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The new politics of gender identity | Kathleen Stock — Transcript

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0:00the present ideas about gender identity
0:01are quite reactionary and they sort of
0:04go along the lines of if you are sex
0:07non-conforming maybe you're you're in
0:08the wrong sex
0:11[Music]
0:16Kathleen stock welcome to how the light
0:18gets in thank you for having me so
0:20you've become sort of famous for your
0:23views on gender identity and the
0:25relationship between trans identity and
0:27female identity and I wanted to start
0:30with some kind of basic distinctions in
0:33this debate so the relevant to section
0:35that has come to Define it this debate
0:38over the identity of trans people is on
0:41the one hand sex on the other hand
0:43gender the first one is supposed to
0:45denote the sort of biological
0:46physiological makeup of people and the
0:49second one is meant to recognize a kind
0:51of social identity and a social role
0:53that people play and the claim is that
0:55those two things can sort of become
0:57untethered from one another what's your
1:00view on this distinction and do you do
1:01you accept that kind of fundamental
1:04distinction I wouldn't put it quite that
1:05way to be honest it's certainly not
1:06where the present discourse is
1:09um the sex bit was fine the gender bit
1:11is spiraling off in something that's
1:14actually not very social at all it's
1:16supposed to to be psychological it's
1:18supposed to be individual and it's
1:20nothing really to do with how you're
1:21perceived by others so it's not social
1:22in that sense it's to do with how you
1:24feel now obviously I think there's a
1:26social explanation for how people feel
1:27but it's not construed as social so in
1:31other words the
1:32kind of definition of gender that we got
1:34in the 1970s
1:36um to some extent partly from feminists
1:39partly from psychologists working with
1:41people with differences of sexual
1:43development and that that was a social
1:46idea of a role like that was Associated
1:48either masculinity or femininity and
1:50those things can come apart from sex
1:52like you could get females that are
1:53masculine and and males are feminine but
1:56then that sort of some somewhere around
1:59this Century
2:00got tumblrized into it's in your head
2:04it's an identity and you know we don't
2:07need to explain where it came from in
2:09fact now people think it's innate the
2:10new story is it's part of you a central
2:12part of who you are that's got to come
2:14out at some point and that's a whole
2:16different uh distinction to the original
2:19one so so you so this is the the bit as
2:23aware of that you kind of gender
2:25politics that you kind of find
2:26problematic the idea that it's somehow a
2:29private mental state that defines your
2:31gender identity not this kind of social
2:33role that you play well I wouldn't care
2:35at all if people weren't trying to reify
2:38it into law and policy right I have no
2:40idea no no problem with people saying
2:43that they are one thing or the other or
2:45acting in any way or altering their
2:47bodies if that's how they feel but
2:49um through quite powerful institutions
2:51and and it's happening internationally
2:53actually
2:55um there's this idea that your inner
2:57gender identity which can come
2:58completely apart from your sex and your
3:02gender expression even in the old sense
3:05should determine your rights and access
3:08to spaces or resources or sports teams
3:12or rate crisis shelters or whatever now
3:15that obviously poses a problem
3:16particularly for females uh I think
3:20um because it allows males to basically
3:22say they have this private state that
3:24nobody can tell them they don't have
3:26built into the policies you know it's
3:29all part of the rhetoric that nobody can
3:32tell you that you don't have the
3:33identity that you think you do
3:35so and and as soon as you say you've got
3:37that identity you've got it so you then
3:38get access to all these things and in
3:41the and that you know we can go into the
3:43problem but I think there are some
3:44problems there
3:46um so if if we were still as it were in
3:49the 1970s era of like where we thought
3:51of gender as this kind of social
3:52expression of identity
3:55um would that be okay to sort of be
3:57formalized in kind of law to to separate
4:01biological sex from gender expression we
4:04and kind of make it concrete that that's
4:07kind of recognized by law if we were to
4:10go back and start again it's a I think
4:12it is a good question what laws we'd
4:13want but I certainly think we should
4:15always have some kind of law that
4:16affects uh sorry that um protects uh
4:20what you might call gender
4:22non-conforming people I would say sex
4:24non-conforming because this word gems
4:25just got so polluted
4:28um from discrimination so that would
4:31cover men who want to dress like women
4:33or change their bodies to look like
4:34women or and women who want to look like
4:37men and lesbians and gays and all sorts
4:40of things you know nobody should be
4:42discriminated against for being sex
4:44non-conforming and I totally have never
4:48obviously I'm not a sex particularly sex
4:50performing myself so but and it's not
