didn’t influence behaviour (particularly in the sexual arena). In fact, we’d be extinct.
The reasons are well covered in Pinkers “Blank Slate”. Our society seems to be quite big on things that we know to be true, but don’t want to believe.
Science? Oh,that’s so last century! Didn’t you know? Science is patriarchy and oppression. Facts are misogynistic and trans-phobic.
What we need is ‘lived experience’, that’s the new replacement for science.
Yes its a similar thing with climate change. Nobody discusses the science because once the truth is revealed people cant politicise the issue. Its clear cut..
Climate Change isn’t a verifiable truth! (apart from the fact that Climate always changes – both up and down).
It’s a Precautionary Action.
Well said, but can we please stop using “Woke” and use bullying and harassment. One of the reasons the whole debate slides under the radar is very little is clear to the wider population of the arguments and why and who they are made by. Apart from the Guardian and now somewhat belatedly the BBC (last week), very little information on transgender issues gets into the MSM.
The Guardian is wholly pro-gender ideology and doesn’t report GC views, so I wouldn’t cite that as a source of information. The Times, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail are pretty strong on the harmful influence of gender-identity politics and self-ID. The BBC has only just started to broadcast/publish material of which Stonewall disapproves, but I’m afraid I don’t have much hope that it will escapet that so-called charity’s poisonous influence, so embedded is it in the Beeb’s structures and editorial policies.
Thanks I agree with you. However, there are a couple of Guardian articles that are not pro gender I can look them up if you want, I have several LGBT friends who are concerned about Stonewall’s stance.
The DM is so light weight now that it does not get the proper message across. The Telegraph has now become so sensational that it’s lightweight on the detail of what is happening. My parents avid readers of the DT stopped reading it after 60 years because it was so sensational and removed from reality.
I cancelled my Telegraph subscription after encountering a couple of articles in which the word “black” was capitalised.
But, Victoria, how can you argue against something if you don’t know their arguments? I do read liberal-left publications, sometimes I actually agree with them, and from this reading I have a sound basis from which to form my own arguments against them. If one never reads or engages with the opposition one is in danger of being immersed in one’s own bubble much like the “woke” left is. By the way, I would never rely on the Daily Mail for any reasoned argument – sorry about that.
If you don’t refer to Woke, then the masses will think that Woke is good and bullying and harassment are separate and bad.
It’s none of my business but I sincerely hope you didn’t sign a compromise agreement and are planning to make a claim for constructive dismissal in the Employment Tribunal. The law needs to come out swinging (no pun intended!) on this matter.
Good one anyway
‘Gender identity theory is egregiously false. It is a terrible, pseudo philosophy and would fail a first-year essay.” – A concise, excellent summary of what’s going wrong.
Bravo, professor Stock, and best wishes for the future. It’s sad that future students won’t benefit from your teaching, but nobody could have done more to stand up to these charlatans.
I can feel sympathy, indeed admiration, for an individual, but during my many years I have not noticed that feminism, as a movement, was overly-endowed with love, tolerance and empathy. I think what we are seeing now is a group of decidely unpleasant people upping the ante, because they have seen that intolerance pays.
Which “side” here had the balaclavas, flares and aggressive pickets and posters?
However, the nice gentle suffragists weren’t successful. The suffragettes were. Women were done with being told to be nice 120 years ago.
Trans are playing exactly the same game and are getting exactly the same result. What is your point, other that you approve of the aims of one group, but not the other?
Spot on!
There is a huge difference between women demanding the vote and men demanding to be women when they wake up in the morning.
Hmmm – that’s a contentious piece of history. But clearly the trans movement believes your interpretation and has learned from it. If being nice doesn’t work, why would you expect the trans movement to be anything but unpleasant.
This is not true about the suffragists; they were very busy behind the scenes and the suffragette movement probably put back the cause of women’s suffrage. Most of the mobilisation of women during the WW1 was through the suffragists, and this was instrumental in women’s achieving the vote. The continual lauding of teh suffragettes is, to my mind, appalling; it is celebrating the use of terrorism to achieve a political end rather than using democratic/parliamentary means.
Unfortunately, that is becoming the norm in these movements. In fact, when you look throughout history, war was the answer to many of these differences between peoples. It sure appears that we are heading down that same path, regrettably.
It was women serving in the front lines( nurses)and working in factories( munitions in particular due to danger of explosions and poisons) which had the most effect. Basically if one is prepared to die for one’s country one should have the vote.
