| Author | Kathleen Stock |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Fleet |
Publication date | 2021 |
| ISBN | 9780349726595 |
Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism is a 2021 book by Kathleen Stock which explores issues related to transgender civil rights and feminism. The book reached number 13 on the UK list of best selling non-fiction charts.[1]
In this book, Stock critiques the theory that individuals have an inner feeling known as a gender identity that is more socially significant than an individual's biological sex. Stock surveys and critiques the philosophical ideas underpinning this theory and argues that that biological sex performs an important social role in the contexts of exclusive spaces and resources, healthcare, epidemiology, political organization and data collection for non-trans women.[2] [3]
Stock argues the idea that biological sex is material (i.e., real) and has social relevance,[4] and that biological sex is binary, not a continuum, based on "cluster" analysis (i.e., general biological characteristics applicable to the vast majority of the human population.[4] In evaluating the political impacts of prioritizing gender identity over biological sex, Stock argues that lobbyist groups such as Stonewall are responsible for the influence of trans ideas on legal frameworks. As Stock says, if gender identity is what makes you male or female then “The existence of trans people generates a moral obligation upon all of us to recognise and legally to protect gender identity and not biological sex.”[4] [5] Accordingly, Stock argues a justification for protections based on biological sex (as Stock defines it) (for example, that individuals born as biologically sexed males should be excluded from certain spaces designated for biologically sexed females)[4] and that gender identities should be provided legal protection on a separate basis, arguing that this was already the case under the Gender Recognition Act 2004, by which a person can change sex as a legal fiction (analogous to how a company is treated as a person in law) without actually impacting their physical biological sex, prior to amendments advanced by lobbying groups.[4] Stock conceptualizes the impact of trans identity on biological sex as an "immersive fiction" with both therapeutic benefits and potential harms, which the approach of denying the materiality of biological sex fails to mitigate, and argues that the activities of lobbyist groups such as Stonewall may coerce social participation in this "immersive fiction" by characterizing any recognition of biological sex as discriminatory against trans persons.[6]
Reviewing in The Times, Emma Duncan called the book an easy read and said it helped her understand trans issues better.[5] In The Telegraph, Jane O'Grady describes the book as brave, enligtening and closely argued.[7] Julie Bindel writing in The Spectator says that the book was meticulously researched and carefully argued.[8]
Gaby Hinsliff reviewed the book in The Guardian together with Helen Joyce's book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. Hinsliff said that Stock's book used a cooler lens than Joyce's and is focused on abstract concepts rather than personal stories.[9]
Reviewing in The Philosophers' Magazine, Julian Baggini comments that Stock's work is not the last word on the debate but a legitimate contribution, arguing that it is far from obvious that gender self-identification is the only legitimate criterion for identifying as a sex or gender and that those who do not accept this position should be taken seriously.[4]
Julie Bindel, author of Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation, says that Stock incorrectly conflates feminists with gender critical activists, and that Stock's critique of standpoint epistemology, while valid, does not distinguish the second wave feminist idea of the personal is political which focuses on connecting individual experiences to social forces rather than privileging these experiences epistemically.[8]
Philosopher Adam Briggle, writing in the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, argues, based on Briggle's own anecdotal experience as the parent of a transgender son in Texas, that Stock's analysis derives from somewhat speculative analysis of risks to non-trans women and that Stock has failed to adequately analyze the tradeoff of these risks with risks to transgender persons, which analysis, Briggle argues, should prioritize the personal experience of transgender persons.[10]
Stock resigned from Sussex University in 2021 amid ostracism from academics who oppose her ideas[11] and student protests that Stock, in a 2021 interview with the BBC, attributed to misguided activists, saying "There’s a small group of people who are absolutely opposed to the sorts of things I say and instead of getting involved in arguing with me, using reason, evidence, the traditional university methods, they tell their students in lectures that I pose a harm to trans students, or they go on to Twitter and say that I’m a bigot. So thus creating an atmosphere in which the students then become much more extreme and much more empowered to do what they did."[12]