Leiter and his ilk view Stock's work as disconnected from the social and cultural forces that generate the "abusive and cruel rhetoric" towards trans people that Leiter is pointing out.

The problem is that philosophical work, even shitty work, isn't produced in a vacuum. (1/n)

Thus, it is not a matter of "offense," but a matter of the ways that Stock's bad arguments circulate beyond (and within) the academy and serve to prop up and maintain the exclusion of trans people not simply from philosophy, but from all areas of society. (2/n)

To this end, it is not merely Stock making "arguments" or "asking questions," as is usually implied by Leiter and his cronies, it is the circulation of her bad arguments and poor questions within the academy, and the failure to take seriously pushback that is the problem. (3/n)

I mention the latter because several folks have pointed out the fact that feminist scholars, particularly those not committed to TERFdom, have been having conversations about transness and about gender for decades, conversations which (if read) reject Stock's work. (4/n)

Moreover, Stock herself (and her cronies) repeatedly flaunt their unwillingness to do the readings in their arguments. Thus, when measured critique is raised against Stock's position, one of her default responses is "I find that work uncompelling." (5/n)

Which is a response legitimized by her supporters, but not one that is afforded to the people doing the criticism of her work. Put simply, Stock is granted the right to reject decades of feminist and trans scholarship, whereas her critics are forced to take her seriously. (6/n)

This puts lie to Leiter's assertion that "none of this has anything to do with Professor Stock." How the academy shifts to protect Stock's bad scholarship, and the ways that "scholarship" is taken up has everything to do with Stock and the kind of discipline we're in. (7/n)

Still further, as I have said before, the use of "academic freedom" to shield Stock's transphobia by senior scholars, Leiter among them, reshapes the norms of academic freedom. Academic freedom isn't freedom from critique, it is freedom to challenge power through our work. (8/n)

What Leiter and company's support of Stock through academic freedom has done is warped the concept into a shield for bigotry. Freedom to challenge power becomes freedom to bigotry and freedom to exercise power over the marginalized, which is something we should be wary of. (9/n)

Now, the elevation of Stock via the OBE serves to provide more cultural and social legitimacy to her bad arguments. It is, in effect, honoring Stock for cloaking her transphobia in the language of the academy and legitimizing her shit work in terrifying ways. (10/n)

Which gets me back to the point at hand: it is because of the political and social climate in which Stock is writing and within which senior scholars are defending her that enables us to talk of the connection of Stocks bad arguments to the broader social context. (11/n)

The OBE, the impassioned defenses by Leiter and company, Stock's unwillingness to read the history of the conversations she claims to be having, all of this has everything to do with the social and political context in which her arguments are formed and taken seriously. (12/n)

It is not so much a stretch to say that Stock's elevation by her OBE serves to cement the connection between Stock and the "cruel rhetoric" Leiter articulates above, as if the ways that her arguments have been taken up and circulated by TERFs wasn't proof of this. (13/n)

Put simply, the cultural forces that enable the "cruel rhetoric" that Leiter seeks to distance Stock from are the same forces that enable and maintain Stock's circulation within philosophy and broader culture. They are the same cultural forces that culminated in her OBE. (14/n)

It is only a staggering amount of willful ignorance (or intentional bigotry) that enables people to argue other wise.

But what do I know, I'm just an "ontological totalitarian." (fin)