Not true actually. Despite what we are taught now the suffragettes just p’ed people off, rather like the insulation folk today. Contemporary newspapers make this very clear. A combination of public support for the Suffragists and work done on the home front by women during WW1 was behind the rise in public and political support.
In Parliament Square, suffrage is commemorated with a statue of Millicent Fawcett, who was leader of the Suffragists. Also the main organisation for women’s rights is the Fawcett Society.
I would agree with you that feminism is not all about love, tolerance and empathy, but I don’t remember Germaine Greer or Gloria Steinham threatening anyone with violence and trying to ruin the careers of their opponents. I think in demonstrations women did not wear balaclavas, a threatening act in itself. They were proud to show their faces and be identified with a just cause.
Christina Hoff Sommers – Who Stole Feminism gives plenty of examples of feminist dirty tricks, including career ruining.
The feminism I know is about women being treated fairly not at the expense of men but to level a playing field that has been biased against women basically forever.
Inheritance, education, marriage, property ownership has always been biased towards men – fathers, brothers, husbands. Women who refused to koetow to this were punished and in some cultures, including Christian communities, are still punished for going agin this “norm”.
In 2021, women and men should be treated equally and fairly. Women should be in senior positions in companies, on boards, get equal pay for equal work, be shown to play “men’s” sport (never understood how football and rugby could be gendered and women’s games kept off the TV), and be treated fairly in the justice system. We should not be treated either as virgin or whores, but as equal to the other 49%of the population.
This is eminently reasonable IMO. One small point though,Women should be in senior positions in companies, on boards, is obviously a laudable goal, but I would qualify that with ‘if that is what they wish’. Also, to balance the equation, don’t you think women should also be in the least prestigious or low status positions involving, for example, construction – such as brick laying – refuse collection, laying pipe and road work maintenance etc.?
Or are you advocating that women should be allowed in senior positions companies… ? I couldn’t tell which interpretation was appropriate.
There are plenty of low paying, low status jobs mainly populated by women – such as cleaning ladies.
Laying pipe is well paid. Nothing to stop them. Cleaning is low paid. Change jobs.
The thing to remember is that universities have always been seminaries, educating future priests in the state church. Sometimes it didn’t take, like with Fred Vincy in Middlemarch. No problem, said My Girl Mary Garth. Just get a job, Fred! And no nookie until you do.
Properly therefore universities today are seminaries training young minds full of mush in the orthodoxies of today. And the orthiest doxy of the moment is trans.
Of course, I think it is monstrous how Kathleen Stock has been treated. As a profound sexist I say that “women expect to be protected” and they should be. I understand, as a racist-sexist-homophobe, I probably could not be a student at Sussex, let alone a noble professor. But never mind.
But things are going to get worse before they get better. There’s nothing that well-born educated humans like more than a nice witch hunt before the pub opens.
Middlemarch…I haven’t read it in ages. The book that comes to my mind when thinking about the modern university is Jude the Obscure.
Somebody should write a modern version called “Jude the Obscurantist”.
For me this was one of the most telling demands: “We’re Not Paying Our Fees For Transphobia With Kathleen Stock”.
Students today conceive of their university education as consumers — they want to get what they want to hear, not an education. The same consumer mentality drives gender identity ideology too.
Kathleen was concerned that the majority of academics, including philosophers such as herself, were reluctant to criticise campaigns to introduce self-identification for transgender people.
“It was the beginning of the end of the campaign to intimidate me out of my job.”
This is a bit like the Iran-Iraq War, in the sense that it is a shame they both can’t lose. With respect, may I suggest that Kathleen add a word to her vocabulary: resiliency?
Kathleen has one of the most privileged jobs on the planet. So do the academics referred to above. They have zero integrity, and are simply cowed by the mob/s. The campaign to hound Kathleen out of her job worked! Mob rule!
Compare that to Scandinavian cartoonist Lars Vilks and other French (Charlie Hebdo) and Scandinavian cartoonists. These people, sometimes physically, stood up to the mob and did not back down, often at great personal costs. Resiliency. And it may turn out that Lars Vilks was murdered–a bit odd that his car, driven by his police bodyguard, would suddenly cross lanes head on into a truck in excellent weather conditions. The plight of Kathleen and Julie is pale fire compared to the bravery of the cartoonists, and others, but not academics, a pathetic, cowardly, and feeble lot.
It is important to realise several things: first, the uni is the enemy and cannot be reformed, it must be destroyed and completely made over, hopefully without the pathetic losers who reside in academia today. Second, I take great objection to Kathleen being described as “liberal,” as she and others at the uni are illiberal–the very opposite of liberal–and they only noticed this and claim the “free speech” and “free thought” because they have been “outwoked” by people even more crazy and intolerant than them. Now they claim martyhood. Disgusting.
