In my Spectator column this week I’ve written about my trip to the Oxford Union on Tuesday to see Kathleen Stock being interviewed by the Union President in front of a packed debating chamber. Indeed, there were more people inside the chamber than there were protestors outside, which was heartening to see. Here’s how it begins:
It had been billed as the most controversial debate of the year, with even Rishi Sunak intervening to say that Kathleen Stock, who had been invited to the Oxford Union, should not be no-platformed. But if you were sitting in the Union’s debating chamber on Tuesday evening – as I was – the huge kerfuffle seemed baffling. For an hour and a half, the former philosophy professor talked almost exclusively about toilets.
To be fair, she was given little choice. It was more of an interview than a debate, in which the president of the union fired questions at her. Roughly 90 per cent of them were about women’s lavatories. In particular, he wanted to know why she objected to trans women being allowed to use “the Ladies”. Professor Stock patiently explained that trans activists don’t just want men who have fully transitioned to be able to access women’s spaces, including refuge centres, but any man who self-identifies as a woman, even a great hairy brute. She had no desire to ‘erase’ trans women, she said, or to deny them their rights – something the scores of protestors outside were accusing her of. Rather, this was a ‘safeguarding’ issue. It was about protecting women from predatory men who ‘self-ID’ to invade their spaces.
It seems extraordinary that this has become such a polarising issue, given that, according to the latest census, only 0.1 per cent of the population identify as trans women. No doubt the percentage among 18- to 24-year-olds is higher, and some of the protestors outside identified as trans, but still. Why were temperatures running so high, both in the lead-up to this event and on the night? As the mild–mannered philosopher set out her stall, the demonstrators made as much noise as they could, hoping to drown out her words. ‘Trans rights are human rights,’ they screamed, although no one, least of all the speaker, was denying that. Why has this generation of student activists chosen access to women’s toilets as the hill to die on?
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Also in the Spectator, Brendan O’Neill asks: What’s gone wrong at Oxford?
Stop Press 2: Read Kathleen Stock’s own account of her visit to the Oxford Union at UnHerd.
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I’ve bought her book (on Amazon Audible). I definitely recommend it.
“Why has this generation of student activists chosen access to women’s toilets as the hill to die on?”
Are they being manipulated? Who by?
Because they have never known any kind of real life hardship!
I don’t think they’ve arrived at this on their own.
“Why has this generation of student activists chosen access to women’s toilets as the hill to die on?” I don’t know, but I how they get what they want, on the dying front that is…
Tell me where the hill is?, I’ll bring a picnic and make a day of it!
*hope
I find it rather depressing that in order to maintain carefully circumscribed offence boundaries, and to give as much quarter as possible to the transactivists to placate them, the debate is largely confined to safe spaces for biological women.
Whilst spaces are very important, the issues are much broader than that: being a woman is a biological reality that a profound impacts on every young girl, adolescent girl, developing woman, mature woman, menopausal woman and even elderly woman. No man can “opt” into that experience, shared and individual, and lay a claim on womanhood. It’s disrespectful to women, it’s the denial of biology, and it’s a form of psychopathology. In extremis it’s men finding a backdoor route to undermining women by inhabiting their identity and hollowing out from within, like a narcissistic reaction to the achievements of the women’s movement in the last 50 years gaining more autonomy for women. You’ll find examples of this in women’s support groups for mothers who have lost a baby where now grotesque transwomen intruders are allowed to sit in and play out a sick fantasy while real women pour their hearts out and aren’t allowed to say anything about the joke that is in the circle.
I’m with Posie Parker on this: transwomen are never women, no matter how far they have gone in “transitioning”. The position is taken. Find another one if you aren’t happy being a man!
(I’m a man, BTW)
And don’t forget it’s also a huge opportunity for men to play the system, as in the article I shared elsewhere. It’s a total green light for sexual predators and paedos everywhere. Schools, prisons, changing rooms…the world’s your oyster if you’re a pervy scumbag who is so inclined. All under the guise and protection by authorities of identifying as a woman.
Personally I think that, barring an actual physical dysphoria of which there is a minuscule number, anyone “identifying” as a different sex to their actual sex, man or woman, basically has a mental disorder.
I don’t think men who claim to be women are denying the progress of women or trying to undermine them anymore than girls who claim to be boys – of which there are many, many more now than vice versa – are trying to undermine men or manhood. They’ve literally just got mental problems.
