‘On social media, the important thing is to show your tribe that you have the right morals’

Skip to main contentSkip to navigation Kathleen Stock photographed at her home in Sussex. The Observer's faces of 2021 Kathleen Stock: ‘On social media, the important thing is to show your tribe that you have the right morals’ Continuing our series looking behind the headlines of 2021, we speak to the philosophy professor who resigned from Sussex University after protests over her views on gender and transgender rights Gaza bookseller Samir Mansour: ‘It was shocking to realise I was a target’ Gaby Hinsliff

Gaby Hinsliff Sun 5 Dec 2021 05.00 EST When Kathleen Stock opens the door she is friendly, but a little on edge. She has just had extra security installed at home, she explains, a reminder that a year in the eye of a toxic public storm has its price. She leads the way down stairs lined with cheerful children’s photographs (having come out as lesbian relatively late in life, 49-year-old Stock has two sons by a previous marriage; her wife, Laura, is expecting a baby in February) to make tea. Once settled on the sofa, she attempts to make sense of a rollercoaster of a year that began with an OBE for services to education and ended with her resignation as professor of philosophy from the Brighton-based University of Sussex, amid angry protests over her stance on gender and transgender rights. Along the way, she published Material Girls, her book explaining why she believes biological sex matters and cannot be changed, and had what she calls “a bit of a mini-breakdown”.

“I’m excited in a weird way, excited about my future,” she says. There is relief, too, at escaping what she felt was an “aggressive, intimidating environment” at her workplace of 18 years. Interestingly, while some blamed the Sussex standoff on a generation of students unable to tolerate views they dislike, Stock tells a different story. “Most of the students I encounter are completely open-minded and even if they disagree with me, which I’m sure a lot of them do, they wouldn’t hold it against me as a personal character flaw.” The problem, she says, was her peers.

No peer ever said to me: ‘Look, I really object to what you’re saying and I’d like to discuss it with you’ Stock first became active in academic debates over what constitutes a woman, and what that implies for access to single-sex or lesbian spaces, four years ago. But the backlash really began with a 2018 interview she gave to the local paper in LGBT-friendly Brighton, arguing that while most trans women wouldn’t dream of harming anyone, they shouldn’t have unrestricted access to places where females undress or sleep because “many trans women are still males with male genitalia”, words some find instantly offensive. Under the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall’s preferred definition of the term, denying a trans person’s stated identity is transphobic. Stock, however, insists she is doing no such thing; she supports trans people’s right to legal recognition of their identities and protection from discrimination, violence and harassment, she says, but doesn’t think that requires accepting people can literally change sex. “I don’t think womanhood is a category that gets changed even by surgery, let alone inner feelings – I think it’s to do with biology and sexual maturity – but that doesn’t mean I’ve got any ambitions to remove the laws that give people the right to an acquired gender in certain contexts.”

Several Sussex colleagues publicly denounced her on social media, although strangely, she says, not to her face. “No peer ever said to me: ‘Look, I really object to what you’re saying and I’d like to discuss it with you.’ They immediately went to Defcon 1: ‘She’s a bigot… arguing for single-sex spaces is like the Jim Crow laws [that historically enforced racial segregation in the American south].’” She remains fascinated by the performative aspects of social media debate. “The important thing is to show your tribe that you have the right morals and you could show that by saying, ‘I’m not with her.’”

Stock got used, she says, to being snubbed in corridors at Sussex. But the only time she becomes visibly distressed is describing a research talk she was due to give her department in April. Some graduate students organised a rival trans solidarity event, with a guest speaker critical of Stock, and 40 of her colleagues chose that event over her talk. She went off sick, unable to function. “It just got me. I can’t really even say why, but the things that get me are when it’s your tribe...” Yet she says she never really considered retreating. Instead, in May, she became a trustee of the controversial LGB Alliance charity, formed in protest at the consequences of Stonewall’s decision to campaign for trans as well as gay rights. Where does that defiance come from? “I was bullied a lot as a child, so I think I’ve got a high tolerance for it,” shrugs Stock, who grew up in Scotland as a “gawky, self-hating” teenager, the daughter of two English academics.