I advocated a temporary truce with Kathleen and Julie, but only a temporary truce, to defeat an even greater enemy. But let’s not lose sight that Kathleen and Julie and their ilk, often academics, are not on the side of free thought, free inquiry, they are woke, they are the enemy, and their (fleeting) cause is in our interests now only because there are even crazier people with louder voices out there.
Is Julie “liberal?” Perhaps we should look to her history of pouring cement in the toilets of theatres who dared to play content that she objected to. How tolerant.
Finally, to Julie, heard you on HONESTLY, which was almost impossible to get through. It did, however, reveal you for the extremist that you are. Iran vs. Iraq. A pox on both of you!
Thank you James. Like many, I was hounded by feminists at uni. In my case it was for speaking up about female violence. I was warned to stop speaking or writing on the subject or my career would be ruined. Others around me agreed with my stance, but cowered down.
The most stupid thing was that I came at it from an angle of gaining help for female victims of intergenerational family violence to heal and have their lives turn for the better. But ‘NO’ this did not fit the feminist narrative, so anything I wrote on the issue was marked down.
The ‘feminists’ have made many mistakes and these two women themselves mention the biggest (self-destructive) mistake the movement is making right now. It seems gratuitous to be harping on the past without looking at the needs of the present and how to use whatever allies we are presented with.
As a feminist myself, I agree. Sewing the wind and reaping the whirlwind comes to mind.
I remember discussing De Beauvoir’s contention that ‘woman is made not born’ (apologies for paraphrase) at Uni when studying feminism. I felt uneasy at the time, but I content she was speaking metaphorically about the training that women at the time had to undergo in order to become a ‘proper’ woman. I don’t think she meant that sex is ‘assigned’ in an arbitrary fashion at birth.
Yes there have been mistakes but we have to learn and move forward.
De Beauvoir is interesting. Some women served in the resistance such as Sansom, Khan and Szabo who won the GCs. Sartre did next to nothing in WW2 and her lover Sartre supported Mao by the end of the 1960s.
If De Beauvoir was so keen to promote women why did she not join the SOE and undergo the rigorous training as undertaken by Sansom, Khan and Szabo? Why is there such a massive difference between what she said and did ?
Why has feminism not lauded all the actions of the women in SOE and resistance groups in WW2( Ursula Graham Bower and V force also de Jongh and the Comet Line come to mind )?
The singer Lynsey de Paul brought out a video on self defence in the early 1990s after being attacked. Why have feminists not promoted de Paul’s video on self defence and further refined the techniques?
In the 1980s an retired lady academic in in Bristol was attacked by three muggers and defeated them due to the self defence techniques taught by W Fairbairn when she was in the SOE.
Why have males not stood up to support Professor Stock and offered to protect her ?
It would appear feminists have ridiculed chivalry and then not learned self defence which makes them vulnerable. Surely if women do not want to be protected by men, which is the basis of chivalry, they should learn effective self defence which is possible as demonstrated by the retired lady academic in the 1980s. Or is it they wish to play the victim in order to gain sympathy and win the debate through manipulation ?
If feminists say women cannot protect themselves against stronger men why are there women in the Police Force?
Those who have threatened Prosseor Stock are thugs but they are not hardened enforcers from organised crime with experience of boxing and hard manual work.
If effete university males can remove freedom what hope is there, if we, as nation, have to fight a war machine as strong, ruthless and remorseless as Nazi Germany ?
‘Others around me agreed with my stance, but cowered down.’
It’s striking how people openly admit to cowardice these days. If people won’t run any risks at all to defend liberty, they’ll lose it.
Compared to the poisonous state of our universities the mullahs were and are beacons of moderation. I object to the comparison. Even evil old Saddam and his US enablers must feel slandered.
If these two women are extremists, what are you? You advocate the complete eradication of universities for one. You define others in the most absolute terms possible. Perhaps you are not best placed to speak of tolerance and liberalism.
Some the usual male commenters making the same tiresome grudge-posts on the past sins of Bindel may want to give it a rest.
Good question! I’m a Libertarian. I believe in being left alone, and treating everyone with respect (at least initially). I don’t care about gays, transgender, two spirits, I treat people as individuals, always initially with respect. I believe in personal responsibility and freedom of choice. I’m against the death penalty, pro-choice, pro-gay (sort of, makes no difference to me, do your own thing), pro environment. Are we really that different? Perhaps we are, as you–the woke, only slightly less nutters than the transgender nutters– seem to want to enforce a rigid ideology on me. Give it a go!
