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Thread: When I accepted my OBE I did so in full knowledge there would be backlash from academic philosophers in my discipline, and here it is. The letter contains some basic errors about my view - but that's to be expected as their aim is not truth. https://sites.google.com/view/trans-phil-letter/
I won't bother correcting errors, as I've made my written position clear many times before. We aren't dealing here with an ordinary philosophical dispute here, but rather a pathological desire to roleplay an ethical stance for public applause. But their stance isn't ethical. 2/
They want me - and by extension others, including their own students - to stop talking about biological sex and its social importance, wherever it could make conceivable difference to a trans person (which in their view, is almost everywhere). So, they want me to stop talking..3/
about the fact that in Canada - the country of the letter-author Jonathan Ichikawa - male sex-offenders have been placed in female prisons alongside women prisoners (also in Ireland and UK). I care about those forgotten women. 4/ https://quillette.com/2019/10/12/male-bodied-rapists-are-being-imprisoned-with-women-why-do-so-few-people-care/
They pretend any discussion whatsoever of violence against women, and what policies we should have about woman-only spaces in response, can only imply one thing - "all trans women are violent" (OF COURSE most are not, and this is not the implication). They want.. 5/
me to shut up about the fact that across the UK, the norms governing single-sex spaces and resources are being steadily eroded via stealth policies in favour of self-identification - as if this wasn't an important matter for public discussion! They want me to stop talking..6/
about emerging scandal of healthcare of trans-identified children, as indicated starkly in recent Keira Bell legal decision, taken on by a brave detransitioner (of which there are increasingly many - they don't want me to talk about that either). 7/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/01/children-who-want-puberty-blockers-must-understand-effects-high-court-rules
They don't want me to talk about fact that Stonewall - the LGBT lobbying group who've politically captured every major institution in the UK, including Unis - is currently running a campaign to support males who self-identify as women playing rugby 8/ https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/stonewall-statement-world-rugbys-announcement-0/
..thereby exposing fellow female players to potential neck-breaking and death. (the BBC casually reported one woman player being 'folded like a deckchair') 9/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/49298550
They don't want me to talk about fact that via policies from the Crown Prosecution Service (another Stonewall Diversity Champion), victims are forced to use the preferred pronouns of their attackers in court, even where a conviction is forthcoming. 10/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/12/radical-feminist-warned-refer-transgender-defendant-assault/
I could go on (and on). None of this is particularly easy to talk about, but if academics seriously think they can stop discussion of such matters - pertaining to women's safety and autonomy, to children's health, and to democracy itself - they're high on their own supply. 11/
I won't be stopping, and neither will the thousands of others who are now galvanising to examine the cost of pretending- not just at an understandable personal level, but also at an institutional and policy and educational level - that people can change sex. End.
Quick PS - of course, another thing they don't want me to talk about (or at least, they absolutely refuse to believe, because they apparently patronisingly think all trans people think the same thing) - is that many trans people agree with me too.
