Kathleen Stock – The truth is out there
Last week saw the continuation of Kathleen Stock’s self-declared crusade to ‘fight to stop the removal of Women’s Rights’, which even culminated in an audacious and heartless attack on our very own Steph.
Her platform this time was an hour-long live interview with Iain Dale on LBC Radio. Her interview was littered with falsehoods and unbelievable contradictions but included a 50 seconds statement that is really vital to properly breakdown, as it is here that Stock sets out her precise reasons for both her initial and continued involvement in these issues.
So let’s look at this statement. I will set out exactly what she said and then give the full evidence to demonstrate exactly what conclusion can be reached, and I can only leave it up to you to decide whether you believe that everything she says is in fact based on lies. I appreciate this is a strong statement, but if those who keep demanding the right to Freedom of Speech object to any such conclusion, it would totally expose their hypocrisy to deny everyone’s personal right to express their opinion.
So I would ask that any reader bear in mind that Kathleen is a highly educated academic (although let us not forget she is a professor of philosophy and NOT a professor of anything in relation to Gender Studies or Biology), and as a respected philosopher with considerable knowledge and experience I believe it impossible to contemplate that she would not have undertaken even the bare minimum of due diligence when she ventured into this topic. Even if she had inadvertently missed or misunderstood a key point of fact, over the last three years there is simply no feasible possibility that she wouldn’t have been made aware of any errors. She open invites debate and therefore has had ample opportunity to check and double check all of the facts, so she has to be aware of all the arguments against her position – she simply cannot be unaware of the facts, so what are her claims and what are the facts.
Kathleen Stock opened her interview confirming she first became interested in this matter some three years ago with the launch of the Government’s Consultation on the reformation of the Gender Reform Act. Within this statement Stock clarified the whole basis for her involvement in this so called ‘debate’ and so this understanding underpins her entire reason for her ‘brave’ crusade.
These are her exact words to being asked ‘why exactly are you here?’ The words in bold are my addition to highlight what is being said, and the link to her interview is here with the first 50 seconds containing this statement:
“Well, it was about three years ago I started to write about this idea of ‘Self ID’ that was coming in, the Government had a consultation on it, the idea was that we should change the gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act at the time to talk about Gender Identity as a protected characteristic and that is roughly the idea that inside you there is a feeling of whether you’re really female or male that may not, or neither, that may not correspond to your actual bodily facts. So that was being presented as a very good thing that we should just move to ‘Self ID’, and I was worried along with lots of other people, mostly women, that this would make a difference in practice because being a woman , you know, normally as understood in terms of (Biological) Sex gives you access to changing rooms, domestic violence refuges, rape crisis shelters, prisons and so on, on the basis of (Biological) Sex and the idea was that this was all going to be unpicked and changed and so I started to talk about that.’
Within this brief 50 second clip, Stock makes the following claims, all of which are simply not factual:
1) The Equality Act 2010 was being changed by the Government
2) The Government were seeking to introduce Self ID for Single Sex Space use
3) That Self ID in this context was about the use of Single Sex Spaces
4) That Single Sex Spaces access was, and still is, legally restricted by Biological or Birth Sex
One by one I will explain exactly why all four are pure fiction:
So Kathleen Stock very clearly explained exactly why she felt she was compelled to become involved. According to her, 3 years ago with the launch of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) Reform Consultation, the Government had made clearly set out intentions that would have a serious impact to on Women’s rights by making changes to the Equality Act 2010. She claimed that the proposed amendments would be life-changing for Women, so she felt the need to spread word of this clear and impending danger.
