Book review: Kathleen Stock

Several weeks ago I mentioned (here and here) that I'd been inspired to read Kathleen Stock's 2021 book Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism.

I finished it on Monday 4th.  (Unfortunately I also had to return it to the library that day, so I'm writing this from memory.  Hope I get it right, but happy to be corrected on anything.)

This is a book on sex and gender.  As best I can see, Stock is strongly in favour of reducing the social stigma associated with sex/gender nonconformity.  In this respect she is both a member and ally of the rainbow community, fighting against those who think that heterosexuality is the only correct option for everyone.

Nonetheless, her opinions about trans people have resulted in a lot of hatred against her from the trans community.  This book is her response.

Whatever the case about what Stock's critics claim, as best I can see she has a "you do you" approach, that consenting adults should be free to choose for themselves and/or express for themselves their sex/gender orientation, presentation and identity, whatever it is.  That is, consenting adults should be free to be romantically/sexually attracted to whoever they like (or not at all), and have relationships as they like.  They should be free to present themselves as they like, following whatever sex/gender norms/roles they like (or not at all).  And they should be free to identify as any sex/gender they like (or not at all).  That people do all of this is just people expressing themselves, and it's simply variation within human populations.  Society, and the law, should fully support this right, and work to reduce any impediments or stigmas.  (Though Stock does have opinions about gender identity theory, and how it is used in law; more below.)

In the book she takes this mostly as a given, and doesn't argue for it.  She wants to deal with other stuff to do with sex and gender.

I completely agree with this, and I would treat this as a freedom issue.  People should be free to choose for themselves what they do, as long as it doesn't harm others.  (So, consent and maturity are important.)  As I see it, those who deny this need to show why something else is more important than people's freedom.  As yet I haven't seen it (eg unnatural, distasteful, or against religious authority are all bad reasons).

In the book the stuff that Stock wants to deal with includes language, theories, laws, and rights to certain public resources/spaces.

Stock questions certain terms and ideas that some people use as useful and accurate descriptions of the way things are.  (Importantly, in this respect she doesn't question people's rights to do/be, but she sometimes questions the accuracy with respect to how they describe and explain their doing and being.)

And she points out that with respect to some public resources/spaces there is conflict as to who has the right to use them (women's rights versus trans rights).  This conflict means that not everyone can have their own way, and Stock has opinions (with reasons) why society, and the law, should go one way rather than another.

Thirdly, she also raises the question of whether children/minors should medically transition, as there are issues of properly informed consent, medical risks, and changeable/temporary self-opinions.

Importantly, Stock wants to separate out the rights to freedom, etc, as above, which she supports, versus the rights to certain specific public funding, public spaces access, labeling, and participations, which she treats case by case and doesn't always support.  Stock sees herself as aiming for a reasoned, nuanced view, between the extremes of opinion.  She labels this as non-binary, in the sense of rejecting the argumentative binary of us-vs-them.

She emphasises that questioning or restricting the latter is not transphobic, as is claimed by some of her critics.  I agree with her.

Nonetheless, I do think Stock's tone of voice in the book is not always neutral sounding.  Ideally a writer should try to present all views, including those they disagree with, in the strongest possible way.  Stock's tone made me feel a little uneasy that she hadn't done this with her interlocutors.  While I have a decent background in philosophy, this is a topic I haven't studied in much depth, so I'm still a little unclear about the specific theoretical and argumentative terrain.  I came away from the book feeling that I couldn't entirely trust Stock's explanations and interpretations of issues, while occasionally not being sure precisely where the problems were.  If we want to understand the issues I don't think we should use this book as a single-source textbook.  It needs to be used with guidance from other sources.

Sex:

The first language point that Stock deals with is sex -- the biological category, not the act.  Stock sees sex as binary (male or female) and not a spectrum.  She also thinks that it cannot literally be changed.  For her, this is simply accepting the facts of reality.  But let's build up a bit first.

As Forrest Valkai says, reality is what reality is.  Every model, every theory, every bit of language we have is wrong, in the sense that it doesn't map perfectly onto reality.  But that doesn't mean that they are all worthless -- just that some are more useful in some contexts.  Whenever we use language, and whenever we theorise, we draw imperfect boxes around reality to distinguish some parts from others, for some particular use.

In this sense, our language and theories are always subjective and social, choosing to pick out and distinguish one contrast rather than another.  We subjectively choose to draw a box around objective reality here rather than there.  And sometimes it's useful to ask why our boxes are in the places that they are.  Why is this distinction important rather than that?

An example: The other day I needed to show my birth certificate for identification verification.  Back in 1975 it was seen as important to include my dad's occupation on my birth certificate.  It was an objective fact of reality that at the time he was a "Television Salesman".  But it was also a subjective/social decision to include this objective fact on my birth certificate.  Why was this objective fact seen as important?  My dad was a TV salesperson for just a short time in his life, and went on to do many other things.  But forever my birth record is going to include what my dad happened to be doing to earn money at the time of my birth.  Interestingly though, my birth certificate does not include my mum's occupation.  In 1975 this was not an objective fact of reality that was subjectively worth drawing a box around.  (My children's birth certificates don't include anyone's occupation.)

My birth certificate also includes my sex; it has me as "M".  For various reasons our society has subjectively decided that this piece of objective reality is worth drawing a box around.  My children's birth certificates also have their sex listed.

But what do we mean by this?  And how was it determined?

As Stock points out, we mostly learn language as children through adults pointing out exemplars to us.  We learn about men and women, males and females, through seeing enough examples to get the general idea.  It mostly works well enough in most situations.