Whilst I agree with you that they have mental problems, all the major institutions of this country (well the Western world, actually) don’t see it that way and have been captured by the gender ideology dogma of the transactivists. By way of this, there is institutional erasure of sex differences and we now have woman being referred to by medics as “chest feeders” etc. This means that the irrational fantasies of people with gender dysphoria is having a tangible and concrete impact on the daily lives of all people; that the rules of what to be man or woman is are being re-written based upon the ravings of a tiny minority.
It’s just like the declaration that we should all wear masks: if we don’t say “no, it’s irrational, it’s authoritarian, it’s the product of hysteria and groupthink”, then we allow the lunatics to run the asylum. So its a very serious matter, IMHO.
Totally agree.
I would just drawe the distinction between the different actors
1. People with actual physical dysphoria
2. Physically “normal” people who have convinced themselves they are a different gender.
3. People who push the trans agenda but aren’t trans themselves.
The first are being used and have all my sympathy
The second are have a mental disorder and need help, not reinforcement of their insane ideas.
The third are a toxic coalition of stupid and evil people. The coalition of stupid and evil are behind a lot of our spriblems.
Yup, can’t put it much better than that!
The kids protesting have been radicalised. They are not really any different than other forms of extremism and they need de-radicalising before someone gets seriously hurt.
It is a violent cult of mental illness, perverts, freaks, half wits and imbeciles, much of it funded by the usuan cadre of criminals.
This is 100% wrong as stated in the article – Trans rights don’t exist. There are 2 genders and that is the f*ing science of genders.
‘Trans rights are human rights,’ they screamed, although no one, least of all the speaker, was denying that
Of course we DENY THAT. Trans mental illness IS NOT A RIGHT.
I was just at the hairdresser’s getting my once-in-ten-weeks cut!! The hairdresser told me they get a lot of teachers in there. Every one of them is against the transgender cult and hates what they’re being forced to teach. But their jobs are threatened, so several are thinking of quitting. The demands for promoting this mental illness are coming from the unions and from the state; the pretend Conservative government can’t be bothered to do anything about it, because they stupidly refuse to see that that culture war affects everything in this country, including economic policy.
This is a bit of a perplexing issue for two reasons
1) Public houses with unisex toilets exist and this is absolutely no practical problem. They’re not stuffed with men seeking to spy on women using the toilet (and why would they?).
2) This is a ghost debate about a non-issue. The common real issue is gay men sexually molesting other men on the men’s toilet. This starts with drilling holes in everything holes can conceivably be drilled into for peeping or secret filming and from there, it moves through destruction of property, eg, kicking doors of toilet cabins in because one objects not being able to watch someone using them, to physical assaults.
A door was recently kicked in at a secondary school by a boy in a “gender neutral” loo trying to see a girl on the toilet. She got injured by the door and was taken to hospital.
Without source, I’m not inclined to believe that.
Seriously? It was all over the news at the time, last March.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/schoolgirl-smashed-face-after-boy-29475737
1) Unisex toilets can’t have urinals, which are a much more efficient use of space than cubicles and more hygienic than pissing on toilet seats. But, of course, they respond to a significant physical difference between the sexes.
2) I’m 62 and I’ve never encountered or heard reported the gay male behaviour you claim is a problem. But I’ve never lived further south than the Northants/Rutland border, I admit.
2) I’m 62 and I’ve never encountered or heard reported the gay male behaviour you claim is a problem. But I’ve never lived further south than the Northants/Rutland border, I admit.
This has been a regular feature of my life ever since I moved permanently away from my parents in 1998. Eg, the toilets in the so-called Philosophicum at Mainz university are all very much adorned with peep holes and one day while I was using one, I suddenly noticed that plaster was falling onto my head because of a hole someone had just drilled through the ceiling.
Of the two Spoons in Reading, one has CCTV in the urinal area solely to stop vandalism and general antisocial behaviour aka men molesting other men. Less-than-pleasant encounters happen at least monthly at the location of the other, depending on how many people travelling on behalf of companies are currently in town and how active the rent boy scene happens to be ATM (and how much cocaine everyone has consumed).
I thought it was against the law to put cameras in toilets and changing rooms. Mind you, over here in the NL we have plastic urinals dotted all over the city for men to use, in full view of all the Saturday afternoon shoppers…Too bad if you’re a woman though. No freebies for us. We need to go find somewhere and pay at least 50 cents if we want to spend a penny.
