Mick Hartley

Further to yesterday's post…

Last thing on the cowardice of (vast majority of) the philosophy profession about sex and gender. Possibly the most annoying thing: it is blindingly obvious you are turning yourself inside out to avoid noticing trans women are men, trans men are women etc simply because you are…

— Kathleen Stock (@Docstockk) July 26, 2025

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"Last thing on the cowardice of (vast majority of) the philosophy profession about sex and gender. Possibly the most annoying thing: it is blindingly obvious you are turning yourself inside out to avoid noticing trans women are men, trans men are women etc simply because you are frightened of offending those students/ that colleague/ that daughter/ that friend. You are so frightened of this, you are prepared to advocate for ludicrously byzantine and impenetrable theories in public rather than go with the most simple, elegantly explanatory, and adequately predictive one, that most of the rest of the world can easily see is true. This may make you a good person (?) but it really does make you a terrible philosopher."

Yes but…surely a lot of these philosophers actually enjoy advocating for a theory that most people can see is nonsense. It marks them out as special: as capable of navigating the impenetrable byzantine jargon that they've spent their academic careers mastering. They're arrogant. They're so much smarter than the average Joe.