At my birth doctors ticked the "M" box for me after a visual inspection of my genitals.  And after I got clothes, people mostly thought of me as "M" based not on my genitals but on my clothes, my name, my hair length, my body shape, etc, etc.  They'd seen enough examples to categorise me in that way without the doctor's tick.

Again, this mostly works well enough in most situations.  (Although when pre-pubescent me had longer hair some people thought I was a girl.)

But this is a rather fuzzy-edged box that we as a society have drawn around reality.  And it's sometimes useful to draw it more finely.  Stock describes three different definitional ways in which people like to draw the sex boxes, making it clear that she thinks that each are equally good in their own way, for their own purposes, and that she doesn't choose one over the others.  As I say, she thinks that all three definitions entail that sex is binary and cannot be changed.  I agree with her about the first two, but am unsure about the third.

Gametes: Here, males are defined as the types of organisms that have the biological equipment to produce smaller faster gametes (ie, sperm).  And females are defined as the types of organisms that have the biological equipment to produce larger slower gametes (ie, eggs).

Almost always, people fall into one or other camp (it's essentially binary), and almost always this maps people's visual ideas of male and female.  Biologist Jerry Coyne points out that on this definition intersex happens about once every 5500 times (about as often as a coin toss would land on its side, which we usually call binary).

Nonetheless, due to the quirks of complicated reality, some people's gametes don't match their outward visual.  This happens in various ways, but one example is that some people are born with (internal) testes but otherwise grow up looking exactly like women, with vaginas, etc.  Unless they were specifically tested they could live their entire lives assuming they were merely infertile females.  Under this definition occasionally we may think that someone is one sex but they really are the other sex.

Coyne strongly prefers this definition.  His reasoning is that sex has to do with reproduction, and this particular definition clearly distinguishes the two types of organism that differ with respect to their reproductive equipment.  Drawing this particular box around reality is useful when considering reproduction (but not necessarily when considering other things, including sex determination and development, as well as human social interactions).  It is not saying that this is all that people, or human development, are, but it is saying that this is the relevant difference with respect to reproduction.  For Coyne, gametes define, chromosomes (discussed below) largely (but not completely) determine (also discussed below), and other sex characteristics (discussed below) typically detect.

Chromosomes: Here, human males are defined as the types of organisms that have XY chromosomes, and human females are defined as the types of organisms that have XX chromosomes.  (This doesn't always work for other species, as there are other ways than XX/XY to produce males and females.)

Nonetheless, again, similar to the gametes definition, this definition works almost always to match our visual, and is essentially binary, but reality is complicated and there are exceptions.  Since reality is complicated, the fact that there are exceptions doesn't necessarily invalidate the definition, but it should make us more aware that definitions can lead us wrongly into too rigid thinking.  We shouldn't let our definitions lead our understanding of reality.

Cluster concept: A third approach to defining human sex involves recognising that there are lots of sex characteristics, and we could draw up a long list of these.  A cluster approach recognises that while all of these characteristics are part of the picture, none of them is essential.  What is important is that enough of them are present to count.  How long is the list, and how many are needed?  That's the fuzzy bit.

However, I didn't find Stock especially clear on this.  Maybe I missed something, but my impression was that Stock handwaved the definition to get to an answer that suited her -- that we set up a cluster concept that would make sex binary and unchangeable.  I also wasn't sure I followed her reasoning where she rejected the possibility of medical treatment as a way of changing these characteristics to change one's sex.

Another biologist, P Z Myers, prefers this cluster approach definition of sex over the other two.  He thinks that all of these characteristics are aspects of sex, and leaving them out is too reductionist.  The part of reality that Myers is drawing a box around when defining sex is the wider context of determination and development, and not merely reproduction (Myers is a developmental biologist, so this is a relevant definition for his field of studies).  Consequently he sees sex as bimodal rather than binary.  But contrary to Stock, Myers seems open to the possibility of medical treatment changing enough sex characteristics to literally change one's sex.

Here is Myers responding to Richard Dawkins (who defends the gametes definition of sex).

And responding to a question about Coyne's position:

Judge for yourself, but I think Myers mistakenly thinks that Dawkins/Coyne's position requires one to reduce people to gametes.  I think a fairer understanding is that they are simply narrowing the discussion, and hence the definition.  That is, I think Myers strawpersons Dawkins/Coyne.

But I think Myers makes an important point that we should not use definitions of sex alone to decide on social issues such as sports participation, changing rooms, prisons, etc, etc (discussed below).  Gamete size may often correlate, but is not itself the reason why we might want to separate groups of people or not.

Here, Myers gives a lecture on sex determination (as far as I can see, I think it's possible to recognise that sex determination is complicated and variable, while holding the gamete definition of sex):

So, overall, Stock's position is that whatever plausible definition of sex we use (whichever way we choose to draw the box around reality), sex is binary and unchangeable.  And if we are to use language properly we should recognise this aspect of reality, and not say that there are many sexes or that trans people really change sex when they transition.

This is one of the ways that Stock gets on the wrong side of the trans community, when insisting that trans people don't really change their sex.

I think for some definitions of sex this is true, but I'd like to see a bit more clarity of discussion between Stock and Myers.  If Myers' preferred definition of sex is coherent, used and useful, then Stock hasn't shown that sex must be binary and unchangeable (just that on some definitions it is).

In what follows for the rest of this piece, I'll assume that sex is either binary or bimodal, and in this context I will occasionally refer to people who are male-looking, etc, while acknowledging that to some extent that is an imprecise language shortcut.

