TERF aesthetics

Trigger warning: The following text reproduces queer- and transphobic statements and attitudes.

Preliminary Remarks
Before I try to approach the media debate about the transphobic statements and the resulting withdrawal of the British professor Kathleen Stock as well as the arguments brought forward from different sides, I would first like to shed light on my own situatedness and approach in the discourse about gender.
1. I have the privilege of living without gender or body dysphoria. I identify with the social category ‘woman’ to the extent that this assignment forms my lived experiences of discrimination and situates them within a structural power scheme. However, the concept of womanhood is rather abstract for me and I feel has little to do with my intrinsically experienced gender identity.

2. I am writing this essay in the context of a queerfeminist seminar. This makes it easier to write confidently against hegemonic notions of gender. The text should be as radical as necessary and as sensitive as possible. Since I myself have been socialized into this very hegemony, I must continually check my thoughts and language concerning cis-heterosexist narratives in the writing process.
3. Just as I cannot escape the real consequences of societal conceptions of gender, the social entanglements must not be ignored when considering the debate about Kathleen Stock: It is embedded in a media landscape that is predominantly shaped by cisgendered,
white people, and in which visibility and social power are mutually reinforcing. Since I do not self-identify as trans*, I want to avoid speaking for trans* people and instead take a position of solidarity alongside them when writing (following the decolonial methodology “Speaking Near-by” by filmmaker and theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha).


In the autumn of 2021, Professor Kathleen Stock leaves her post after 18 years of teaching at the University of Sussex in England. Her resignation is the result of self-organized protests by an anonymous group of queer, trans* and non-binary students of the same university, who first published a mission statement against her and demanded Stock’s dismissal in the following days with poster actions and demonstrations. The protests were triggered by the queer- and transphobic statements that Kathleen Stock published in newspaper interviews, blog posts and via her personal Twitter account, especially during the last three years of her tenure.

The following text will, on the one hand, re-trace the media debate surrounding her resignation, as well as the argumentation and rhetoric of the accompanying cancel culture accusations and the emphatically expressed fears that academic freedom and freedom of expression have been endangered. On the other hand, it will attempt to identify specific aesthetics of Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism.

Reference is made primarily to various German and British newspaper articles that reported on the debate. First, however, the text will take an in-depth look at the argumentation and thought structures of TERFs.


Why Kathleen Stock is a TERF

On August 19, 2008, blogger Viv Smythe writes the following under her pseudonym TigTog on Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog, her blog on feminism FAQs:

I am aware that this decision is likely to affront some trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), but it must be said: marginalising trans women at actual risk from regularly documented abuse /violence in favour of protecting hypothetical cis women from purely hypothetical abuse/violence from trans women in women-only safe-spaces strikes me as horribly unethical as well as repellently callous.1Smythe, Viv: An apology and a promise. in: Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog, 19.08.2008, https://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/an-apology-and-a-promise (last accessed 30.10.2022)

Shortly after that the acronym TERF appeared on more feminist blogs,2Williams, Cristan: TERF: What It Means And Where It Came From. in: The Trans Advocate, 03.2014, https://www.transadvocate.com/terf-what-it-means-and-where-it-came-from_n_13066.htm (last accessed … Continue reading gaining popularity over the years. In a 2017 interview with The Trans Advocate, Smythe describes the term as a neutral designation for a branch of radical feminism found primarily online, on blogs and social media. She says she used the term in response to a sudden rise in transmisogynist comments and posts in radical feminist internet spaces, which was then picked up by other trans*-positive/neutral feminist activists and used for distinction.3Williams, Cristan: TERF: What It Means And Where It Came From. in: The Trans Advocate, 03.2014, https://www.transadvocate.com/terf-what-it-means-and-where-it-came-from_n_13066.htm (last accessed … Continue reading

TERFs frame trans* women and trans*-feminine persons in various scenarios as threats to cis women, which is why they fundamentally reject their inclusion in (safer) spaces such as women’s restrooms or women’s shelters. 

Under the highly transmisogynistic assumption that trans* women remain ‘biological men’, they are imagined as potential sexual offenders. Accordingly, there is a rather dismissive and sometimes mocking attitude towards terminologies such as ‘cis’ or self-identified pronouns. Moreover, something like a neo-liberal trans* agenda is often being suspected, which persuades lesbian women into believing that they are trans* men—“transing the gay away”, as Bev Jackson claims, co-founder of the transphobic advocacy group LGB Alliance, of which Kathleen Stock is also a member.4Dixon, Hayley: Tavistock clinic ‘putting young gay people at risk by treating them as trans’. in: The Telegraph, 12.09.2022, … Continue reading 

The conflict surrounding Kathleen Stock, whose teaching focus at the University of Sussex on the nature of fiction and imagination as well as art and music theory in philosophy before the conflict began, ignited in 2018 over several contentious writings and essays Stock published on various blogs on the occasion of the proposed reform of the Gender Recognition Act—a legal reform that would make it easier for trans* people in the UK to change their gender identity without having to present humiliating medical or psychological certificates.