So we need to take a careful look at exactly what the Government stated 3 years ago. Let’s look, in their own words, at precisely what they said to try to find what caused Stock to reach such a conclusion as to their plans. The following is taken from the Governments actual GRA ReformGRA Reform Gender Recognition Reform Bill - Scotland https://www.gov.scot/news/gender-recognition-reform-bill/ Published 03 March 2022 09:34 Part of Equality and rights Simplifying how trans people apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate. See Also https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/mermaids-manifesto-for-gra-reform/ https://www.stonewall.org.uk/what-does-uk-government-announcement-gender-recognition-act-mean Consultation Announcement and also their formal Consultation Document so includes the guidance they provided to explain exactly what they intended to implement and to change …. but most importantly they also made if perfectly clear exactly what they were not going to change. Here are the key extracts:
The Reform of the Gender Recognition Act – Consultation opened 2 July 2019 –
Overview:
This consultation seeks your views on how best to reform the process of changing one’s legal gender. The consultation focuses on the Gender Recognition Act 2004. We are not proposing any amendments to the Equality Act 2010.
Within the very first paragraph the Government clearly stated that there was NO proposed amendments or changes to the Equality Act. It went on to state:
This consultation does not consider the question of whether trans people exist, whether they have the right to legally change their gender, or whether it is right for a person of any age to identify with another gender, or with no gender. Trans and non-binary people are members of our society and should be treated with respect. Trans people already have the right to legally change their gender, and there is no suggestion of this right being removed. This consultation simply asks how best Government might make the existing process under the Gender Recognition Act a better service for those trans and non-binary people who wish to use it.
So right in the opening statement the Government confirmed the intention of the reform without any ambiguity – and this opening statement is in complete contradiction to the claim by Stock as there were NO Equality Act amendments being proposed and this was NOTHING to do with any new or revised legal recognition or definition of being Transgender.
Just in case there was any doubt, the government made it so clear that there was no plan or intention to amend the Equality Act they repeated this statement on two further occasions within their Consultation Document:
…..We also want to be clear that this is an explorative consultation and we do not have all the answers. That is why, as we consult, we are mindful of the need to engage with all perspectives. We particularly want to hear from women’s groups who we know have expressed some concerns about the implications of our proposals. To be clear – this consultation focuses on the Gender Recognition Act; we are not proposing to amend the Equality Act 2010 and the protections contained within it.
…..we are interested in the relationship between the GRA and the Equality Act 2010. This consultation is clear that we do not plan to amend the existing protections in the Equality Act.
The Government made this point so clear it is truly difficult to comprehend how Kathleen could possibly get this so wrong? What maybe isn’t so surprising is that this denial of truth was the cornerstone of all the Gender Critical voices that campaigned at the time against the introduction of the so called ‘Self ID’ issues of the Reform.
So I have to ask straight away, is there any way an Academic of Stock’s standing could possibly have based 3 years of her life fighting to prevent an action without knowing that the Government had made it perfectly clear this was never intended nor threatened? Is there any chance she couldn’t have read this Government document that is so vital to everything she claims she stands for?
So let’s move on to what Stock claimed was at stake if ‘Self ID’ was introduced? She said:
“…. I was worried … that this would make a difference in practice because being a woman , you know, normally as understood in terms of (Biological) Sex gives you access to changing rooms, domestic violence refuges, rape crisis shelters, prisons and so on…”
Stock is claiming here that our Sex (by which she states as our Biological Sex as recorded at Birth) is what legally permits us access to all single sex spaces. This statement is simply not true. Single Sex spaces are not restricted or excluded by Biological Sex as Trans Men & Trans Women have been legally permitted to use the spaces they identify with for decades and within the Equality Act 2010 (which we have already established was not going to be amended in this consultation) it clearly sets out these legal rights – the following extract from the EA10 has been the legal standing for the last 11 years:
Equality Act 2010 – Gender Reassignment: A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person’s sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.
So the rights for the Transgender use of Single Sex Spaces are already in place, already in law, therefore her claim this “…was all going to be unpicked and changed” is completely untrue.
It is however fair to say that Stock vehemently disagrees that Transgender people should have this right, and she has made her clear intention that this right should be removed ‘to safeguard Women’. So here we have yet another contradiction – having stated she became involved in this matter due to her fear that the Equality Act 2010 was to be amended, the reality of this situation is that Stock is the one seeking the Act to be amended as she wants to restrict the current legal use of Single Sex Spaces by reverting it to access based only on Biological Sex.