Gender:

The second language point Stock deals with is gender. And pinning down what we might mean by this is even more difficult.

It is often said that while the words "male" and "female" refer to sex, the words "man" and "woman" refer to gender.  But what do we mean when we talk about men and women, and how is this different from males and females?  Again, there are several definitions -- several different ways we may choose to draw boxes around aspects of reality -- and each may be useful in different ways.  So, an important question is why we might choose one way rather than another.

One important and legitimate use of the words "man" and "woman" is to distinguish mature humans from immature humans.  It is important to know and talk about when children become mature enough to reach adulthood, taking on adult responsibilities and having adult rights.  So, man is contrasted with boy, and woman is contrasted with girl.  With this useful and important way of drawing boxes around reality, men are adult human males and women are adult human females.  Stock calls this the traditional view.

To jump ahead of myself a bit, Stock thinks that this is the best definition of the words "man" and "woman", and she thinks this is the way that we English-speakers should use the words.  In this respect her approach to the word "gender" is different from her approach to the word "sex", where she didn't commit to any particular definition.  So, the logical reasoning is going to be different.

A large part of her book is spent discussing other definitions of "man" and "woman" -- other ways of understanding gender -- and then critiquing them to show how they all fail.  Her basic approach is to either show that (a) on logical inspection the proposed definition is incoherent, or (b) while coherent, the words depart too much from our usual/traditional understanding of "man" and "woman", and so these different definitions (different ways of drawing boxes around reality) should have their own (new) terminologies and not usurp the already existing language.

So, for Stock, using this definition means that consequently (a) gender is binary and (b) people cannot change their gender (since Stock has argued that sex is binary and people cannot change their sex).  For Stock, this means that trans people do not really change their gender (or sex) when they transition.  And man and woman are the only genders (no third genders for Stock).

Again, we should emphasise that Stock thinks it's perfectly okay to be trans and it's perfectly okay to transition, if one wants to do so.  You do you.  She is not questioning the existence of trans people.  And she is not questioning their right to be equal members of society.  Similarly, she thinks that it's perfectly okay to be sex/gender nonconforming, if one feels that way.

But she thinks that we should be accurate with our language (reality matters) and not claim that a trans person really, literally, changed sex or gender.  She thinks we should have another word for it (another word to refer to the box we draw around the part of reality that includes transition).  For Stock, saying "trans woman" is not in the same category as saying "Asian woman".  (A few years ago Mulan danced in a ballet show based on Alice in Wonderland, where she was the Mock Turtle.  At the time we discussed whether she was a real turtle or not.)

So, this is another of the ways that Stock often gets on the wrong side of the rainbow community.  Many trans people want to say that they have genuinely changed gender (or possibly sex).  And many gender/sex nonconforming people want to say that they are genuinely outside the man/woman binary.

To explain this feeling of genuineness, Stock uses a common philosophical conceptual tool -- that of fictionalism.  Outside of gender studies, Stock's main academic speciality is the philosophy of art, and a big question in that field is how we conceptually and cognitively deal with storytelling and fiction.  When we read stories, or watch TV, we often get very emotionally involved in the characters and events.  We have genuine emotions to non-real situations.  We get immersed in the storytelling.  Healthy immersion in a fiction is an appropriate midground between delusion on the one hand and non-belief on the other.

Stock thinks that this is what is going on with trans people.  There is an immersion in the fiction of changing sex/gender.  It is not actually real, but we (both the trans person and those around them) have real emotions and behaviours with respect to the fiction.  And Stock thinks that we should treat trans in this way -- we should get emotionally immersed in it, without either (a) being deluded into thinking it is a genuine gender change or (b) coldly disbelieving.

And so, for Stock, for the same reason that we can coherently talk about and emotionally care about non-existent fictional characters, we can and should also get appropriately immersed in the fiction of trans.

Consequently, it can be correct and appropriate to use a trans person's preferred name and pronoun (call a trans woman "she", etc).  We should emotionally connect with the trans woman, immersing ourselves in the fiction, using her preferred name and referring to her as "she/her".  It is not only polite and caring to the person as a person, but it is also linguistically accurate in the context of a fiction.  It is not a lie, for the same reason that talking about the attributes and actions of fictional characters is not a lie.

But Stock is quite clear that while she does this for most trans people, she refuses to do this for trans people who have committed sexual violence.  Stock directly and openly calls trans women who are sex offenders "he".  Their crime means that we should choose not to emotionally immerse ourselves with them in this fiction.  Through their crime they have lost that right.

I think Stock's position here is an interesting compromise, and departs from the usual extremes we often hear about in inflammatory public debates (between those who insist on calling trans women "he", and those who insist that a person's self-description is authoritative).  Nonetheless, trans people may say that an immersive fiction is still a fiction, and is failing to acknowledge their self-identity (more below).  And on the other side trans sceptics may similarly say an immersive fiction is still a fiction, and the truth is important when using pronouns (they prefer to coldly disbelieve the fiction).

But I'll put that aside and return to the earlier point of whether Stock's preferred definition of "man" and "woman" is correct/best.

Clearly Stock has a big job on her hands to knock down all the various definitions of gender (the many different ways that people have drawn boxes around reality).  For her position to work, she has to show how hers is the only position still left standing after the conceptual analysis battles.

And I am just not convinced that she has done it.

For 70+ years there has been a huge literature on this, including within philosophy and women/gender studies academic fields.  It really is a big ask to sweep a lot of that away.

I'm still struggling with the literature on this, though Stock's brief literature review in her book was useful.  While acknowledging my beginner status on this topic, I see two distinct main alternative approaches to understanding gender from the one that Stock prefers.