Despite all the negative attention, Stock is adamant she doesn’t consider herself “silenced”; indeed, she refuses to be. But that isn’t, for her, the point. “The point is why should anyone have to go through this in order to be able to say the relatively moderate things I’m saying? So there are hundreds of other people who are silenced because they cannot face this. That’s the problem.”

Although she is booked for a few weeks’ work at a new pro-free speech university in Austin, Texas, Stock doesn’t expect to return to academia, but she’s planning another book, either on feminism or social media.

She consoles herself that her life now has more “meaning and purpose” than it did. “I did find teaching valuable, but honestly I did not find writing about imagination and fiction particularly valuable. I enjoyed it - I’m not saying it was nothing – but a lot of my friends do work that I think is obviously interesting and valuable in a way that I never felt mine was.” In leaving a job, Stock has perhaps found a mission.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I was hoping you would consider taking the step of supporting the Guardian’s journalism. From Elon Musk to Rupert Murdoch, a small number of billionaire owners have a powerful hold on so much of the information that reaches the public about what’s happening in the world. The Guardian is different. We have no billionaire owner or shareholders to consider. Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest – not profit motives.

And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media – the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality. While fairness guides everything we do, we know there is a right and a wrong position in the fight against racism and for reproductive justice. When we report on issues like the climate crisis, we’re not afraid to name who is responsible. And as a global news organization, we’re able to provide a fresh, outsider perspective on US politics – one so often missing from the insular American media bubble.

Around the world, readers can access the Guardian’s paywall-free journalism because of our unique reader-supported model. That’s because of people like you. Our readers keep us independent, beholden to no outside influence and accessible to everyone – whether they can afford to pay for news, or not.

If you can, please consider supporting the Guardian today. Thank you. Betsy Reed Editor, Guardian US Betsy Reed, Editor Headshot for Guardian US Epic Contribution frequency Single Monthly Annual Contribution amount $7 per month $13 per month Other Continue Remind me in April Accepted payment methods: Visa, Mastercard, American Express and PayPal Topics UK news The Observer's faces of 2021 Transgender Women Feminism Higher education University of Sussex features Reuse this content More on this story Billie Eilish: ‘I’ve gotten a lot more proud of who I am’ 9 Dec 2021 Micah Richards: ‘There was such a buzz around the Euros. I loved every minute’ 4 Dec 2021 Torrey Peters: ‘My book’s about dealing with the adult realities of being trans’ 4 Dec 2021 Bookseller Samir Mansour: ‘It was shocking to realise I was a target’ 4 Dec 2021 Chris Bryant: ‘Nearly everyone I meet says: I wouldn’t want your job’ 5 Dec 2021 Bake-Off contestant Jürgen Krauss: ‘I had to call three families with crying kids to comfort them’ 9 Dec 2021 Congressman Jamie Raskin: ‘I’ll never forget the terrible sound of them trying to barrel into the chamber’ 5 Dec 2021 Murray Bartlett: ‘Filming The White Lotus in lockdown felt like a TV summer camp’ 5 Dec 2021 Pen Farthing: ‘Animals in a cargo hold never got in the way of people getting on a flight’ 6 Dec 2021 Galal Yafai: ‘Being an Olympic boxing champion is something I can live with for ever’ 7 Dec 2021 Most viewed UKUK politicsEducationMediaSocietyLawScotlandWalesNorthern Ireland News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning Sign up for our email About us Help Complaints & corrections SecureDrop Work for us California resident – Do Not Sell Privacy policy Cookie policy Terms & conditions Contact us All topics All writers Digital newspaper archive Facebook YouTube Instagram LinkedIn Twitter Newsletters Advertise with us Guardian Labs Search jobs Back to top © 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (modern)