The Government’s GRA Reform Consultation document itself even pointed to the existence of Transgender protected rights to the use of Single Sex Spaces and the fact that there are exemptions to these rights whereby, on a case by case basis and where there is a legitimate aim, a single sex space provider can discriminate. This exemption is right and proper and ensures that predatory Cisgender Males cannot openly abuse the rights afforded to Transgender people. This being another false Gender Critical claim, and the perfect example being with Prison placement. Those that misquote the so called ‘Self ID’ powers state that any convicted Cisgender Man can simply claim on the spot to be Transgender to both demand and achieve placement in a Female estate. However the exemptions set out within the EA10 ensure that Prison Authorities are under no such obligation to be forced to accept such a demand as because they have a recognised legitimate aim, even if the prisoner has a GRC, the Prison Authorities retain full and total control on placement.
To avoid any doubt, here is the section within the Government’s GRA Reform Consultation Document that stated this fact that Stock appears not to understand:
The Equality Act specifically includes ‘gender reassignment’ as a protected characteristic. The Act outlines the limited circumstances where discrimination against individuals with this protected characteristic might be permissible, such as in the provision of single-sex services, so long as the discrimination is a proportionate means of meeting a legitimate aim. This might include, for example, the running of a rape support centre.
So what is very clearly established is that the legal protection and rights for those Transgender to use the Single Sex Spaces that they identify with already exists. The Government clearly stated 3 years ago that the EA10 exemptions were not being amended as part of their proposed GRA Reform, so any claim from Stock that this GRA Reform would introduce changes that would put Women at risk is pure fantasy at best, and a lie at worst. Again, you make your own mind up about that. But what is becoming clearer is that this is yet another total contradiction between what Stock claimed the Government were doing and what they were actually doing.
Self ID – what does this truly mean?
Now we move onto the whole use, or misuse, of the term ‘Self ID’ and how this term has been totally twisted by the likes of Stock to give a completely false and misleading position on the GRA Reform.
According to Stock there was a serious implication to bring in a Self-ID law “….that was being presented (by the Government) … that we should just move to ‘Self ID’.
But we already do Self ID!
During the consultation process, a Government spokeswoman perfectly illustrated this point by reciting the following in Parliament in relation to the GRA Reform Consultation:
“My Lords, in relation to single sex spaces, in the overwhelming majority of occasions, and we can all bear testament to that, of the use of single sex spaces is on just self-identification, and so the Government does not intend to interfere with that. There are of course exemptions under the Equality Act where it’s justified to do so, where in the case of a refuge it could be justified to recommend different services or refuse a service.”
This statement from the Government therefore points directly to the true meaning and use of the term ‘Self ID’ being used in this context. In everyday life we do not need to present proof of our Birth Sex or even of our Gender Identity by means of showing an official document to enter any Single Sex Spaces. Whenever we use a public toilet we simply observe the way each toilet is marked, predominantly with a single Male or Female marker, and then we choose which toilet we should enter.
In every single case of a normal everyday life we Self ID as we do not need any form of Identification to enter. I repeat: We Self Identify.
So no change in law is required for us to engage in the ‘Self ID’ use of single sex spaces and yet again the Government clearly stated in the clip that there was NO intention to amend this.
So if Self ID already exists, what exactly does the reference to ‘Self ID’ refer to in the context of the GRA Reform Consultation?
The Facts: ‘Self ID’ reference in this whole issue is solely in relation to the true purpose of this Reform; to make life easier and more humane for Transgender people to change their Birth Certificate. There was never any Government confusion over this 3 years ago, or since, as yet again this was made perfectly clear within the Government’s GRA Reform Consultation document:
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 3. In order to receive legal recognition of their acquired gender a trans person is able to apply for a new birth certificate, through a process set out in the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004.