One important and useful way that many people drew the gender boxes around complicated reality was with regards to how in many societies (including ours) women did (and do) not have the same advantages and opportunities as men.  (As a simple example, recall my birth certificate where my dad's occupation was included but not my mum's.)

On top of the biological differences between men and women, there are also clear social differences between them.  These social differences are not clearly articulated when we talk about adult males and adult females.  So, using an alternative definition we can say that sex (male, female) is biological, but gender (man, woman) is social.

Pointing out these social differences, and the frequent power imbalances, is important and useful.  Clearly labeling these sorts of injustices is a first step towards correcting them.

It's been fairly standard for at least a few generations for many people to use the language of "man" and "woman" in this way.  My sense of it is that Stock is a little biased and not telling the full story when she says her preferred definition is the "traditional" one, as there are many of us who have grown up acclimatised to using "men" and "women" in this more social way.  This definition has been around long enough that it should not be dismissed as not fitting with how people use the words.  Usually in the context us English users can get the right idea about which definition people are using -- are we talking about children and adults, or are we talking about adults' social differences?  (In the same way that us English users usually know what the speaker is meaning when they say they went to the bank -- riverside or money-building.)

But this social definition of the words is more like a family of different definitions, as once we say that gender (man, woman) has to do with social differences then it opens up the question of which aspects, and in which society.  There will be a lot of different characteristics that we might include, to do with such things as roles, norms, expectations, behaviours, preferences, styles, occupations, activities, etc.

So, we might say that while a trans person doesn't literally change gender if we use Stock's "traditional" definition of gender, they may literally change gender if we use this social definition of gender.  They have taken on as their own certain roles, norms, behaviours, etc, of the other gender.  And this would seem to be a spectrum, or at least non-binary.

But there is a further complication: Initially, when thinking about power relations and unfairnesses, people generally saw these gendered characteristics as something to overcome and/or change.  For some people the task was to eliminate gender as understood in this way, so people can have more equality.  But later, other people saw these gendered characteristics as positive and actually to be adopted.

This is where it's possible to slide into the second main alternative to Stock's preferred definition of gender.

Sometimes people identify with those gendered characteristics.  They treat those characteristics as part of what it means to be that gender -- seeing people of that gender having them, or associating having those characteristics with being that gender.  And these people like these characteristics, or they see that they personally have them.  People self-identify with that gender.

This is where gender identity theory come in.  The basic thought is that people are the gender that they see themselves as.  This is clearly a third and distinct definition of gender, and it is one that more and more people are using these days.  For many people today, when we talk about gender they are simply assuming we are talking about gender identity, and nothing else.  Language changes over time, and in the past ten or more years language has definitely changed on this point.

As I see it, the basic difference between both of these alternative definitions of gender (from Stock's) is that the first is sociological (to do with the nature of society) while the second is psychological (to do with how people see themselves).  Both open up the possibility of gender being non-binary (more than just man or woman), as both involve multiple factors that may not all align.  Both also open up the possibility of genuine gender change (trans).

As I say, Stock devotes a lot of her book to discussing these theories/definitions of gender, and ultimately dismisses them all as flawed.  There is a lot to it, and sometimes I agree with Stock that certain versions of each of these broad accounts are weak.  But I couldn't help getting the sense that sometimes she was strawpersoning the stronger versions.  As I said above, sometimes I thought her tone of voice sounded biased, and other times I thought that surely there are more plausible versions than what she is critiquing.  But pinning this down more precisely would require me to delve into the literature much more than what I currently have.  Each would require it's own essay.

After reading Stock's book, I still couldn't see how these other two definitions of gender were overall wrong.  But maybe I have missed something.  As far as I can see, we have these three main definitions of gender --three different boxes drawn around reality.  And reality is as it is regardless of our boxes.  These boxes overlap in many ways, but not in all ways.  Each makes sense and has its use in its context, though I agree with Stock that sometimes it gets confusing which one people are meaning when they are talking to each other.  Sometimes people are simply talking past each other when they disagree about gender.

In what follows for the rest of this piece, I'll assume that transitioning is genuine and not fictional, on the basis that I think it makes more sense, in this context, to use either the social or the identity definitions of gender rather than the "traditional" definition.  That is, when people talk about transitioning, they're not so likely to be meaning to suggest that someone has literally changed from being an adult-human-male to being an adult-human-female (or vice versa).  I think they are meaning to refer to certain gendered social characteristics and/or identity.  And in that sense I don't see why we shouldn't think it's a real transition.

Practical stuff:

One reason why people get so concerned about language is that it's often used to give people social privileges or rights.  It influences what people do practically in the real world.  Who gets to play in the women's sports competitions?  Who gets to use the women's public toilets or changing rooms?  Who is allowed to use women's refuges?  Who is sent to women's prisons?  Who gets the public funding for women?  Who wins the women's awards?  Who is statistically counted as a woman when aiming at equal representation?

This matters, because in many of these cases siding one way advantages some people while simultaneously disadvantaging other people.  There are often real, practical, substantial gains and loses for people.

So, when we discuss these practical issues it is important to pick the appropriate definition that matches the relevant distinctions that context demands.  As I see it, different situations often require different criteria, and so a definition that is appropriate in one context may not be appropriate in another.  People who insist on using one definition in all situations are missing the point that reality is complicated.

Recalling from memory Stock's book (I'm writing this now a week later, and it's getting hazier as time goes on!), I felt that while she addressed many of these issues, often they were just in sections within chapters, when I thought they could have each used clearly separated chapters.  That is, I thought the book was a little light on some of these real world practical issues.

