Dr. Kathleen Stock, a “gender-critical feminist” and co-founder of The Lesbian Project, was forced to step down as a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex in October 2021 for her allegedly trans-exclusionary views. Since then, she has gained a national reputation for her views, leading to a controversial invitation to address the Oxford Union debating society on the evening of 30 May 2023. Trans activists both protested outside and stormed into the debating chamber as Stock expounded her widely-known beliefs, disrupting the proceedings for about half an hour. This event is only part of a wider culture war, concerned with protecting “freedom of speech” in the face of many perceived challenges from mainly left-leaning entities.
Stock’s views on transgender issues, as outlined in her book ‘Material Rights: Why Reality Matters’ (2021), are unambiguous. She has raised several concerns over recent gender recognition reforms. These include her objections to gender self-identification, especially by ‘minors’; the issue of Gender Recognition Certificates to people who have no medical diagnosis and have not ‘medically transitioned’-through long-term hormone treatment and sex reassignment surgery; and the relaxation of exemptions that keep trans people away from single-sex places restricted to the opposite sex, including public toilets, changing rooms, school facilities, student accommodation, hostel dormitories, domestic violence refuges, and female prisons-particularly by trans women with male genitals. Her views are considered discriminatory by many, if not most, trans activists, leading to a situation where she is considered persona non grata by some academic institutions.
Freedom of speech has been guaranteed by the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Earlier examples of support for free speech can be found in the democracy of ancient Athens, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in France (1789), and the First Amendment of the US Constitution (1791). Although meant to be a defining feature of all liberal democracies, in some instances erosions of freedom of speech have paralleled creeping tendencies of populism and authoritarianism. Hence it is important that the UK continues to promote free speech within its boundaries.
Recently, the preservation of free speech has become a right-wing agenda, partly in response to the ongoing culture war, which involves such diverse topics as race relations, LGBTQ rights (including gender identity), the legacy of colonialism, post-colonial reparations (for slavery and the plunder of material goods from the colonies), and climate change, among other divisive issues. It is thus considered appropriate to reject ‘political correctness’ and ‘wokeness’ and to enable expressions of racial hatred, libellous diatribe, incitements to violence, terrorist ideas, and other combative manifestations of the written and spoken word, no matter how insensitive or hurtful, just to protect an absolute, inalienable, and non-negotiable right of freedom of speech. According to adherents to this viewpoint, the emergence of ‘cancel culture’-an expression of censorship by intolerant and oversensitive ‘snowflakes’- has stifled free speech and led to the de-platforming or non-platforming of some people, who are also prone to be named and shamed online for their inconvenient beliefs. The groupthink of undiscerning masses, led astray by left-leaning political and media elites, has prevailed, only to stifle independent thinking by those challenging the status quo of a shaky consensus.
The published and broadcast media have been overtaken by a growing volume of self-uploaded content on privately-owned social media platforms, which regularly challenges the boundaries of free speech, if it is accepted there are any. Policing such content is a constant battle, rendered difficult by the blurring of the boundaries between free speech and speech that needs some restraint. There is, however, no agreement on who is best placed to judge the acceptability of publicly available content, and indeed what criteria should be used to determine this.
Supporters of the absolute freedom of speech refer to the “Weimar fallacy”, according to which the Weimar Republic could have prevented the emergence of Hitler as German Chancellor if it had tried harder to suppress Nazi ideologies but failed to do so, as an example of how censorship cannot prevent by itself prevent undesirable outcomes in the face of other forces that propagate bad ideas anyhow. Attempts to suppress dangerous ideologies only push them underground and do not necessarily prevent their spread.
Words are powerful weapons in their own right, and although not directly responsible for physical injury, can traumatise individuals, communities, and nations if used unwisely. Even the all-powerful social media companies recognise that some content would benefit from either moderation or exclusion. But there is no good reason why seemingly unpleasant ideologies should not be debated in appropriate public forums, under the right circumstances. It can, however, be easy to stray away from the topic under discussion and step into a wider ideological conflict over the boundaries of free expression, without suitably addressing the underlying issues, if the debate is not conducted according to fair rules of engagement. Dr Stock was rightly allowed to appear before the Oxford Union, but it seems unlikely that her presence will convert many non-believers. Debate is healthy, but by itself is mostly powerless to bring about either reconciliation between opponents or mutual respect of differing positions regarding contentious issues.
Ashis Banerjee.