You’ve got me thinking now, about the difference in weeing behaviour between the sexes. I know they put these portable urinals out because it’s men that tend to piss all over the place outdoors and so public places end up stinking. But why is that? Why is it men that feel obliged to pee in all of the alleyways and against buildings but women manage to not do that, or at least do it a lot less. I’ve seen countless men urinating in public in my lifetime but never caught women at it. Weird….Also, while we’re on the topic of anti-social habits, why is it that only men spit in public and never women? Seriously, as a man I’m relying on you to bring forth the secrets of the male psychology and the impact of this on the aforementioned primitive behaviours that women have found to be quite the conundrum since time immemorial.
I thought it was against the law to put cameras in toilets and changing rooms.
I actually don’t know if there’s a camera there or just a sign saying there is. But the alternative is to have all lockable doors broken periodically by forcibly disabling the lock, have the loo roll hangers be torn from the wall and generally, everything else which can be broken by violence broken. That’s how it is in the place without CCTV.
As to Why do men … ?, my guess at the answer would be Because they can (easily) and either haven’t ever been taught any manners or believe disregarding them to be more manly.
BTW, the antisocial habit I was referring to, at least its most recent version, was a guy who followed me onto the men’s toilet (a not that uncommon occurence) where he first tried to flirt with me by trampling up and down in front of the cabins, hammering his fist against the door of the one I was using and making some inarticulate loud noises. When this didn’t have the intended result, he entered the cabin next to me and pulled himself up on the wall in order to gawp at my penis. Judging from the look of his face, he seemed to like the sight. As I didn’t much like the sight of him, I then gave him a fairly gentle (unfortunately) punch on the eyebrow. He immediately let go of the wall and started to howl how I could dare to hit him and what he would do with me once I left the cubicle. There were actually two of them which I noticed because the second guy now also started howl some very graphical threats.
After I was done with what I had planned to do, I considered the situation – two angry guys who were both significantly taller than me in front to cabins waiting for me to come out so that they could get me and hurt me somehow – but came to conclusion that I couldn’t do anything more intelligent than just step out and find out what – if anything – was going to happen which I then did. The guy who had been on the wall until I had punchend him was making some noise behind me while the other was holding a large, yellow plastic cone of the Caution! Wet floor! variety he then threw into my face from about half a meter distance, which knocked the glasses from my nose. Bowing down half-blind and trying to pick them up would have been very unwise in this situation, hence, I pulled to door open to leave this inhospitable place. They guy in front of me apparently didn’t want me to leave and pushed the door close again. As I didn’t feel like continuing this conversation, I forcibly openend it again while he was still trying to keep it closed and left.
The punch needed to be to the throat…..
In hindsight, I regret that I didn’t seriously try to hurt him. OTOH, from past experiences, I already know how the story would have continued had I done that. People on cocaine have two general modes of operation, blowhard and crybaby. He would then probably have switched to crybaby and run to the bouncers to tell him how I just brutally attacked him for absolutely no reason (At 1.69m, 69kg and always alone, I’m obviously making a habit of attacking fat guys towering over me at every opportunity because they cannot ever stand a chance against me! – sarcasm – but such considerations never play a practical role) which would have resulted in me getting (violently) thrown out and barred from the place in future.
If I am required to use a “unisex” toilet, my aimin life becomesto piss on as much of the seat as possible
The reason why activists re focussed on this issue is because black lives don’t matter any more – that was so 2022.
None of this is extraordinary. If you follow the secret teaching or the path of spiritual science you will see that in the times we are living in this sort of thing is the most natural thing in the world. Any pretence of incredulity is as simple and ignorant as the position of those wishing to transition. If you understand the times then you understand this movement and you don’t harbour feelings for or against it. Because if you don’t learn the spiritual science you are going to lose far more than just your moorings in a certain reality.
They can talk all they like about toilets; the difference between males and females does, after all, boil down to our plumbing.
Not what we wear. Not the things we like to do. Not what children like to play with or read. Not how we do our hair. And most women don’t mince about like Dylan Mulvaney.
There are uncompromising- looking unwomanly women who sink pints; there are quiet, gentle, arty men – and all this is ok.
It’s the plumbing.
I will never accept that transwomen are women unless they bleed every month like the drainage channel in an abbatoir – like I did for nearly 40 years. It was painful, difficult to manage, and on occasion mortifying when nothing could contain it and I was far from a facility.
Until they have that to contend with, they can take their neurosis and shove it; and stay the hell out of the Ladies.
And suffer the pain of childbirth and eventually the menopause too?