Nonetheless, my memory of Stock's position is that her main concern was with the recent tendency (past 10-20 years) for laws and society to apply the gender identity theory to all these different situations.  With each of these situations she didn't think that self-identification of one's own gender was the appropriate criterion we should use.  Either it was irrelevant to the reasons why we as a society had decided it was important to create specific separate women's categories, or it made things less safe for women.  Much of Stock's book was spent detailing the UK legal system, and the trans advocacy groups in that country (such as Stonewall) that have been pushing for the law to exclusively use gender identity as the definition of gender.  In this sense I often (though not always) agreed with Stock that self-identity is the wrong approach.  But sometimes I also wasn't sure if Stock's "traditional" definition was the right one either.  I'll go thorough a subset of examples.

Sports:

I enjoy playing sports, and I occasionally enjoy watching them too.  I think we all agree that participation in sports is important, and everyone should have the right to do so.  But sports by their nature are inherently unfair.

Take basketball, as an example.  Basketball heavily favours those who are taller over those who are shorter.  It is unfair in the sense that shorter people are unlikely to make it professionally.  Google tells me that the shortest current NBA player is Facundo Campazzo, who is 178cm (my height).  The average height of men is 175cm.  And the shortest current WNBA player is Raina Perez, who at 162cm is the average height for women.  This means that around half the population is effectively excluded from being involved in professional basketball simply because they happened to be born as they were (ie, shorter than average).  But society has decided that this is an allowable form of unfairness.  Basketball does not have separate competitions for people of different heights.

Shot put is another example.  I weigh 72kg, which means that the shot put I throw is 10% of my body weight.  On the other hand Ryan Crouser, the shot put world champ, weighs 145kg.  He only needs to throw 5% of his body weight.  Society has similarly decided that this is an allowable form of unfairness, and when competing in shot put no one thinks we should each throw different weights proportionate to our body weight.

In contrast, in sports like boxing and weightlifting we've decided that the body weight difference between competitors is not an allowable form of unfairness.  Instead, competitors are separated into different categories of body weight, and don't compete against each other.

What's important is that in these situations no one is being excluded from playing, but both approaches have different ways to set up the competing conditions.  Both are different ways of dealing with unavoidable unfairness in sports, and both result in different types of participation.

In almost all sports society has decided that men and women competing against each other is a form of unallowable unfairness, similar to weightlifting.  But until recently society has generally left it fuzzy about which definition of sex/gender we should use when creating these sports competition categories.  It hasn't mattered.  The recent (and right) social recognition of trans people has changed that, and we are now playing catchup to decide which is the appropriate definition in this context.

Trans advocates often say that gender identity theory -- what people self-identify as -- is the right definition.  You should compete in whichever category (men or women) in which you self-identify.

Stock argues against this, and thinks it is a form of unfairness that should not be allowed.

Amongst other things, Stock points out that one form of unfairness is due to males who have gone through puberty having significantly, on average, larger and more dense muscles that produce, on average, significantly better sporting performances.  This is not true of all males and females, but it is true for the most part.  This unfairness is in one direction only, as trans men don't have this physical advantage over males.

This means that if a male transitions to being a woman after puberty then she is almost certainly (though not always) going to have a muscle advantage over females, and hence a competitive advantage.  Transitioning doesn't remove this, no matter what medical treatment is used.  There is much to say about this sort of empirical evidence, which is an important field of research these days.  Biologist Jerry Coyne often writes about this on his blog.

Assuming the science is correct, the ethical question is whether this unfairness is socially allowable or not.  Or, to put it another way, are trans women in sport similar to tall people in basketball, or are they more similar to heavier people in weightlifting?

Stock, Coyne and others think it is more like weightlifting.  That is, they think that the advantage that trans women who transition after puberty have is a form of unfairness that should not be allowed.

Their preferred solution to this is to say that in sports where this muscle difference is a significant performance difference trans women who transitioned after puberty should not be allowed to compete in the women's category.  Instead, it is suggested that an open category competition be started, welcoming trans women and others.

So, this is yet another of the ways that Stock often gets on the wrong side of the rainbow community.

To repeat, this specific position is not saying that trans women are not women.  It is consistent with this position to say that trans women are women, but that those who have gone through male puberty should not compete in women's competitions.  It's also not saying that trans people should not be involved in sport.  It is a narrow point about what sorts of sports involvement are appropriate, and the specific criteria for deciding this is relevant only for this specific situation.  It also has nothing at all to say about trans women's involvement in other public areas (such as women's spaces), which may use other criteria.  It is not in any way transphobic or anti-trans.

When considering the ethics, I think lost opportunities for females in sport is important.  Given the historic (and current) disadvantages often in women's sports (unequal competitions, prizemoney, advertising, media coverage, sponsorship, branding, professional opportunities, etc), it's probably important not to add additional unfainesses for females.  In this sense I think this is different from the lost opportunities I personally have from being half Crouser's body weight.

Nonetheless, I also think a relevant factor is the proportion and percentage of trans women in this situation, and whether they are disproportionately winning places, entries, money and sponsorships that consequently take away from too many females.  Stock says they are, while Forrest Valkai (link above) says they aren't.

I'm willing to be convinced either way on this, but based on the specific cases I have read about of trans women succeeding in women's competitions (such as those who pre-transition as men only had moderate competition success, but post-transition as women have had significant success), I am inclined to think this type of unfairness creates too many lost opportunities for females and so should not be allowed.  That is, I think Stock is correct, and I think an open category makes sense.