I make no apologies for my comments such as the complete eradication of unis–at least in their present form. I am also against Vietnamese re-education camps, Stalin’s gulags, China’s Cultural Revolution camps, Pol Pot’s Year Zero and the like. Unis–at least American unis–too far gone to be saved. They should appear in a different form, with true freedom of the mind, true searches for the truth, not political correctness and enforced “we are right” ideology. No Gender Studies majors, No Black History majors–this is not education but indoctrination, cheerleading. No Brittney Cooper….
I only learned about Julie 30 minutes ago (figuratively) and Kathleen 15 minutes ago. They’re not my cup of tea, as they are vile, hectoring, worthless people, Kathleen especially, since she has or had a perch at the uni. Not only that, she’s a coward. America beckons. She will be lauded at some unis there.
And calling people “vile” and “worthless” really does say more about you than about these women.
Neither of them struck me as vile or hectoring. I may not agree with them on everything, and I may not understand everything, but Stock’s measured persistent response is anything but hectoring.
With respect, I disagree. Radical lesbian feminists at the uni are, by definition, hectoring. This is also about what they teach at the uni, not only the trans issues where the woke have been outwoked. I understand that Kathleen teaches philosophy and haven’t examined her syllabi, but is it “lesbian centric?” Is it anti-male? Julie certainly is both.
Vile may be a bit of hyperbole, but I’m entitled to my opinion, as you are to yours. The bottom line is that the uni, especially the social sciences, are the problem, not the solution, though this has carried over into the hard sciences like medicine, where professors routinely apologise for making reference to men and women in the course of teaching medicine.
Your almost total ignorance of the issues here shines through brightly
Getting rather bitter and personal which actually weakens your argument.
Hmm, 30 mins, 15 mins…I thought you said that you treated everyone with respect; initially?
With respect, may I suggest you give my posts a closer reading? I said that I treat everyone with respect at least initially. I’m sufficiently familiar with Kathleen and Julie to form an opinion. I said it, I meant it, I stand behind it. I challenge you to listen to the HONESTLY podcast with Julie and arrive at a different conclusion–it’s a big investment of time, not worth it, but I made it through. If you’re woke, you will not agree with me. If you’re not woke, you might say Blimey, he’s right!
Kathleen a coward? What on earth are you talking about? The cowards are those of her colleagues who tell her privately that they agree with her but won’t speak out in her defence.
Read Stocks book before making such a judgement.
Indeed: ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ applies. Let us welcome them with open arms and hope that this new contact with small c conservatives helps them to see us in a new way.
Charlie Hebdo was shut up by religious FASCISTS! And they have more or less succeeded bcs of Liberals allowing the specious argument that religion is a race! The religious ones are laughing at how easily they managed to achieve confounding liberals who they will eventually string up on gaining power
It is all as though the Cybermen were to appeal to Doctor Who to save them from the Daleks. There’s no need to do anything; the Daleks will exterminate the Cybermen, but eventually someone will turn up who’s even worse than the Daleks who will in turn exterminate them.
Normal people are Doctor Who and we just look on, laugh and really couldn’t care less.
That needed to be said. Glad you did.
Am 100% in support of Kathleen Stock. The UCU is a disgrace of a union. Jo Grady should be absolutely ashamed. Stonewall is a malign lobbying group with far too much reach into all our institutions. It claims to be a charity but is making a shedload of money out of it’s ridiculous Equality Index materials. Has it been reported to the Charity Commission yet?
Hear.Hear well said.
i suspect – and i hope i’m right on this – that in 10 years’ time we will be wondering what on earth possessed us to allow this to happen. This is the next big scandal waiting to erupt (by which i mean, putting kids on puberty blockers).
Thank you UnHerd. Riveting interview.
I intend to buy Kathleen’s book, I wish her well and will be following all the events as they unfold. I have no problem with the people that Julie Bindel and Kathleen Stock are NOW. We all evolve, we’ve all got a past.
Good luck to them both.
All woke ideologies have quasi religious elements. Much second wave feminism was quasi religious.
They all claim victimhood. With this latest round we see two opposing groups out claiming each other in victim status.
Most of these groups claim that the previously accepted norm was some sort of imposition, to be opposed and rejected. JB in her time saw “heteronormativity” as imposed, and thought women should break free. Trans people (some at least) feel the same about lesbians who won’t date “women with penises” and “cisnormativity”.