In an essay on the US-american publishing platform Medium, she circumvents terms like ‘cis’ or ‘afab’ by awkwardly calling cis women “women-who-are-not-transwomen” and abbreviating them as “WNT”. This is not a harmless linguistic gimmick, but follows a rhetorical strategy of preserving cis gender as a social norm by never explicitly naming it.

Language is a subtle but effective means of perpetuating established relations of oppression and power: In a heterosexist, predominantly white society, a person is imagined as cis-male, straight, white, able-bodied, etc. until they are linguistically marked and categorized as trans*, queer, of color, or disabled. However, language can also very effectively unmask and destabilize structures of power and oppression by examining supposed norms and also describing them with terms—such as ‘cis’. Kathleen Stock’s active avoidance of the concept of cis as just another gender, which has been established in Western gender studies since the 1990s, impressively underlines the progressive potential of this seemingly small word.

She continues:

Citing the history of male violence against WNT, some have pointed out what seems perfectly reasonable — that this change in the law will allow some duplicitous or badly motivated males to “change gender” fairly easily […] in order to do harm to WNT in women-only spaces, and possibly children too, since children are often with their mothers.5Stock, Kathleen: Academic philosophy and the UK Gender Recognition Act. in: Medium, 07.05.2022, https://medium.com/@kathleenstock/academic-philosophy-and-the-uk-gender-recognition-act-6179b315b9dd … Continue reading 

In the same year, she expressed the following opinion to the local British newspaper The Argus: “many trans women are still males with male genitalia, many are sexually attracted to females, and they should not be in places where females undress or sleep in a completely unrestricted way.”6Doherty-Cove, Jody: ‚Trans women are still males with male genitalia‘ – university lecturer airs controversial views. in: The Argus, 15.07.2018, … Continue reading Furthermore, in the internationally renowned magazine The Economist, Stock publishes a text that reveals an extremely biologistic and essentialist way of thinking about the social gender categories of “man” and “woman” and predicts gender self-determination as a crime statistics distorting rape and threat scenario for cis women.7Stock, Kathleen: Changing the concept of “woman” will cause unintended harms. in The Economist, 06.07.2018, … Continue reading 

Even though Stock regularly dismisses all accusations of transphobia, this is ultimately purely at the discretion of those who are affected. In the case of the student protests at the University of Sussex, at least, it’s clear. In their mission statement published on October 6 via the Instagram channel antiterfsussex, the anonymous group of queer, trans* and non-binary activists writes:

Transphobes like Stock are anti-feminist, anti-queer and anti-intellectual, they are harmful and dangerous to trans people. […] They camouflage their transphobia in academic language, in fake feminism, in „reasonable concerns“, and then we suffer the real material consequences of it.8antiterfsussex, 06.10.2021, https://www.instagram.com/p/CUrjq01MbQ1 (last accessed 31.10.2022)

© INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT @ANTITERFSUSSEX


Media Representation of the Conflict over Scientific Freedom, Cancel Culture, and Discourse Sovereignty

In both the British and German media, the protests and Stock’s subsequent personal resignation attract a great deal of attention. The headline of the British tabloid The Daily Mail reads:

Terrorised off campus by the trans hate mob: Balaclava-clad fanatics targeted her for daring to speak up for women’s right. But here, ex-university lecturer Kathleen Stock defiantly says she WON‘T be silenced in fight for freedom of thought9Bindel, Julie: Terrorised off campus by the trans hate mob: Balaclava-clad fanatics targeted her for daring to speak up for women‘s rights. But here, ex-university lecturer Kathleen Stock defiantly … Continue reading 