In addition to unfairness, Stock also raises the issue of safety in contact sports.  Stock thinks that when trans women who have transitioned after puberty compete in contact sports their likely physical advantages are significant enough to make it less physically safe for female players.  We'd have to look at the empirical evidence on this, but I think Stock does enough to show this is plausibly true and another reason to adopt her preferred solution above.

In other words, I think none of the gender definitions discussed in the sections above are relevant with respect to sport.  It is not about one's sex (however defined), it is not about social roles, etc, and it is not about self-identification.  It is, instead, about the ongoing muscle/performance advantages that male puberty gives.  So, I think often the definitions above are a distraction when thinking about real-world practical stuff.  Thinking about sport gives us a template for thinking about other social issues.  Look at the specific issues and ignore the definitions, to figure out which box we should draw around reality for that specific situation.

Women's public spaces:

There are various types of women's only public spaces, including changing rooms, toilets, abuse refuges/shelters and prisons.  What they have in common is that they have all been historically set up as places for women to exclusively be, often doing sensitive/private things away from men.

For many women these are essential social services, where they can feel more secure during vulnerable moments while out in public.

Historically, for the most part these places have worked in a self-policing kind of way.  If people are perceived as women they are allowed in, while if they are perceived as men they are not.  If someone who is perceived to be a man enters a women's only public space, then other users have historically felt entitled to question/challenge them on this.

However, with more (and right) social awareness of trans people, the question has arisen about which type of public space they should use --the women's or the men's.  This is especially important because many trans people don't "pass" as the gender they have transitioned to.

Trans advocates emphasising gender self-identity have said that people should be allowed to use whichever space suits their self-identity -- whatever you feel yourself to be, then you use that space.  Moreover, they say, other users should not question anyone else on this -- other users should let them in to use the space, regardless of what they look like.  Stock names and discusses trans advocacy groups that have worked to try to get this recognised in law.

Once again, this is where Stock gets on the wrong side of the rainbow community, as she argues against this gender self-identity approach to these sorts of public spaces.

For Stock, the relevant criteria with respect to women's spaces are safety and safeguarding.  And similar to sports, Stock thinks that this issue is in one direction only -- she doesn't think it's a problem for trans men to use men's only public spaces if they choose.  Stock is concerned that allowing trans women to use women's only spaces makes these spaces significantly less safe for females, and this outweighs the competing interest that trans women have to use those spaces.

Again, this specific concern is not questioning whether trans women are women.  However, unlike with sports, this penalises trans people more, as if Stock is right it would often require them to use the public spaces of their old gender.  Unlike with sport, where Stock's solution of gender-neutral open categories is feasible, in the near future it is not always possible to everywhere have gender-neutral spaces. Many trans women are not willing to accept this, so this becomes a real political battle of public resource use.

Stock discusses ways in which she thinks allowing trans women to use women's spaces makes it less safe for females, including:

1.  It opens up the possibility for opportunistic male sex predators to claim to be women in order to enter women's spaces for their own sexual gratification.  This may range from more passive voyeurism to more active physical contact and abuse.

2.  As we saw in the case of sports, those who have gone through male puberty are very likely to be physically stronger than those who haven't.  This means that if these male sexual predators are permitted into women's spaces, then they are likely to be able to physically overwhelm any lone females using these spaces.  Whether or not this happens in reality, for some females this perception may mean that they prefer not to use these spaces if trans women are included, meaning that they miss out on the benefits of these public resources.

3.  Specifically in the case of women's refuges, where the users are often there because of abuse by men, it can be psychologically traumatic for victims to encounter male-looking bodies in the refuge.  This applies to both users of women's refuges and also staff working there who are male-looking.

4.  Stock says that statistically men are much more likely to be sex offenders than women, and she thinks that this is something that is genetically inbuilt in the male body, regardless of whether they have later transitioned or not.  Allowing male-bodied people into women's spaces significantly increases the chances of sexual predation.

Alongside this, Stock emphasises that almost all men are not sexual predators, and almost all trans women are similarly not sexual predators.  But she thinks that it is about safeguarding.  She says that laws are sometimes put in place to protect people from the small minority, even though it's accepted that the vast majority are non-problematic.  She thinks that women's spaces should similarly be set up on the basis of safeguarding.

Stock is at her strongest when she is arguing against the extremity of gender self-identity, and these are all plausible reasons in favour of restricting at least some types of women's spaces away from a purely self-identity approach.  I think Stock has done enough to show that with respect to some types of women's public spaces these other criteria discussed ought also apply besides self-identity.  But it's all in the details, and Stock does discuss some aspects.

In the case of prisons we might, for example, specify in law that self-identified trans women are also required to pass other criteria, such as not being convicted sex offenders and showing evidence of long-term transition, before they are placed in women's prisons.

The purpose of women's refuges is to help people in need, so they should not turn away trans women in need.  But they do need to be sensitive to nuance and individual traumas.  So, they should be able to  somewhat screen trans women on arrival, if needed, sensitively placing people according to their individual needs and separating them if needed.  They may also choose not to hire men and trans women as frontline staff, if it is determined that this is too psychologically traumatic for some victims who use this public service.

In these respects I mostly agree with Stock.

It's less clear regarding open-access public changing rooms and toilets, where there is no gatekeeping on entry.  Recognising the existence and needs of trans people, as a society we need to put more funding and resources into changing and upgrading these public spaces into unisex facilities, thereby avoiding the winner/loser problem of trans rights versus women's rights.