The only real disagreement seems to be over when the world went mad. JB thinks it was sometime after her, but pre trans. The rest of us might push the date back a bit.
Slightly off the main topic, but how do the various religions claim victimhood? Do you see them doing so in the same way or in different ways?
In this case, trans activists are claiming trans people to be victims of terfs, while terfs are claiming that women are the victims, or potential victims of trans women. Both groups of activists are claiming victimisation by each other.
Feminists claim women are victims of men, masculinity and the patriarchy. Lesbians are victims of heteronormativity. Trans people are victims of transphobia and cisnormativity.
For the record, I’m an old fashioned believer in tolerance. I’m happy for feminists to pursue their beliefs so long as they don’t make, and push policy based on, unwarranted truth claims. Similarly I am tolerant of all sorts of sexual preferences and orientations, so long as it is not insisted that social norms, and even biological facts, have to be toppled to make way for their supporting ideologies.
Millions of women who are anti gender self ID are not Terfs, nor are they activists. They are just called Terfs because it is a slur. In fact many men are against gender self ID. You are not understanding the problem. Hockey mums at the bake sale for example who are against gender self ID are not radical feminists.
You’re not understanding my comment.
Nothing in yours I disagree with.
And of course the extension of a negative term to people it doesn’t apply to is activist bread and butter. It gets applied to anyone who disagrees with the activists ideology.
I am even more old fashioned I believe in both God and the common good.
I applaud you. Professor Stock. Thank you. What support I can offer in my little powerless sphere I will do so.
“Beforehand, I honestly think Guardian readers hardly knew about any of the implications of self-identification”
They must be very well educated indeed to miss the glaringly obvious problems of (some) men identifying as women to beat them at sport or get into their changing rooms, refuges or other institutions. Although in any other context the Identitarian Left would be attacking men as incipient rapists.
And child abuse is just ticket boo as well, through encouraging confused kids to take puberty blocking drugs (whose long term effects we do not know) and to undergo irreversible surgery. ‘Trans women’ will never have children.
Thank you for writing this. The support for KS’s position is broad and deep in the UK but, as you say, a tiny number of violent, intolerant and unthinking groups have hijacked what should have been a sensible debate about the issues (and there are real, important, debates to have regarding the protection of all rights for all groups while not placing one above the other). To deny biological fact is simple insanity. You cannot change the physical world just by wishing it be different. I have terminal (stage four) cancer – don’t you think I would like to ‘identify’ as someone without cancer and then see it simply vanish away…. It is the same wish as wanting all my cells with sex chromosomes in them to miraculously change. I may want to live a life without cancer – but I can’t. The world did not allow that to happen.
I hope those who have threatened and campaigned against KS have the full force of the law thrown at them. More importantly, I hope the full force of public opinion on this issue can be lined against this psychological violence before it spills into physical violence.
Time for politicians to get seriously involved to ensure this on-going nonsense in this trans issue is stamped out, free speech and logic are returned not only to University campuses but into the media (who are stoking these fires and ridiculously supporting absurd positions). They could start by making sure sense returns to all government institutions and funded projects.
Comparing trans activism to cancer is clearly hate speech, Charles. You would be banned for that at the Grauniad.
Thank you for sharing your information to make the common sense connection. To try and change reality just by saying it is not so is a form of delusion. Sense, generosity and kindness are becoming increasingly rare
As a member of ROTC on campus 1968-1972, I understand what it’s like to be hounded by leftists. The tactics haven’t changed that much. However, to me this whole article seems to be a request for a specific exemption for feminists who are leftists in good standing, rather than an objection to leftist harassment in general.
Once upon a time, the left said they supported free speech. Perhaps that was just tactical, because they certainly don’t support free speech now. Until leftists support free speech for everyone, including people they completely disagree with, nobody should take them seriously. Censorship for some means censorship for all.
Is this a pure ‘free speech’ issue though? We are beyond opinions and interpretations here. Physical sex is a fact and for someone to insist on being treated as something he is not, and then insist that he is equal in that somethingness to someone who really is that thing, and that he should be afforded full and automatic access to all privileged spaces and considerations available for the protection of that something he is not, a protection required against dangers posed by people like who he really is, and further that anyone who says otherwise is tantamount to a criminal… we are in the realm of psychopathy and madness.
I agree with your argument, but you can’t even argue the point if you lose your job for saying it.
No just misogyny.
Misogyny clearly involved of course, but how do you account for mainstream feminist support for the extreme demands of the trans lobby, if not by some wider form of madness?
