British philosophy professor Kathleen Stock resigned on Thursday after being accused of transphobia by activists. Stock was affiliated with the University of Sussex, where an anonymous group last month campaigned to get her fired.
Stock announced her departure “after a terrible time” on on Twitter. Among other things, she is under fire for her position that gender identity is not more important than biological sex, especially when it comes to “law and policy”. As far as she is concerned, anyone who feels like a man does not immediately have all the rights that go with it.
That is what she states in the book published in May this year Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, in which she questions whether trans women are women. In a post-publishing interview with The Guardian she said she realized that many people would view her book as “distasteful.” Still, she says it is difficult to accept that many people who are skeptical like her, do not dare to discuss it. According to her, threats in the academic world mainly come from students who petition within seconds to demand their resignation if a professor or lecturer has said something they do not like.
The result, she says, is that academics no longer dare to speak out, because they fear that their careers will suffer. For example, they might fear that they will not be able to get a promotion.
antiterf
The University of Sussex has supported Stock in recent times. In a letter to the staff about her departure, rector Adam Tickell writes ‘unequivocally her right to defend her academic freedom and legal freedom of expression’. It should be free from “harassment and intimidation.”
The anonymous group ‘anti-terfsussex’ has spearheaded the campaign against Stock for the past few weeks. “Terf” is a term for feminists who don’t consider trans women to be women (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). Posters and graffiti had been sprayed on the campus of the University of Sussex in recent weeks demanding Stock’s departure. The anti-theft club reacted pleased on the professor’s departure. “This is a monumental victory for trans and non-binary students, who have protested the ways in which the university allowed transphobia, abuse and discrimination.” The group is unhappy that the university continued to defend Stock under the guise of freedom of expression. Also, as far as they are concerned, the battle is not over, because according to them institutional transphobia continues to exist.
Controversial
Kathleen Stock has long been controversial in academia. When she was awarded an award for her commitment to higher education at the end of 2020, hundreds of colleagues from different universities, mainly philosophers, signed an open letter in protest“We oppose prominent members of our profession who use their academic standing to promote gender oppression.” Stock is allowed to have an opinion, they think, but that makes it even more difficult for trans people, who already have a lot to do with discrimination.
Groups that stand up for the rights of trans people have been demanding more attention in recent years. The most famous example is Harry Potterwriter JK Rowling, who faced a storm of criticism in 2020 after responding to an article in which someone talked about “persons who menstruate.” There must have been another word for that, she said, referring to “women.” She was accused of transphobia because trans women, who are not born as women, are women but do not menstruate.
Recently, Margaret Atwood, known for The Handmaid’s Tale, himself also the wrath of fans on the neck when she shared an opinion article titledWhy can’t we say ‘woman’ anymore?. It stated that the use of gender-neutral language erases women from public life.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad of 30 October 2021
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 30, 2021
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