(Exactly what's needed -- unisex cubicle toilets at Christchurch airport.)

But this is a long-term project, and it doesn't help right now if a trans woman needs to use the toilet while out in public -- does she enter the door with the picture of the woman or the man?

As I wrote above, Stock is sometimes somewhat biased in her language, and in this respect I did not see much effort by her to sensitively present the trans view on this.  On this point, and elsewhere, I read her book as more of an advocator for female rights, rather than a neutral assessor of the evidence.

So, in reply to Stock we might:

1.  Counterbalance the concern about female safety with a similar concern about trans women safety.  In contrast, there may be a greater danger for trans women using men's spaces, as groups of (drunk, aggressive) men using men's spaces may wrongly see a lone trans woman in there as sexual and available.  It is conceivable that a trans woman is actually more at risk alone in a men's bathroom than females are from males using women's spaces.  In the end, sadly, this is an empirical question of which option is likely to result in real-world least harms to people, while recognising that neither is ideal.

2.  Question if safeguarding is the right approach.  While in some situations safeguarding is appropriate (I discuss this with respect to homeschooling here), other times it's not.  For example, when it comes to road safety we often don't apply the principle of safeguarding.  If we did, we might not let so many people drive, preferring to restrict certain categories of people who are statistically less safe drivers (eg under-25s, etc).  But as a society we think that allowing the freedom of driving for everyone is worth it, despite the occasional harms to innocent bystanders that it causes.  We may similarly think this with women's spaces -- allowing the freedom of use by trans women is worth it, despite the occasional harms.

3.  Simply emphasise that this is a human rights issue.  If Stock's position is correct, it means that innocent people are punished merely by association.  Do we want to live in the sort of society in which some blameless people are losing out simply because they happen to share some characteristics with others who have done wrong things?

As a man (I don't think I self-identify, and I'm not especially attached; I just think I'm mostly socially acclimatised), I don't have a dog in this fight.  I use the men's public spaces, and I'm not asking to use the women's.  So, it's not about me and I should have no say in the matter.

But for what it's worth, here's my thoughts:

When I use changing rooms, etc, I don't care who else is using them alongside me.  I also don't care if the occasional person is (weirdly!) having sexual thoughts about me while I'm getting changed, etc.  As long as I'm not physically impeded from doing what I'm there to do, it doesn't bother me at all.

My understanding is that some women feel similar to me, while others do not.  Some don't care, while others are greatly concerned about a trans woman changing alongside them, or peeing in the cubicle next to them.  Sometimes they care specifically about children, perhaps thinking that somehow seeing a different-bodied person getting changed will harm the child.  But sometimes I get the impression that for some people it's not so much about safety/safeguarding, but rather a strong feeling of distaste/disgust/fear that drives them to be against trans women using women's public spaces.  They just don't want male-looking bodies near them in that situation, even if it's completely safe and non-sexual.

As far as I can see, this is something that society needs to decide on collectively.  Which of these aspects above deserve greater weight when decision-making?  Whatever happens there'll be winners and losers, and not everyone will get what they want.  Whatever happens, likely some people will protest.  That is simply politics.

Reemphasising that it's not my decision to make, my inclination (for what it's worth) is to prioritise freedom and optimism.  As a society I think we should value freedom, and let's hope that people are not as bad as Stock suggests.  Let's hope that people can simply use changing rooms and toilets for what they are intended to be used for, disinterestedly doing their own thing alongside others without bothering about what they look like.  Maybe start out with a freer, less regulated gender self-identity approach to changing rooms and toilets, and hope that people will make it work safely (so far that seems to be the case, as trans women have been using women's bathrooms now for many years).  But if there is misuse, then consequently tighten things up accordingly.  If there are some geographic areas in which abusive males are taking advantage of the situation, at that point put in place restrictions at those places to stop male-looking people using those particular woman's spaces.

Women's funding and representation:

One further practical issue that Stock discusses is to do with who counts as a woman for statistical, funding and representational purposes.

This returns us to the earlier discussion above in the section on gender, looking at how historically (and sometimes still today) women have been discriminated against and haven't had the same opportunities that men have had.

To correct this, there are often social policies specifically put in place to aim to increase women's participation and remuneration.  This may include specific funding for women, promoting the inclusion of women in decision-making, and women's support organisations.  To make these work efficiently, data is collected on women's versus men's situations.

With the recent (and right) social recognition of trans women, an important question is whether trans women should be included in the women's category specifically with respect to these opportunities and statistics.

Trans advocates who emphasise gender self-identity say they should be.  They argue that since trans women are women they need to be included, and excluding them is unfair discrimination.

But once again this is where Stock gets on the wrong side of the rainbow community, arguing against using the gender self-identity approach to this issue.

The thought here is that we need to go back to look at the original purpose for why society targets women specifically for these special advantages.  That is, the appropriate criteria here involves recognising that the purpose is to right past wrongs and level the playing field.

So, a relevant question is whether trans women are part of the group who were wronged in this way.  Or if not, are they relevantly similarly wronged, such that the same sorts of social corrections should also apply to them.

Stock thinks they aren't, and so they shouldn't.  Her concern is that trans women are taking away opportunities from females -- for every trans woman who get some advantage from this socially targeted correction, a female misses out.

The thought here is that on the social definition of gender one aspect of being a woman is that one grows up from birth with certain social disadvantages.  A male who transitions to being a woman, and especially if she transitions after puberty, does not grow up experiencing those sorts of unfair discriminations.  And the thought is that it is these particular sorts of gendered characteristics that are relevant when considering women's funding and representation.