One public service that we know trans people are concerned about is the legal process for changing gender as set out in the Gender Recognition Act 2004. This Act allows an individual to get their gender legally recognised, giving them access to the legal rights of the gender they identify with and a new birth certificate issued in that gender. Many of the trans respondents to our LGBT survey said they found the current system intrusive, costly, humiliating and administratively burdensome. Whilst many trans people want legal recognition, too few are able to get it. In too many cases the current system prevents them from acquiring legal recognition of who they are, denying them the dignity and respect that comes with it. It often leaves trans people in the difficult situation of living in one gender, and holding Government issued forms of identification, credit cards, driving licence and all other documents in that gender, but a birth certificate and legal status in another.
So this clearly set out precisely what the full GRA Reform was all about – the ability to change a Birth Certificate marker – no more, no less. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 already contained provisions to legally permit this, and clearly no new rights were being proposed by this process – this was simply addressing unfair issues that the current system contained, and a solution being proposed by the Government was that instead of the lengthy, costly and unfair current ‘panel decision’ system, those applying for a Gender Reform Certificate would now need to make a legally binding ‘Self Declaration’ of their Gender Identity – it was this act that was then referred to as ‘Self ID’.
So contrary to the claim made by Stock, the ‘Self ID’ process being proposed within this Reform had nothing to do with the ‘Self ID’ process in the use of single sex spaces.
This was simply about making a legally binding Self Declaration of your Gender Identity to enable the changing of a Sex marker on your Birth Certificate – a document that has practically no use or benefit within everyday life – most people will only ever need this document at the time of marriage or death. There are no legal restrictions to changing the Sex marker on all other legally accepted documents such as passport, driving licence, and any other formal document that is universally used and accepted in the UK. The act of changing a Birth Certificate therefore has no meaningful impact or change to anything that has any impact on anyone other than the person themselves wanting to be married or buried in their true Gender Identity.
Kathleen Stock’s claim that that the proposed Reformation would impact dramatically on Women’s Rights was yet another complete falsehood. An important point to make is it is a total fallacy that there is any such thing as Women’s Rights – there are Human Rights, but there are none specific to Women, and so none that ‘were hard fought for’. Women fought, and are quite rightly still fighting, to achieve full equality. But it is impossible to lose rights that don’t exist.
But regardless of this, the Government stated they were making no changes and the changes that Stock uses highly emotive phases to warn about are already in place and clearly causing no issue!
So why would Stock make such statements and what could her motives be, because everything that she has pursued over the last 3 years has clearly been built on these false claims.
Within the Iain Dale LBC interview that followed on from the 50 second statement that I have dissected there were so many pointers as to Stock’s Gender Critical feelings, beliefs and her true position, which was full of further falsehoods and some quite staggering contradictions. Here are just a few.
Predatory lesbians are acceptable!
Stock was pushed on the potential danger of predatory Lesbians within Women’s spaces and whether all Lesbians should be banned to remove any risk in exactly the same way she argues for a ban on Trans Women. Stock responded with the following and gave her first reason for not needing a ban on Lesbians because…
“..as far as I know, lesbians are not responsible for the vast majority of sexual assaults on females”
And yet when exactly the same was stated about Trans Women with very low numbers of sexual offenders she campaigns to completely ban them:
“The logic of this suggests that when we’ve got safeguarding measures that when it doesn’t eradicate ALL possible sources of violence against women then we mustn’t have it, and that is not how safeguarding works. Excluding males from women only spaces is a start but it’s not going to solve every problem….. It’s going to reduce the risk which is what safeguarding does.”
But if she applied EXACTLY the same reasoning to lesbians, her statement would read as follows: ‘The logic of this suggests that when we’ve got safeguarding measures that when it doesn’t eradicate ALL possible sources of violence against women then we mustn’t have it, and that is not how safeguarding works. Excluding predatory lesbians from women only spaces is a start but it’s not going to solve every problem….. it’s going to reduce the risk which is what safeguarding does’
Quite clearly, if Stock believes her statement about the risk, no matter how minimal, from Trans Women, then exactly the same simply has to apply to Lesbians.