4:53just a selfish move I just don't think
4:55that there's any problem with those
4:56sorts of laws but that's not where we
4:57are in fact
4:59you know if anything everything's got so
5:01messed up that um the present ideas
5:04about gender identity are quite
5:05reactionary
5:07um and they sort of go along the lines
5:08of if you are sex non-conforming maybe
5:11you're you're in the wrong sex
5:13and that's quite reactionary to me
5:16you've often said that your position on
5:18this issue of gender identity and and
5:20the status of trans people gets
5:22misconstrued or misunderstoods can you
5:24tell me what some of the main ways your
5:27viewers misunderstood
5:29well it's not hard is it I mean it the
5:32debate the public debate is set up so
5:34that any criticism at all of the idea of
5:37gender identity is construed as
5:38transphobic so there's this kind of ad
5:40hominem move to my character
5:43my motives my intentions all the rest of
5:46his most it's the crudest kind of uh
5:48it's not intellectual and the slightest
5:50it's just like she must be a bad person
5:51because that's the only reason she could
5:53have any problem with any of this so
5:54yeah in that context then people will
5:56start spinning all sorts of lies about
5:59my position what I'm committed to but
6:01I'm not committed to
6:03um she wants to take away try the rights
6:05of trans people is the about us
6:08bold as it gets and obviously I don't
6:11but there is some discussion to be had
6:12about what rights means in our country
6:15you know and is it the right of a male
6:16to save a woman and go into a sports
6:18team I would say not but is it a right
6:21to be protected from discrimination yes
6:22it is so then you have to ask what
6:24discrimination is you know so it I don't
6:27think there's any kind of subtle
6:29um misinterpretation of me going on the
6:32people that have a vested interest in
6:33misinterpreting me
6:35um don't want me to succeed obviously
6:37they don't want me to win this argument
6:38in fact they don't want me to have it at
6:40all as you you can see one fundamental
6:44claim is that trans women are women from
6:47the kind of other side as aware of the
6:49debate and you claim trans women aren't
6:52really women trans women men aren't
6:54really men and that when people make
6:56those claims they have a kind of status
6:58of fiction can you tell us exactly what
7:01you mean by that what you mean by
7:02fiction here
7:04what I mean by fiction
7:06um I mean they're immersing themselves
7:08so fiction I take it that we can
7:11um get involved in fictions or we do all
7:14the time we're just in dramas at the
7:17theater watching telly reading books you
7:19know we can imaginatively position
7:21ourselves in certain States it also
7:23happens when you're acting
7:25um I think it's a a basic human capacity
7:29and I think when people for well-meaning
7:32reasons or otherwise go say trans women
7:34are literally women there's no
7:36difference between a woman and a trans
7:37woman or at least no relevant difference
7:39I think they are immersing themselves in
7:41a fiction and that's quite a charitable
7:43explanation to be honest because if they
7:45really believe that then there's
7:46something gone wrong with their beliefs
7:48because the standard categorizations of
7:51woman and man relate to sex and always
7:53have in every natural language because
7:55every natural language needs a
7:56differentiation between the females and
7:59the males and the adults and the young I
8:02guess some people have taken your have
8:06taken offense at this sort of claim as
8:09they interpret it basically as you
8:11saying that trans people don't really
8:12exist right well they are a fiction like
8:15just the usual bad faith interpretation
8:19but tell me what the difference is
8:21between saying that Sherlock Holmes is a
8:23fictitious character as a fiction or
8:25Santa Claus is a fiction
8:27they exist in certain contexts they're
8:31the difference is that I'm not saying
8:34trans people are a fiction they're
8:37people who exist not mad
8:41um I'm saying the best analysis of the
8:44claim is that people make about trans
8:46people and that sometimes people make
8:48about themselves not all trans people by
8:50the way I know plenty of trans people
8:51say like I know plenty of trans women
8:53who say I'm a man so
8:56I'm saying that if you say I'm a woman
9:00knowing or I say of a trans woman she's
9:03a woman knowing their sex nature I think
9:07it's a charitable explanation of what's
9:09going on there linguistically that they
9:10are
9:12in a fiction but it's not it's not
9:13anything to do with this status of trans
9:16people as existence
9:17but the idea but the identity is in
9:21question here right so the identity
9:22itself isn't real
9:24the identity well it depends what you
9:25mean by identity
9:27um and what you mean by real
9:29um if identities can be like like issued
9:32out of imaginative States then they're
9:34real but should we
9:36is the question of priorities right
9:38should we automatically capitulate to
9:41these identity statements uh socially
9:43and politically every time they're made
9:45or are there other identities in a
9:48probably a more materialistic sense
9:49because you know identity used to mean
9:51the thing that people saw you as as well