So they’ve adopted your tactics and you don’t like it?
There is no freedom of speech on trans issues wherever trans activists hold sway as they have successfully confected a case that any dissenting view undermines their safety. I have experienced that personally.
But it’s important to remember that not every transsexual takes this extreme position and that they are part of society and so the rest of us have some responsibility to understand their experience and political positions.
“War on Woke” sounds appealing.
The campaign against people like Kathleen is Fascist in effect – Nazi in style even. Some might say Stalinist!
Remember the author of the book White Swan who wrote about the Chinese cultural revolution and its Fascism/Stalinism! So depressing. What is happening to others like Kathleen? Didn’t The Guardian hound out journalist Suzanne Moore? What of their employment rights re extreme bullying. And the fascist nature of Stonewall?
Thanks for putting your head above the parapet. Great interview s and writing. Refreshing.
Great piece. Almost a template on how women who dare to disagree are treated by these extremists. And the bubbling up, as predictable as a fart in a bathtub, of the misogynists who have always disliked feminism.
But what grace under pressure Stock has shown!
The left’s standard tactic is to paint everyone who doesn’t agree with them as far Right. Everyone who’s not a Trot is a fascist, everyone who thinks climate change alarmism might be a bit over-egged is a “denier”, everyone who doesn’t agree that a man can become a woman by saying so is a “transphobe”, and so on. Whatever the most extreme imaginable opposing position to theirs might be, including positions nobody actually holds, the left insists that all its opponents hold that view.
Because to be left is to be narcissistic and self-righteous, it is structurally hostile to difference of opinion, and gives itself permission to hate its enemies. This hostility and loathing of heresy extends to any others on the left not considered left enough by the worst loonies.
As a result, the left is always in smithereens that hate each other as much as they hate everyone else. Far more communists have been murdered by other communists than by actual fascists, or indeed anyone else, for example.
The comedy of the gender nutters lies in watching one lot of loonies appeal to sensible people for protection from new loonies who are even worse than themselves. Suddenly, instead of getting to “call out” other people for their “hate”, cranks like these two are having it done to them. And apparently, we should all pitch in to preserve their valuable and reasoned perspective.
Well, not really. What is the agenda here? That we go back to leftism as usual, with JB once again being heard respectfully as she generalises inanely and offensively about all men?
Pffffft. I don’t think so. The left deserves this, and it deserves itself. I find all this internecine leftist hatred quite cheering. In fact, I look forward to the day when a new lot of leftist hatemongers comes after other leftist hatemongers for having pushed the neo-colonial dogma of climate change, which has caused, er, literally trillions of deaths in Africa.
Someone has compared this to the Iran-Iraq War, wishing there was a way both sides could lose. I’d echo Bismarck and say that rescuing loonies from each other is not worth the bones of a single grenadier.
Broadly speaking the Left indulge themselves in Utopian thinking. A Utopia where all are equal, all are virtuous, all agree, and no-one hates anyone else. It follows that people who don’t agree or argue with these Utopian views *must* be ignorant or evil… and the extremists set out to resolve that ignorance and evil through ‘direct action’ up to and including killing.
That one branch of leftist thinking is actively warring with another branch of leftist thing is merely the narcissism of small differences. I have no wish for people to be (truly) harmed but the irony of the ‘battles’ is not lost in the latest exhibition of internal intolerance.
Exactly. As to historical guilt over climate change- no records before 19th century then UK estimates coal use. Graphs as a result show UK in 1750 responsible for 100% of world emissions! At height of ind rev around 1890s UK used 500m tons of coal per annum. China by 1950 using 2.3bn tons per annum and currently 5bn tons and rising. Many young greens aren’t numerate enough to understand the order of magnitude difference that is.
Buy her book. Make her rich.
Oh, I have… am actually about halfway through. And I have yet to detect anything other than compelling clarity, fairness – and kindness. I’m looking forward to reading the rest. A lot of people will be getting a copy for Christmas.
She is rich, courage and integrity are priceless.
Any organisation is entitled to expect its workers, at every level, not to act against the core interests of the organisation. A university’s core business is maintaining intellectual discussion in a tolerant manner. In short, a university should not tolerate intolerance. Those academics and students, who cannot accept that, have no place in any university.
Hello Kathleen
Of course we agree with you it’s bloody obvious!!
There are many of us out here in the new upside-down world who back you in your efforts to set it the right way up again.
Good luck!