Even when pressed on the subject of actual evidence of any sexual assaults by Trans Women, Stock openly admitted that it was a really low number and without any reports giving actual number (which surely she would have if it backed up her claims) she could only refer to one case in Dundee which was reported back in March 2019, and to Karen White, a case that actually occurred in prison in 2017, some four years ago (reported in 2018) – so she could only name TWO incidents and not even one that had actually occurred within the last 2.5 years! With a Government estimate of up to 500,000 Trans people living in the UK and that’s all she could come up with. This isn’t a question that will have come out of the blue and left her unprepared. If you are campaigning against what you perceive to be genuinely dangerous people then surely you must have the evidence to back this up – surely this is just basic logic. But no, Stock’s fears are all hypothetical and with no basis of evidence.
In fact, one of the two examples, Karen White, is not even an example of how ‘Self ID’ can be abused – it is the example of how UK Prison Authorities became aware of an awful error to house a person with previous sexual assault convictions within an open Women’s prison – they admitted they had failed to implement the Equality Act exemptions (yes, the exemptions previously referred to that have legally existed since 2010) which meant they had every right to place Karen White where they decided. This case has therefore helped to ensure the prison’s failure has not since been replicated. Karen White is not a case that proves ‘Self ID’ is an issue – it proves that it isn’t an issue.
And that was it. She presented no evidence at all. But before we move on, let me point to some evidence of the true threat of Trans Women to Cisgender Women – or rather the complete lack of threat. Deputy Chief Constable Malcolm Graham revealed last week of around 47 reported rapes a week in Scotland, but stated quite clearly that the force had yet to encounter a single Trans attacker. 47 reported cases a week and none by Trans Women. And yet Stock deems the ‘threat’ so great that ALL Trans Women must be excluded from Women’s Spaces! I will point out that Stock managed to totally contradict herself on this point later on in the interview, but I will come back to this.
Her second spurious ‘reasoning’ for banning Trans Women but not banning Lesbians was as follows:
“If someone looks like a male that gives us a visual clue that they might be males – there is no way of recognising a lesbian.”
So according to Stock ‘we can always tell’ when someone is a Transgender, but ‘it’s impossible to know when someone is a lesbian’. Is she for real? It is abundantly clear that both Butch Lesbians and Camp Gay Men are identifiable – of course not every butch women is Lesbian nor every camp Man is Gay, but that is exactly the same in that not every Trans Women can be correctly identified. And it really isn’t difficult to find clear evidence that you simply cannot tell:
Butch lesbian undergoes increasing harassment in Women’s toilets
lesbian was escorted out of a bathroom after security misgendered her
It is quite simply laughable to claim this totally unscientific way of identifying Trans Women could function in any way. And who would police it? It’s nonsense.
The facts are very clear that there is no genuine danger from either Trans Women or Lesbians. We already have very clear laws in the UK and if any individual offends, whether it be someone Transgender, Lesbian or a Cisgender Male that offends in any way, it is the individual who is accountable in law. Action is taken against each offending individual. What I would hope we never do in this country is introduce draconian laws that discriminate against a whole community. We punish the guilty few and not everyone else innocent within that community. Yet this is what Stock is campaigning for.
If Stock was genuinely interested in FULLY safeguarding Women’s rights then surely she would be campaigning to ban BOTH Trans Women AND Lesbians. If you truly believe, as she said, that safeguarding is vital in reducing as much risk as possible, then excluding both surely achieves the maximum reduction of risk and then there is also no issue in mistaking Butch lesbians for Trans Women as both are excluded therefore reducing the identification issue as much as possible!
But when asked why she doesn’t apply her safeguarding ‘logic’ to Lesbians her response was – ‘Well I am a Lesbian so I wouldn’t be able to use changing rooms’ – so we can only deduce that Stock places her own desire to use Women’s spaces over her high safeguarding concerns for Women! But let’s move on.
