Last night, Professor Kathleen Stock told the Oxford Union
that we need to talk about ‘reality’. She is absolutely right.
Make no mistake, Stock is a reasonable voice in a political
debate where many appear to be living in some sort of fantasy world. Her views
are what many would consider to be mainstream. For example, that human beings
are sexually dimorphic, and it is sometimes appropriate to provide separate
services for each sex.
But by voicing those ideas, Stock has been subjected to
opprobrium. In 2021, she was hounded from her job at Sussex University. The
scenes surrounding Stock’s talk last night were depressingly familiar. Young
people – who seem to think that disagreement is hate – made lots of noise to
disrupt the event. In an astonishing fit of petulance, student activist Riz
Possnet (pronouns they/them) glued themselves to the floor directly in front of
Stock and Union president Matthew Dick. Emblazoned across Possnet’s t-shirt was
the slogan, ‘NO MORE DEAD TRANS KIDS’.
In a statement, Possnet added,
We will fight for trans rights and trans futures. We will
not let the trans youth of the future suffer as we have. We will fight for
justice for trans youth, healthcare for trans youth, dignity for trans youth,
and joy for trans youth. No more dead trans kids.
Let’s be clear, Stock was addressing students at one of the
most prestigious universities in the world. A place where ideas should be
debated to deepen understanding and advance knowledge. In a remarkable
intervention, Rishi Sunak asserted, ‘Agree or disagree with her, Professor
Stock is an important figure in this argument. Students should be allowed to
hear and debate her views.’ The Prime Minister added,
A tolerant society is one which allows us to understand
those we disagree with, and nowhere is that more important than within our
great universities.
Some debates can be contentious, and perhaps become heated,
but children were not at risk from what Stock had to say last night. Amidst all
the noise from the demonstrators, the focus on children is, in my view, the
most worrying.
Words like justice, healthcare, dignity and joy might roll
easily off the tongue, but what exactly is going on? Until very recently, the
cohort of young people distressed with their sex was vanishingly small.
In 2011-12 only
210 children were referred to the now-controversial Tavistock Clinic. Ten years
later, that number had ballooned to 3,585.
But that is only part of the story. In 2022, the Pew
Research Center found that around 5 per cent of young American adults identify
as transgender or non-binary – whatever that means. To me, it sounds less like
transsexualism and more like an attempt to escape from a mundane ‘heteronormative
and cisnormative’ existence.
But fantasy is a poor foundation on which to build a life.
The danger to young people comes not from Stock but influencers on social media
and elsewhere who sell promises that can never be delivered.
Stock is right: sex matters and single-sex services and
spaces are important. Hormones and surgery can perhaps give the impression of
the other sex, but human beings can never change sex.
Despite that rather fundamental truth, the UK is an
agreeable society in which to live as a transsexual. People are tolerant and
accepting of me, and other transsexuals I know. They care rather less about our
gender reassignment than our ongoing contribution to the communities in which
we live and work. If, that is, they even notice.
However, that’s not the way some members of the Oxford
University LGBTQ+ society see things. Zoë-Rose Guy (pronouns she/her), the
society’s vice-president, told the BBC that it was ‘exhausting’ as a trans
person to be ‘constantly expected to justify your existence’.
So it would be. I don’t suppose Guy will be keen to take
advice from me, but nobody – trans or otherwise – needs to justify the fact
they exist. It is self-evident. But I don’t think that’s what Guy means.
Perhaps it is exhausting to require that everyone else believes that you are the
other sex or thinks that your sex does not matter? Then, to make the fantasy
work, you need to convince yourself that everyone else really does believe it
and isn’t just paying lip service.
That futile endeavour is so much harder when an eminent
professor of philosophy rocks up, armed with evidence, examples and reasons,
which she can use them to adeptly argue her case. It might explain why Guy and
Possnet were so worked up about Stock’s visit to Oxford.
They, and the rest of the rainbow brigade, need to get over
themselves and find real meaning in life that extends beyond their transgender
identities. Unless they go around imposing their implausible ideas on others,
and influencing vulnerable children, nobody else really cares how they choose
to identify.
Kathleen Stock and the rejection of reality | The Spectator
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