In fact, no such conflicts exist, and the widespread attempt to diagnose them, however well-intentioned, has had the effect of weakening the women’s movement throughout the UK. I hope to offer an account of that conflict that differs from the mainstream account, with which everyone in this room is familiar: that by insisting on the axiom that “trans women are women,” LGBT activists have engendered a set of conflicts between the rights of women and trans rights.
But I do delude myself that there is in this room some number-perhaps a sizable number-of people who are perturbed by the growing conflict between certain members of the LGBT community and certain feminist activists and organizations. I am of course aware that among the many attendees of this lecture-the largest attendance I’ve ever drawn-is largely composed of people who hold strong convictions on both sides this issue, and I do not delude myself that anything I say will change the mind of such people. The purpose of my lecture today will be to sketch the contours of that crisis as I see them, and to propose a couple of possible ways forward. The emergence of a liberal ideology of trans rights over the last two decades has precipitated a crisis in higher education. I am grateful to QUCL, and Xine Yao and Simon Lock especially, for their invitation to address their community, and for the extraordinary job they did hosting a controversial event in such a manner as to prioritize both the safety of all participants, and breadth of access and engagement. This piece was written for oral delivery, and the prose reflects the fact. I have left it essentially unchanged for the purposes of preserving the talk for citation. The following is the text of a lecture delivered at University College, London on Friday, March 18 th, 2022.
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