The current law
Another issue I have with Stock is that she has no concept of what is currently law and what she claims is being fought for. Within the interview she stated:
“If you’re going to change the definition of a Women that includes males who say they are women, and that is the only criteria to count, then it’s going to have massive ramifications for Women, 51% of the population”
Trans Women exist. They always have done. They are legally acknowledged and legally accepted. Stock talks as if suddenly within the last 5 years we have discovered a new human variation that is now looking to establish its place within our existing and established society. As stated, Trans Women are legally recognised as Women within the UK. Again, another quick reference back to the Equality Act 2010 (if you recall, that’s the Act that the Government are not seeking to change), and the Gender Reform Act 2004 (the Act that the government only sought to amend the way a Birth Certificate is updated), you will find all legal rights are already in place giving Trans Men and Trans Women the legal recognition of their own Gender identity – remember the legal protections stated within the EA10:
Equality Act 2010 – Gender Reassignment: A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person’s sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.
So the simple fact, again not fiction, is that the implied ‘fear’ that a law is going to be changed so that anyone can automatically be accepted as a different gender to their Birth Sex is total nonsense as the law already exists. The EA10 clearly gives this protection AT ANY STAGE of transition, so even before acting upon it. And this law, THAT ALREADY EXISTS, is what Stock describes as something that if introduced is “going to have massive ramifications for Women, 51% of the population” – well clearly it hasn’t.
It is also important to state that Cisgender Men do not want to be Transgender Women. Given the level of abuse and discrimination who can honestly blame them, so there is no queue of men waiting to abuse so-called Self ID laws, and why would any Cisgender Man give up all his (unfair) Male privileges! But what about Predatory Cisgender Men as Stock claims they are a danger. It was put to Stock “since time in memorial there have always been perverts in changing rooms” to which Stock responded “Yes but we don’t want to make it worse, and basically we are allowing opportunist Males to ‘Self Identify’ into spaces and they will.… the idea is that you exclude Males as much as possible in order to protect Women from the few predators, that there will be” – She made a point of stressing ‘that there WILL BE’.
Kathleen Stock issues this highly emotive, scaremongering claim by falsely claiming that the current laws are under threat of being changed, but quitter clearly they are not. Predatory Cisgender Males simply haven’t used the existing laws to pretend to be Trans Women and enter Women’s spaces to commit crimes. It is simply ludicrous to believe that predatory Cisgender Men, who for the last 11 years could have supposedly claimed rights under the EA10 claiming they were Transgender, would suddenly see new ‘opportunist’ benefits from a change in law regarding their Birth Certificate! So the facts remain there is no evidence that predatory Men abuse of the current laws under the EA10.
But we can go even further. There has also not been any evidence of abuse in ANY country that has already introduced the so called ‘Self ID’ laws. Here is a list of all the countries that already have these laws in place and their population (* this denotes countries where the law is regional, and the figure given is the population of that region not the whole country): Argentina 45m, Brazil 210m, Ireland 5m, Denmark 6m, Norway 5m, Colombia 50m, Malta + Iceland 1m, Portugal 10m, Uruguay 3m, Bolivia 11m, Pakistan 212m, Chile 19m, Belgium 11m, USA* 78m, Spain* 15m and Mexico* 14m – this gives a total 695 million people – and yet no one Gender Critical, including Stock, can find ANY evidence to substantiate ANY claim that these laws have been abused by predatory Cisgender Men. And yet again, if evidence did exist, Stock would surely use it – she doesn’t because here isn’t any. There hasn’t been any issue in Ireland, and Scotland have recently declared that they are introducing this legislation, so why does anyone seriously believe it would be any different in England? It’s nonsense – it’s scaremongering.
As the Iain Dale LBC interview progressed there were even more inaccuracies and false claims, such as claiming our Birth Sex cannot change as is determined from conception – remember that our our Birth Sex is not scientific, it is determined by the physical identification given at birth, no test, just visual based on our genitals – “Congratulations, you have a baby boy!”
However, when we are conceived all humans begin development from the same starting point. During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; this meaning that all fetal genitalia are exactly the same and they are in fact phenotypically Female. So until at least 6 weeks after conception none of us have any visual signs of being Male as the fetus develops and the Male genitals develop through 6-12 weeks. And yet the Gender Critical claim is that ‘no one changes Sex’ – well as they are talking about Sex that is visually identified, it is clear that 49% of the population have done precisely that. A minor point maybe, but it’s still another factually incorrect statement by Stock …. Who isn’t a Biologist.
