As a result of Kathleen Stock being offered an OBE, I signed this Open Letter objecting to her receiving this honour. Unfortunately, it wasn't circulated so many who would have liked to have signed were unable to do so. It was closed to signatures shortly after it was open! Not sure what the logic of that was! Surely you want as many signatures as possible?!
Their statement reads as follows:
'Open Letter Concerning Transphobia in Philosophy' January 2021
"We are professional academic philosophers committed to the inclusion and acceptance of trans and gender nonconforming people, both in the public at large, and within philosophy in particular. We write to affirm our commitment to developing a more inclusive environment, disavowing the use of professional and cultural authority to further gendered oppression.
Last week, the UK's conservative government designated Kathleen Stock, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex, and a prominent critic of trans-inclusive stances and policies, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. This award was ostensibly given for services to higher education. Stock is best-known in recent years for her trans-exclusionary public and academic discourse on sex and gender, especially for opposition to the UK Gender Recognition Act and the importance of self-identification to establish gender identity, and for advocating that trans women should be excluded from places like women's locker rooms or shelters. She used the occasion of her OBE award to post on twitter, calling for UK Universities to end their association with Stonewall, the prominent LGBTQ+ rights charity, describing its trans inclusive stance as a threat to free speech.
Trans people are already deeply marginalized in society, facing well-documented discrimination, ranging from government policy to physical violence. Discourse (...) Stock is producing and amplifying contributes to these harms, serving to restrict trans people's access to life saving medical treatments, encourage 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.
We do not say Stock should not be permitted to say the things she does. We believe in the principles of academic freedom, and note that objecting to someone being lauded or honoured for their speech simply does not conflict with those principles. Academic freedom comes with responsibility: we should not use not use that freedom to harm people, particularly the more vulnerable members of our community. Conflating concern about the harms of Stock's work with threats to academic freedom obfuscates important issues.
By no means are we suggesting that there aren't deep and important questions about sex and gender, or that philosophers should not pursue them. Indeed an Open Letter from 2019, written and signed by feminist philosophers who have worked on these questions, has made this very point. Rather, our concern is that some - apparently including the British government - have a tendency to mistake transphobic fearmongering for valuable scholarship, and attacks an already marginalized people for courageous exercises of free speech.
We stand against prominent members of our profession using their academic status to further gender oppression. We denounce transphobia in all its forms, and hereby publicly commit to working to create a more inclusive culture, in which people of all gender presentations and identities are able to thrive and be respected for who they are."
"Erratum: ...it should have said that Stock is well-known for opposing amendments to the Gender Recognition Act that would have made it easier for people to self-identify their gender..."
https://sites.google.com/view/trans-phil-letter/
Comments
Post a Comment