9:53as the thing you felt you were that's
9:55all gone out the window it's just how
9:56you feel inside now so there are other
9:58identities that trans people also have
10:00they're humans they you know and they're
10:03male or female and those identities
10:05sometimes they may not they may not
10:07identify with them but they are still
10:10relevant in some cases to where they
10:12should go in Social space or whatever it
10:14is but one of the cases where there is
10:16that sort of social recognition so when
10:18some person is socially recognized as
10:21being a woman is not treated differently
10:23in most social circumstances any
10:26different to if they were born a woman
10:29what do we make of it then isn't that
10:32then a kind of confirmation confirmation
10:34of the fact that they're women yeah well
10:36no because a woman isn't an appearance
10:39it's not just appearance it's a
10:41recognition of a certain State yes but
10:45that's just like
10:46no offense but that's kind of middle
10:48class academic word games because
10:50in every natural language the woman is
10:52the sexually mature female and it
10:55doesn't matter how they look and do we
10:57really want a world in which the women
10:58have to look according to a certain set
11:01of social prescriptions and you know how
11:03how glamorous do they have to be how
11:05feminine you know it's just nonsense
11:06right so you want to make free of all
11:08that we want to say there are men and
11:09the women and they can look any way they
11:11like but there is a question about you
11:15know in terms of practicality for trans
11:16women for instance or trans men if they
11:19have taken you know gone through loads
11:21of surgery taken loads of hormones and
11:23have completely altered their opinion so
11:24they do like look like the opposite sex
11:26like that's a question about you know
11:28how they
11:29is obviously very awkward for to ask a
11:32passing transsexual to use the um
11:36facilities of their own sex in my book I
11:38say
11:39fine there's nothing we could do about
11:40that and it would be awkward
11:42um
11:43I think we should have third spaces
11:45where possible but that's really more
11:47for people who don't look like their
11:49identity because they're the ones that
11:50disrupt all the social norms like we
11:52just can't have a situation where a male
11:55who looks like a male can walk into a
11:57woman's bathroom or changing room or
11:59whatever
12:01and say I belong here
12:03because then anyone can basically what
12:06makes that space so it's complicated so
12:08I don't I completely deny the um trans
12:11women are not women trans men are not
12:13men I know that's terrible for everyone
12:14to hear but I just think it's true
12:16um but that still doesn't settle the
12:18question of what happens politically and
12:21socially for people who have genuinely
12:23you know socially transitioned but in
12:26some ways isn't that the Crux of the
12:28issue right so we might never come to
12:30agree about the kind of metaphysical
12:32status of
12:34or you know the kind of you know social
12:36status of women and they're just
12:39genuinely is a disagreement there and
12:41we're probably never going to convince
12:43each other as it were and so then the
12:45question becomes what is the stage is
12:47what's the state supposed to do and
12:49what's the role of the stage that's the
12:51certainly my entry point because I
12:53wouldn't have got involved in this just
12:55for the sake of it I'm not interested in
12:56going up to people and telling they're
12:58not you know that I disagree with their
13:00own understanding themselves but that's
13:02not what we were where we were at self
13:04ID was coming down the line in 2015 it's
13:07still coming down the line in Germany
13:09um it's already here in other countries
13:11um Spain it's coming so it's a live
13:13issue and then we have to think of
13:16solutions because we can't just have it
13:19um according to the the lobbying groups
13:20they're trying to push through this very
13:22radical
13:24um is that policies
13:25so to go back to the
13:28um sort of issue of bathrooms and other
13:29women's spaces uh female prisons for
13:32example and things like that right that
13:33one of the arguments that these trans
13:36trans women should be potentially
13:38excluded from those spaces because they
13:40might be kind of the physical threat to
13:42women but on the other hand the argument
13:44is well that that may be but these
13:47people would be even more vulnerable if
13:49they were to use say male toilets or
13:52bathrooms or be sent to a male prison so
13:55what do we do in those we have
13:57alternative Services quite obviously and
13:59there's a ton of money in this area that
14:01could be put into lobbying for
14:02alternative services but in fact what we
14:04have for instance in Brighton near where
14:06I live is we have
14:08um all
14:09um Rape Crisis and uh services are
14:12trans-inclusive none are female only so
14:15that's in Balance there should be female
14:16only and there should be trans inclusive
14:18but um
14:20I was just going to go back to that
14:21point about
14:23um trans women or women that's it does
14:26become relevant here even though you say
14:28it's just a kind of abstract question
14:29because I think you'll find I mean yes
