Mick Hartley

Exciting times ahead at Glasgow University, where they'll be hosting a conference in trans philosophy this March. 

Trans philosophy – philosophy that speaks to the experiences of, politics, and cultural production of transgender people – is one of the fastest-growing fields in contemporary philosophy. In addition to hallmark papers such as Kapusta (2016), Bettcher (2013, 2019), and Dembroff & Wodak (2018), last year saw the publication of the ground-breaking volume of trans political theory and philosophy Transgender Marxism (Gleeson and O’Rourke 2020). Beyond the realm of published work, a new generation of PhD and early career trans philosophers is beginning to produce exciting new thought.

This rapid growth has come against a difficult political background, especially in the UK. Transgender people have become the political football du jour in the UK, facing what Meg John Barker (2017) has called a “moral panic” that has only intensified in the past three years. Moreover, trans people face ongoing legal and political challenges to their rights, to say nothing of spiking rates of hate crimes and the high rates of poverty and homelessness among trans people. 

No evidence is supplied to support these statements of course – "ongoing legal and political challenges to their rights", "spiking rates of hate crimes", "high rates of poverty and homelessness among trans people" – but then a defining feature of trans philosophy, it seems, is the making of sweeping conclusions that need no evidence whatsoever to back them up. Just as a declaration that a man has decided he's a woman is sufficient for that man to actually be a woman, so the declaration that trans people are suffering unparalleled levels of hate crimes is enough for that to become an established fact in trans studies, without the need for any boring old-style statistics.

We've come across Transgender Marxism before, when its co-author, one Jules Joanne Gleeson, interviewed the godfather (godmother? godperson? godmenstruator? godcervixhaver?) of gender studies Judith Butler in the Guardian back in September. 

The first collection of its kind, Transgender Marxism is a provocative and groundbreaking union of transgender studies and Marxist theory. Exploring trans lives and movements, the authors delve into the experience of surviving as transgender under capitalism. They explore the pressures, oppression and state persecution faced by trans people living in capitalist societies, their tenuous positions in the workplace and the home, and give a powerful response to right-wing scaremongering against ‘gender ideology’. Reflecting on the relations between gender and labour, these essays reveal the structure of antagonisms faced by gender non-conforming people within society. Looking at the history of transgender movements, Marxist interventions into developmental theory, psychoanalysis and workplace ethnography, the authors conclude that for trans liberation, capitalism must be abolished.

Not content with abolishing sex (biology), they now want to abolish capitalism. Then again, the proportion of academic philosophers who don't want to abolish capitalism is likely on the small side.

This actually made the Times today, since in-the-news Kathleen Stock made a comment:

A philosopher who resigned from her university post after criticism of her views on trans issues ridiculed an academic conference which questions if the UK is a “rainy fascism island”.

Professor Kathleen Stock stepped down from her post at the University of Sussex in October complaining of “bullying and harassment” following protests at her “transphobic” views.

Stock, 49, tweeted yesterday that academic philosophy was “fast becoming” a “joke” with reference to the first UK workshop in trans philosophy.

Can't argue with that.

The list of proposed items at the conference – including that "rainy fascism island" one:

Potential topics for papers at the conference include (but are certainly not limited to):

• • Transgender themes in, and reappropriations of, the history of philosophy,

  • Trans aesthetics,

  • Afropessimism, black philosophy and transgender theory,

  • Rainy fascism island: what the hell is going on in the UK right now?

  • Trans Marxism, Trans anarchism,

  • Trans epistemology,

  • What is the relationship between transness and disability?

  • The metaphysics of gender and identity,

  • Healthcare: must we do away with the GIC?

  • Jurisprudential perspectives on recent legal judgments on puberty blockers, protected beliefs, Gillick competence, and so on,

  • t4t and the philosophy of sex,

  • Does the liberation of trans people require the abolition of the family?

So that's science, capitalism, and the family out the window. Nothing if not ambitious…