Identity politics has shredded the liberal and the Left (not necessarily the same). ‘Progressive’ is increasingly associated with homophobia, misogyny and an anti-science tendency which harks back to before The Enlightenment. Intolerance and hatred stalks social media with cancel culture being increasingly driven by a fundamentalism which can only be described as religious in nature.
Yet Dr. Stock, rather than being an antagonist in all of this, presented an opportunity for both sides. Someone wrote on a Mumsnet posting that she has travelled beyond the sectarian arguments of both side and is camped-out, waiting for when dialogue might just start.
Except it won’t. Like all fanatical causes, transgenderism in its current form is losing its moderates, its potential peacemakers and even its leaders. Instead it is left with the most fanatical of his exponents, lashing-out at women, gays and lesbians, rebel academics and journalists.
Frantic in the desire to claim victimhood TRA’s are hobbled by the burden of tens-of-thousands of screen-shots of death-and-rape threats they’ve made against the likes of J.K. Rowling, the gay-and-lesbian community, Doc Stock herself and anyone who had stood against the gender ideology. Except now, behind every person who stands their ground, are ten-of-thousands more who provide backing, encouragement, financial and legal assistance. Only eighteen months or so ago, social media was the preserve of the TRA, and woe-betide anyone identified to step-out-of-line, to question the ideology. Thanks to over-enthusiastic use of ‘block-lists’ by the TRA’s, the Web is being ceded to those who keep on asking awkward questions.
When these ‘crazy times’ are over, Dr. Stock will find herself with a legacy that she will have reason to be eminently proud of. Like some modern Gandalf The Grey, she has been ejected from academia but will be reborn anew, infinitely more powerful and dangerous to those whose evil has been manifestly witnessed.
Kathleen Stock was right to quit her teaching job. she now has a wider platform and more freedom to be herself in her thinking and writing. She has left a corrupt institution where her ability to function had been denied both by intolerant transgender students and by a cowardly administration. Antitotalitarian
folk should wish her well.
Wow! 2+2 really does equal 5, or at least xx=xy. What disgraceful and frightening behaviour and thought. Ms Stock is being brave. A great piece Julie thanks. How did plain fact and common sense become taboo? But, sub-editors alert, ‘waver’ not ‘waiver’ surely.
David Deutsch has defined truth as that which hard to change. Imagine a rock. A flood passes and covers the rock with debris. However, time passes, and eventually the debris is swept away, and the rock is revealed, where and as it always was.
Truth is a completed pattern. It is always context specific so two people who have learnt something in different contexts can sincerely hold as truths ideas that are contradictory. It is verifiable in mathematics because the rules are universal and rigorous and therefore tautological. The less you search to expand your context the more convinced you will be that you have found the truth and for you it will be a rock.
I fear for students entering this oppressive environment. Soon we will have the attitude of the Brontes under the Trans microscope. Keep on Kathleen.
Bit pathetic hoping for support from trans fascists at the Guardian and the BBC. It’s the truly free thinking media where she’ll get support.
Who’d a thunk it! Stonewall has gone 180 degrees and now opposes equal rights for gays and lesbians.
“I assumed that academic feminists were covering women and girls’ rights and I didn’t need to get involved….”
Doesn’t that say it all?
Great interviews both here and on Woman’s Hour. Kathleen the model of reason and dignity.
Unfortunately, the same can not be said of either those in charge at Sussex University (and I take note of Ms Taylor’s previosly reported comments with regard to the ‘support’ she has received from them), the university lecturers who egged on the adverse responses, student ‘activists’, and the Sussex University Student’s Union.
There should be consequences for them. But what will happen? Nothing, if we sit on our hands and just shout. However, in this case, Ms Taylor obviously has the right to dictate just what response there should be.
In that she has my full support.
As ever, a Lesbian fights the battle, not for the community or society in general but to safeguard their own niche.
The legislation in recent years in favour of homosexuality and the subsequent acceptance by the pubic,was the Rubicon which has led directly to the anti-science madness of trans sexuality……is there anything in traditional family life which is safe? I think not, as children are now being separated from parental guidance in favour of educational and social “group think” Future generations have a bloody sight more to fear from indoctrination by the education and social services than they have from global warming.
Which other countries are going through this?
“I ran back to the station, got the train home, tried to teach a class on Zoom, burst into tears and my dear students said I must be having a tough day and they let me off,” says Kathleen.
Hmmm…. I think we’re going to need a bit more grit. I’ve no doubt the anonymous trolls on Twitter are vile, but masked students, with banners and flares? Entertainment for them.