14:32it's one of the arguments people use
14:33that for instance trans women can't go
14:36into male prisons because they'd be
14:37vulnerable to violence but another
14:39argument is they need to go into those
14:41spaces because they're women and it's
14:43sort of
14:45their right as women to go where women
14:47go so that's that's you know lots of
14:50different arguments have pushed a
14:51leverage to push this through but um it
14:54doesn't it's not abstract anymore when
14:56it's being demanded that women move up
14:58or put themselves in potential dangerous
15:01situations because fellow women
15:04are um have the right to be there and
15:06you can see that in sport you know why
15:08is Leah Thomas swimming in a women's
15:10competition well because she's a woman
15:13she just looks very different to all the
15:15other women
15:16and she's faster
15:17right
15:19um
15:19yeah I guess you know that there have
15:22been arguments that there should be
15:23assertion kind of rules and constraints
15:25that have to do with sort of bodily
15:27physiology but not necessarily with sage
15:29and Italia right so the things like with
15:31I don't know hormone levels or something
15:33like that when sport yeah
15:36um there's been all sorts of arguments I
15:38mean at the moment self-id is the one of
15:41the main criteria you just get to go
15:43where you want but does that actually
15:45happen dude yes of course it happens I
15:47mean it's happening um
15:49amateur level all over the place for a
15:51start so whatever and then even at Elite
15:53level the um ioc
15:56have recently dropped the testosterone
15:58reduction requirements but then they've
16:00sort of shoved it back onto other
16:02sporting bodies lower down the chain as
16:04it were to make up their own rules but
16:06no there are um and in University sports
16:09teams there are policies that just say
16:10sure anyone who feels like a woman can
16:12compete in this women's event so yes it
16:15happens
16:15so to go back to this issue this
16:17question of like fiction and the kind of
16:20like what makes
16:22um the claim that someone's a woman kind
16:24of true I was wondering whether it's not
16:26the case that a lot of our social
16:28identities are sort of fictions in some
16:31way and I have here in mind for example
16:33adulthood right so whether we recognize
16:35someone as an adult
16:37in some way it's linked to a particular
16:39age but that's almost kind of arbitrary
16:42right it's kind of just a social
16:43convention
16:44it's a social convention we've decided
16:47that at 18 people have a new legal
16:49status and what we did in 17 and yeah
16:52but just because there's some sort of
16:53ambiguity around the edges doesn't mean
16:55it's completely arbitrary so that's
16:56that's a fallacy but
16:58um it's not it's it's usually linked to
17:01an attempt to get sexual maturity right
17:04and but it yes there is ambiguity and
17:07there's cultural variation in how people
17:08construe adulthood but you don't find
17:11cultures on the whole making
17:13two-year-olds adults you know there is a
17:16ballpark very they're in and it's it's
17:19in a kind of well-functioning society
17:22adulthood would be linked to
17:24brain maturity the capacity to make
17:26decisions some sense of autonomy and
17:29that's not random that's linked to
17:30development so
17:32I don't think so so you think there are
17:34certain hard facts in the world which
17:37determines I think you are you're sort
17:40of moving there between oh there's just
17:42not some sort of observable cut-off
17:44point that everybody
17:46um agrees with to oh it's all totally
17:49arbitrary and I'm saying
17:50there's loads of things in the world
17:52that like yes there's some kind of
17:54vagueness in where we arrive at so
17:57there's some social contribution but
17:59it's not just sort of you know
18:02um throwing some dice in the air and
18:04seeing where they land or something it's
18:05it's an attempt to get something right
18:07that was already there
18:09okay but but something is there as it
18:11were something exactly where the world
18:12is there yeah there are people that you
18:14know born go through development age and
18:17die that's not social convention
18:20when it comes to the issue of the threat
18:24of violence against women from men that
18:27claim they're women
18:30um I wanted to ask you what do you think
18:32the sort of core driving force of
18:35violence against women is and whether it
18:37is somehow linked to physiology or
18:41whether it's linked more to the kind of
18:43social roles that you know men and women
18:46play in society you know men are more
18:49sort of powerful physically on average
18:52than women and so maybe that does enable
18:54them to maybe
18:55um sure that enables them to act
18:58violently against women but that's
19:00perhaps not the cause and that's where
19:02I'm kind of like trying to see whether
19:03it is a social role there in everything
19:06in the human world pretty much one of
19:09those things exceptions you know there's
19:10a natural contribution and there's a
19:12social contribution so
19:14um and it's as we've just established in
19:15the question of adults it's hard to find
19:17the boundaries but you know what we can
19:19say is that males on average like other