In reply, trans advocates may point out that trans women have their own unfairnesses pre-transition, or that post-transition experience similar unfairnesses as other women.

I'm on the fence on this one, and I can definitely see Stock's point, especially if there are women's groups which are being dominated by trans women, as she suggests.  For some females it may seem like another instance where males are taking over and dominating, precisely where it was supposed to be about them.  On the other hand, if trans women are not taking over and are deserving of the same sorts of special treatment, then I think trans women should be included as women in this context.

Medical treatment for children wishing to transition:

The final point I wish to discuss here is with respect to how society should understand and respond to children who say they identify as the other gender and wish to transition.

Trans advocates emphasising gender self-identity say that we should have a policy of affirm only, if children say they identify with the other gender.  That is, we should not doubt or question them at all on this, but support and affirm their self-perceptions and opinions.  If a child says they are trans, then we should accept that they are really trans, without question.

Stock question this, once again getting on the wrong side of the rainbow community.  This is also something that Coyne writes about frequently on his blog, and both Stock and Coyne seem to have similar views.  This includes:

1.  In many other areas of psychology, when health workers are working with troubled people they don't necessarily accept at face value the perception that their patients have of themselves.  It is recognised that their self-perceptions may be mistaken -- people don't always know their own selves best, and that is why there is an entire field of psychology to investigate this.  So, while it's important to be supportive, it is essential to remain diagnostically neutral regarding patients' self-perceptions.  It would be odd if gender dysphoria is the one psychological area in which patients are always correct in their self-perception.

2.  Children often have changeable opinions, as they grow and mature over time.  It's possible that for some children their perception of themselves as transgender may change over time as they mature.

3.  Feeling that one is the other gender sometimes exists alongside other psychological issues, and it's not clear about the relationship between them.  It seems that sometimes the feeling of being the other gender is caused by other issues, such as abuse or an unstable family life, and the real need is to correct those problems.

4.  Lately, there has been a rapid increase in the number of transgender teens.  To what extent is this an appropriate correction and recognition of something that has always been there (similar to what happened historically when lefthandedness changed from being socially not accepted to being socially accepted)?  And to what extend is this caused by fashion trends in teens (it's cool to be trans, and everyone wants to do it)?

5.  What is the relationship between transgender and homosexuality?  Recognising the above, is it sometimes possible that children may wrongly interpret their homosexuality as transgender?

6.  To what extent can children be psychologically mature enough to make permanent decisions about their bodies?  To what extent can there be informed consent?

7.  This all means that we should be wary of any treatment that is permanent.  It's possible that a child who medically transitions may at a later time change their view of themselves and regret the permanent medical change.

8.  Many of the medical treatments are new and relatively untested, and it's sometimes not clear what the long-term side-effects and consequences might be.

I see two main consequences of these concerns:

Firstly, this strongly questions the accept and affirm only approach to children's transgender claims, which trans advocates argue for.  I agree with Stock that professionals and parents, etc, should be open to the possibility that the child may be mistaken or the transgendered feelings may be temporary.  I agree that we should take the same approach with transgender as we do with other psychological issues, and not assume that the person's self-perception is necessarily correct.

Secondly, to what extent should medical treatment be offered for children who wish to transition, and to what extent should it be postponed?  Stock, Coyne and others seem to suggest that permanent medical treatment should not be given until after the person has reached adulthood.  At that point they can decide for themselves, giving informed consent.

Nonetheless, I'm concerned that this may go too far the other way.  The thing is, withholding medical treatment can itself be an active decision with permanent results.  Withholding treatment may also leave the child with a lifetime of consequences in a body that has gone through puberty to permanently be a certain way.  I'm inclined to think it should be more of a case by case basis, with as much checking as possible that the individual child is serious about it.  Hold off as long as possible, having as much psychological assessment as possible, but still be open to the possibility of permanent medical treatment if otherwise the child would permanently be their sincere non-preferred gender.

Conclusions:

If you've got this far, then congratulations!  At about 10,000 words I've been speeding through writing this for the past couple of weeks, while also keeping up with normal life.  It's been mostly done from memory, so I hope I've got people's views correct and not missed out anything obvious.  As time went on I started to get a little hazy on some of the details, and who said exactly what.  Please do let me know if I've messed up, and I'll edit and update as needed.  I hope it's clear that in these sorts of situations goodwill and good intentions are essential, and getting something wrong doesn't imply offence.

As I've suggested throughout, I think Stock's book is a very useful addition to the current discussion of gender and transgender, though it does need to be read with caution.

In my opinion Stock is a very good thinker and academic, and hers is a well thought through, respectable and well-argued position.  It definitely deserves to be heard (and I think it's a tragedy that the toxic, bullying environment forced her to resign from Sussex University).  I see this book as a useful correction and counter-balance to certain current popular thinking, which sometimes, in an attempt to (rightly) correct the injustices done against transgender people, goes too far and gets the logic and ethics wrong.  Stock does well to point these out.

However, I'm also equally concerned that books like this may be weaponised by people who think it's not okay to be transgender.  While I don't see any evidence of Stock herself being anti-transgender, I do think that in situations where not everyone can politically get their own way she clearly often sides with females and against transgender.  That is, Stock sometimes slides into women's advocacy and is not always a reliable neutral assessor of the situation.  Contrary to Stock, I still think it makes sense to say that transgender people really do transition to the other gender, and it's not a fiction.  Not only do I think this makes sense in the context of language and definitions, but I also think it's really important as a way of showing acceptance and inclusion.  I think many of the ethical points Stock makes can and should be made without rejecting real gender change.