But possibly the worst and most damning was her response to a caller to the Iain Dale show, who accused Stock of saying that ‘Women are in danger from Trans Women’ to which Stock exasperated, with her head in her hands, responded saying “I’m not!…… I’m saying they are in danger from Males! …..MALES!” To this, the Trans Women caller asks Stock to confirm if she is a Women, to which Stock replies “I’m afraid you are genetically Male’
So there you have it.
Stock insists she isn’t saying Trans Women are a danger, she’s saying its ONLY MALES who are a danger …… but is also insisting that TRANS WOMEN ARE MALES!
This contradiction is just staggering – Stock can ONLY be saying here that Trans Women are danger to Women. So unless Stock is prepared to accept that Trans Women are Women, she simply cannot exclude Trans Women from her statement of danger. But the truth is that the only thing Stock wants to exclude Trans Women from is Women’s Spaces!
So let’s just remember the statement from Stock:
“…the idea was that this was all going to be unpicked and changed and so I started to talk about that’
Having identified exactly what the Government were proposing with their Reform three years ago, Stock clearly based everything on totally false statements that completely misrepresent facts that were very clearly set out by the Government. Stock said “…the argument is not about whether there should be legal protection for trans people, there should be, the argument is whether we should change these existing legal protections … according to this idea, they should have access to all the spaces and resources and rights that a woman has, that’s the bit I’m objecting to”
Stock has based her whole argument on fighting against changes that already exist and I can only repeat as The Government couldn’t have made it any clearer “We are not proposing any amendments to the Equality Act 2010”
Stock’s claims are clearly false, and as I said at the beginning, it is up to each individual to conclude whether she is deliberately lying. What I actually find the most depressing about this whole issue is the number of people who actually believe what the likes of Kathleen Stock say. Over the last few years there has developed a brand of Politics that I call ‘Trumpism’ – I define ‘Trumpism’ as the ability to repeatedly state anything with sufficient sincerity, emotion and conviction that people believe you – no matter how far removed they are from reality or the truth. Donald Trump is clearly the Master, but there are plenty of Apprentices that have taken up his mantle, Boris Johnson for one, and Kathleen Stock is another. Like all her fellow Gender Critical believers, at each radio or TV appearance she passionately states that she has nothing but care and understanding for Trans people and only wants them to live free from hate or discrimination. And people believe her. So all I ask is that if you have read this article and now understand that there is not a shred of truth in anything she has claimed about her involvement in this issue, then how could her claim to genuinely care for Trans Women also be true?
Stock has even signed the ‘Women’s Declaration of Sex Based Rights’ which calls for the elimination of Trans People’s rights, and now when questioned on this, Stock twists the use and meaning of the word ‘elimination’. This is what she says, and for this statement I have added my comments in bold throughout this claim of care and understanding for Trans people to show it is anything but that:
“I do not want to see the elimination of Trans people (no one is stating Stock literally wants to ‘eliminate’ or exterminate Trans People; she wants to eliminate their legal existence, she wants Trans Women legally recorded as Men, thereby eliminating Trans People), in fact I am on record saying over and over and over again (so as I said, this is something she ensures she states again and again at every single interview, and it is done intentionally to make out she appears as being empathetic to Trans people) that I’m very happy that the Gender Recognition Act exists as it is and I’m happy that Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act (how can you possibly claim you’re happy Trans people are protected by either Act when you clearly deny and fight against their very existence? – remember ‘Trans Women are NOT Women… they are MALES’) so that basically means Trans people cannot be illegal discriminated against … at work – or bullied or harassed … or face transphobic violence illegally, (even though refusing to accept the whole essence of being Transgender, that a Trans Women is a Women, is the very essence of Transphobia) so that’s good – the argument is not about whether there should be legal protections for Trans people, there should be (even though I’ve clearly demonstrated how Stock is campaigning to remove these protections), the argument is whether we should change these existing legal protections (do I even need to repeat that nothing was being changed? I’ve shown this to be a false statement that Stock continually repeats) to protect the inner feeling that you couldn’t possibly guess someone had or they didn’t have from the