19:22um great ape species that we are you
19:25know the chimps bonobos the males
19:27um tend to be well particularly The
19:29Chimps but nobody's a bit different but
19:31um
19:33powerful bigger shoulders taller longer
19:36limbs uh bigger lungs bigger extremities
19:40and all the rest of it obviously that's
19:41not an essential claim
19:43there's variation I'm six foot tall you
19:46know but you can make generalizations
19:49um now there's testosterone as well in
19:52the mail and testosterone
19:54causally predisposes males to at certain
19:57points in the Life in particular to be
20:00aggressive physically aggressive
20:02depending on their situation now
20:04societies can put in place measures to
20:07try and protone that down you know you
20:09can have elaborate kinds of Behavioral
20:11codes you can have a strong cultural
20:14state or whatever it is but you can do
20:15things and obviously some societies are
20:18much more violent than others but the
20:20base level is not nothing and I think
20:23what we're
20:24you know it's very easy for people that
20:27go to how the light gets in academics
20:30not people that are really in their
20:31bodies very much in my experience
20:33academics to kind of get all abstract
20:35about oh all these possible permutations
20:37if I you know and it also it's
20:39non-coincidentally gives academics power
20:41because they get to construe the world
20:42any way they want but there are facts
20:44about males and females and they make a
20:47difference to our social life and we
20:49need to protect females from predatory
20:52males so every society needs to protect
20:54females from petitry males and it's
20:57crazy to unpick all the good work
20:59feminists have done since the 70s and
21:01putting in these
21:02domestic violence refuges and Rape
21:04Crisis shelters on the basis of this mad
21:07idea that a man who thinks he's a woman
21:10is a woman
21:11bunkers but that kind of brings us back
21:14to the original discussion we had which
21:16is is that the main claim that you find
21:19problematic is this sort of like well
21:21when it's operationalized when it's
21:23operationalized I mean when I started
21:25this I didn't really want to get into
21:27well I mean like when I started
21:28discussing it I thought I could leave
21:30out the woman question I thought I could
21:32just I said well they're not female
21:34you know I I would and I would say male
21:37Bodied
21:38and people would say oh what a
21:40transphobic dog whistle she said male
21:41bodied you know did you hear it she said
21:43a trans woman was male bodied a lot
21:45bigger so at some point you know
21:46anything you say adverting to the sex is
21:50interpreted as unacceptable and at that
21:53point I started to realize that it was
21:55really important I'm afraid to say
21:58trans women are not women I mean given
22:01all the lobbying around it the t-shirts
22:03from Stonewall you know there's been a
22:04whole for 10 years at least there's been
22:06propaganda pumping through our
22:08institutions saying trans women or women
22:10get over it and you can't get more
22:12aggressive than that but when it comes
22:13to male bodies I mean what what about
22:15people that begin to not look like you
22:19know well they're still male bodied I
22:21mean that's the
22:22are we talking about genitalia here what
22:25are we talking about
22:26what you talk about you asked the
22:28question well I'm asking you what do you
22:30mean by male body I mean because I mean
22:31someone who grows you know breasts and
22:33being on a developmental pathway
22:36determined probably eight weeks into
22:38conception to produce small mobile
22:41gametes which you might then have your
22:44testicles chopped off you might then
22:45have artificial breasts you might then
22:47have a penile inversion
22:50you're still male you haven't changed
22:53sex it would be it would be
22:55unprecedented in the natural world we're
22:58not clownfish you know we're not
22:59sequential hermaphrodites we don't
23:01change sex we can aestheticize ourselves
23:03to look different ways and we do but
23:06really the idea that a trans woman is a
23:08woman because she looks like a woman
23:09it's just teaching treating a woman as a
23:12skin suit I mean women aren't skin suits
23:15where is your work taking you next I
23:18mean this was a big diversion from your
23:20normal work on the philosophy of fiction
23:22and Aesthetics it wasn't that big a
23:24diversion was it because it was about
23:25fiction so right yeah
23:28well I'm not in the University system
23:30anymore as you may have noticed and I'm
23:32not going back so
23:34um now I'm just writing for a popular
23:36audience on various things I'm trying to
23:38get away from all these arguments I've
23:39made them I think they're compelling
23:42um I'm actually more interested in how
23:43our institutions have let this happen
23:45and how our academic classes have let
23:48this happen and I think there's lots of
23:50interesting questions about that
23:52so I'm writing for various Publications
23:54on that sort of thing Kathleen sock
23:56thank you very much thanks for having me
23:58[Music]
24:03the more debates talks and interviews
24:06subscribe today to The Institute of Art
24:09and ideas at IAI TV

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