Or: What We Can’t Induce From How We Reproduce — Introduction Sex As Gamete Production The idea that gamete production clearly defines two sexes is one of the rhetorical lynchpins of transphobia. The basic idea is simple. …

Manifesting The Ghost In The Regime — Orientation This is one of a series of articles, beginning here, that discusses Kathleen Stock’s “Material Girls”. This is the final article of the series. …

Some Lazy Thinking About Words, Causes, And Perception — Orientation This is one of a series of articles, beginning here, that discusses Kathleen Stock’s “Material Girls”. The Central Claim And How It Collapses The fifth chapter of “Material Girls” aims to negatively answer: “the question of whether trans women are women” [p142] The fundamental problem with this is that “trans women are women” is not a question…

Hand Waving To Manufacture A Binary Reality — Orientation This is one of a series of articles, beginning here, that discusses Kathleen Stock’s “Material Girls”. The Central Claim And How It Collapses The second chapter of “Material Girls” is intended to establish the reality of “binary sex”. Or more precisely, it presses: “the claim that humans are divided into females and males, and that this binary…

A Curious Misrepresentation Of “Gender Identity” — Orientation This is the second in a series of articles, beginning here, that discusses Kathleen Stock’s “Material Girls”. The Central Claim And How It Collapses The fourth chapter of “Material Girls” intends to illuminate: “what gender identity is” [p110] However, it is absolutely not focused on what gender identity actually is. In the main, it is simply a…

Conspiracy Theory In Anti-Trans Philosophy — Intro Welcome to a series of articles examining “Material Girls” by Kathleen Stock, a book written from the heart of the modern anti-trans movement.¹ “Material Girls” puts forward that movement’s key arguments, and thereby helps to showcase why it repeatedly gets a bad name (whether that be “trans-exclusionary radical feminism”, “gender…

Or: “We’re On The Sleeve Of Destruction” — This article gathers together examples of that staple of LP cover design: the terrible visual pun. Many thanks to all those who have raked examples up in discussion over the years! The preference here is for the niche and quirky, rather than platinum seller albums: the goal is terrible visual…

The Reinforcing Of Gender Stereotypes Considered As Farce — Setting The Scene In this article, I’m going to look at the strange thread of anti-trans thought that argues that: trans people reinforce gender stereotypes (boo, hiss) while people who are gender non-conforming undermine them (huzzah) Here is an example of that assertion, written in a typically “smitten with the word male” gender…

The Unsophisticated Sophistry Of Jon Pike — Jon Pike is a philosopher of sport, with a background in political philosophy. He’s also the co-convener of the Open University Gender Critical Research Network, which is a long winded way of saying “very transphobic”. His reaction to recent trans-supportive comments from Stella Creasy MP led to her describing his…