This was after a lengthy time of being hounded, threatened and vilified. Can you not conceive of how this will affect one?
That’s true, but it’s not easy. As a lifelong leftist I now find myself vilified by my own children and my fact-based, rational, comments deleted on the Guardian and Times websites. I’m finding it quite hard to deal with and no-one has called for me to be raped or killed. Even Richard Dawkins, who must be used to vilification, says that he is being very careful what he says these days.
Have you got as far as working out that the right has always been right about the left?
Leftism is all about finding someone to enjoy hating.
You make yourself look ignorant with such generalisations.
You have my sympathy Hilary. Much of the left has gone slowly mad. Hopefully your children are young enough to grow out of it. But perhaps they are only pushing to its conclusion a logic that you taught them??
Congratulations on raising more mini Eichmanns. Thanks from the rest of us. You reap what you sow.
In the 1930s The Jarrow March was a peaceful and sombre affair. In the 1950s there were jolly marches to Aldermaston to protest against nuclear bombs .
From 1968 there were violent protests by the middle class Left against everything they disliked. Gormley, President of the NUM managed to achieve strikes without violence. Scargill the Marxist created violent strikes.
The NUS banning speakers started in the late 1960s.
Keir Hardie a miner and a devout Christian along with other founders of the Labour Party, achieved improvements in the life of the poor through peaceful methods, as did E Bevin founder of the TGWU and were completely against the use of violence. Hardie and Bevin were Christian Preachers.
Since the late 1960s, the middle class Left have been used to hurling abuse at those whom they dislike. The violent Trans Lobby is a Frankenstein like monster of their creation.
One can go back further, the French Revolution mocked gentility and it rapidly turned into mass murder.
I’m sorry that your own children are vilifying you. That’s intolerant.
I thought that at first, and then I imagined posters with my name plastered all over a campus. I fear I would have crumpled. Therefore I’m not going to blame Kathleen Stock.
If you have vocal support, from even a minority of your colleagues, then you will be able to cope. It is being isolated that causes people to crumple. I stated earlier that I felt sympathy and admiration for her – She stood her ground for quite a while.
I think you have a higher estimate of my courage than I do, Terry!
In keeping with the ‘over the top’ imagery of rage and outrage in modern ‘rights’ debates I often find myself thinking “it’s rather like the brown shirts complaining about the beastly, bigoted, black shirts”. In this case it seems as if the ‘knives’ are well and truly out !
Any individual in civil society should be able to live their private life as they wish within common law boundaries of not harming others. BUT this means that we have this idea in common. Identity politics inevitably ends up insisting on difference and uniqueness. What makes us different. Paradoxically you thereby fracture the body politic and institutions and weaken common values. This seems to have caught up with her.
Any individual in civil society should be able to live their private life as they wish within common law boundaries of not harming others. BUT this means that we have this idea in common. Identity politics inevitably ends up insisting on difference and uniqueness. What makes us different. Paradoxically you thereby fracture the body politic and institutions and weaken common values. This seems to have caught up with her.
Such a shame that Julie Bindel is so desperate to emphasise her sexism. Any man who challenged the transgender movement would also be targeted. Many of the people supporting the trans intolerance are women. Bindel also takes away the agency of young female prospective students at Sussex, when she asked whether their parents decided to take them away from the university on seeing the trans demonstrations. Hasn’t Bindel heard that women are no longer chattel to be transacted between fathers and husbands? Presumably she could not bring herself to accept that women supported this intimidation of Stock.
Stock has suffered simply for expressing her views. Unfortunately, however, she does not reflect that she happily swam in the cesspool of academia until the other creatures swimming there attacked her. What would she have done, if the trans movement had attacked another academic and not her? Would she still be working at Sussex, relieved that the intolerants had taken their bigotry out on someone else?
Trans movement just a chip off the ol feminist block. Ideologically different, yes. But same tactics. Stalin and Trotsky. Zero sympathy from me.
This is Left on Left fire. Feminists have lost their safe spaces on the left, so now they are coming to the middle and even to the Right for comfort and relief. I don’t believe we should oblige them. Let them eat each other.
And as a potential white knight, I’m not quite sure which damsels in distress I should be coming to the aid of. The ones with, or the ones without, p-nises?
Maybe best to sit this one out as you say.
The white knight is a vestigial relic of the Patriarchy. Thanks to feminists.
I would argue that the trans movement is a chip off the queer theory block of Judith Butler. Butler went after feminist thought by undermining the reality and the concept of ‘woman’.
“I won’t be silenced.”
You quit your job, didn’t you?