outside, that they would have to tell you about it (meaning Trans people Self Identify in exactly the same way as someone Lesbian Self Identifies – did we know Kathleen was Lesbian until she told us? Yet that is acceptable to Stock – and clearly to not accept Kathleen as Lesbian would rightly be labelled as being homophobic!) and as soon as a Male says I feel like a Women (no, as soon as a Trans Women says I am a Women – calling them Male in this sentence is a deliberate emotive way to deny Trans existence), according to this idea, they should have access to all the spaces and resources and rights that a Woman has (as clearly proven, under the EA10 Trans Women already have legal access to spaces and rights – the rights Stock claimed earlier in this sentence to be happy about!) – that’s the bit I’m objecting to (so she’s basically confirming her objection IS to Trans Women being accepted as Trans Women), and that’s perfectly consistent with saying that Trans people should have legal rights, because they should (No, that’s perfectly consistent with being inconsistent! – you simply can’t say you truly believe Trans people should have rights and legal protection and then state in the same sentence you belief they should not have those rights or protections )”
This is ‘Trumpism’ at its very best – actually, it’s at its very worst. And yet still some believe her. My hope and reason for writing this article is that the truth will finally catch up with her and those that were innocently taken in by her apparent sincerity will see how untruthful and twisted everything is that she has claimed to be true.
But I will end this by making a genuine offer to Kathleen Stock – you claim your whole campaign is to stop the Government making any changes – well I agree, there shouldn’t be any changes. The Equality Act 2010, including its exemptions, are both right and proper. So my offer is that we both sign a joint letter to the Government stating precisely that – let us both sign a letter, that can also be signed by anyone else that wants to add their signature, to clearly state to the Government that we do not want them to make any changes to the existing legal protections regarding the use of single sex spaces within in the Equality Act 2010. This is after all what you were so concerned about so let’s make sure it doesn’t happen. Or was this claim also never true?
Stock based her whole campaign on the four points that I highlighted at the beginning of this article which I have concluded are pure fiction. So maybe she should leave fiction to JK Rowling? ….. but please don’t get me started down that path!
Footnote:
Today, The Women & Equalities Committee published its report on the UK’s Government approach to the reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
This Committee has been looking into the handling of the Governments Consultation process, their decisions announced and the action taken – and it is highly critical and damning on all accounts. Steph’s Place initial response can be found here – but it is important to state here that this report confirmed the true position regarding the Consultation that, as stated in this article, is totally at odds with the position maintained and peddled by Kathleen Stock. It concluded that the Government should have, and still should, introduce Self Declaration (the so call ‘Self ID’) in relation to obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate (primarily to enable a change your Birth Certificate) and it clearly states that the appropriate safeguards that are essential to ensuring that the rights of natal women and the use of the single-sex and separate-sex exceptions in the Equality Act 2010 are already protected – and the main reason they are protected is because they are not being changed.
9. We believe that the requirement of a diagnosis of gender dysphoria in order to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate should be removed from the Gender Recognition Act, moving the process closer to a system of self-declaration. The legal recognition Reform of the Gender Recognition Act 73 process should not involve medical scrutiny but strong legal safeguards. Appropriate safeguards are essential to ensuring that the rights of natal women and the use of the single-sex and separate-sex exceptions in the Equality Act 2010 are protected. Therefore, it is appropriate to retain the statutory declaration, as well as introduce additional legal tests. It would also be possible to police statutory declarations more strictly and to bring prosecutions for fraudulent declarations if it becomes apparent that the person had no real intention of living in the acquired gender. (Paragraph 96)
The fact is that the ‘Self Declaration’ proposed would be a legally binding declaration that would leave anyone fully exposed to the full recourse of the law if ever applied for fraudulently. Therefore even here, additional legal protections and safeguarding would be in place.
So this report fully backs up this article by confirming that the safeguarding protections that Stock is demanding for natal women are already in place and protected. The truth is there for all to see.