The German newspaper FAZ writes in a slightly more moderate way about “Cancel Culture”10Vukadinović, Vojin Saša: Chronik einer orchestrierten Verleumdung. in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18.03.2021, … Continue reading and the “smear campaign against a philosopher”11Vukadinović, Vojin Saša: Schmutzkampagne gegen eine Philosophin. in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 11.10.2021, … Continue reading, while the taz uses the mocking neologism ‘Wokistan’ in its reporting12Feddersen, Jan: Antifreiheitliches Wokistan. in: taz, 01.11.2021, https://taz.de/Professorin-tritt-nach-trans-Eklat-ab/!5809038 (last accessed 30.10.2022). The daily Zeit speaks of “transactivists [who] go after feminists”13Vukadinović, Vojin Saša: Gezielte Kampagnen. in: Die Zeit, 26.11.2021, https://www.zeit.de/2021/48/kathleen-stock-wissenschaftsfreiheit-feministen-transaktivisten-philosophin (last accessed … Continue reading and thus deems academic freedom endangered. One author appears conspicuously often in the discourse: Vojin Saša Vukadinović, who himself studied gender studies in the early 2000s, then called it the “academic nail in the coffin of women’s emancipation”14Vukadinović, Vojin Saša: Butler erhebt „Rassismus“-Vorwurf. in: Emma, 28.06.2017, https://www.emma.de/artikel/gender-studies-sargnaegel-des-feminismus-334569 (last accessed 30.10.2022) in 2017, defends Stock’s position very vehemently and unyieldingly in his texts.

Almost all articles reporting on the case are illustrated with a photo of the resigned professor, a white woman with a short gray haircut, at times portrayed in her office with an exhausted smile or a troubled scowl, at times in a heroic perspective from below, then again with her back to the camera, the dark shadows of a crowd retouched on top. The pictorial politics makes it clear: the defendant and her perspective have the word.

In the contributions to the debate, the hostility experienced by Stock from the activists is profusely discussed. The majority of student activists had protested through flyer and poster campaigns, social media posts, and demonstrations in a show-stopping but peaceful manner. Nevertheless, the protest is vilified as a targeted defamation, campaign of lies, hatred and agitation by oversensitive students, and the argumentation of the protest letter15Open Letter Concerning Transphobia in Philosophy, 06.2021, https://sites.google.com/view/trans-phil-letter (last accessed 30.10.2022) signed by more than 600 philosophers worldwide is largely undercut. Stock’s persistent adherence to long outdated biologisms and binaries is elevated as a courageous questioning of the “gender paradigm.”16Vukadinović, Vojin Saša: Gezielte Kampagnen. in: Die Zeit, 26.11.2021, https://www.zeit.de/2021/48/kathleen-stock-wissenschaftsfreiheit-feministen-transaktivisten-philosophin (last accessed … Continue reading At the same time, her derogatory and defamatory behavior towards trans* persons inside and outside the university remains completely unmentioned, as does the fact that she “tried to prevent its discussion in a student magazine,”17Celikates, Robin; Hoppe, Katharina; Loick, Daniel; Nonhoff, Martin; von Redecker, Eva; Vogelmann, Frieder: Wissenschaftsfreiheit, die wir meinen. in: Die Zeit, 18.11.2021, … Continue reading as the philosophers and social scientists Robin Celikates, Katharina Hoppe, Daniel Loick, Martin Nonhoff, Eva von Redecker, and Frieder Vogelmann emphasize in another Zeit article. Rightfully, as authors of one of the few counter-positions, they object to the claim that freedom of science and speech is threatened and point out the double standards that underlie the argumentation:

The biased presentation of such cases is methodoligical and a real reason for concern. Again and again, similar strategies are used to convince the public that it is, of all people, those with established and institutional support who are threatened.18Celikates, Robin; Hoppe, Katharina; Loick, Daniel; Nonhoff, Martin; von Redecker, Eva; Vogelmann, Frieder: Wissenschaftsfreiheit, die wir meinen. in: Die Zeit, 18.11.2021, … Continue reading

Academic freedom is a mere buzzword that is supposed to make power and violence in the academic world invisible and thus legitimize reactionary positions. An emancipatory understanding of academic freedom would therefore need to recognize the university as a space that is shaped by exclusions and hierarchies arising from historical relations of power. True knowledge can only be pursued through the inclusion of marginalized positions and the continuous dismantling of power asymmetries.19Celikates, Robin; Hoppe, Katharina; Loick, Daniel; Nonhoff, Martin; von Redecker, Eva; Vogelmann, Frieder: Wissenschaftsfreiheit, die wir meinen. in: Die Zeit, 18.11.2021, … Continue reading

Grace Laverey, a professor at Berkeley, trans* activist, and former student at the University of Sussex, makes perfectly clear in an essay published on her blog at the same time that Stock’s academic freedom and freedom of speech have not been curtailed, but, shamefully, the rights of that activists.20Lavery, Grace: The UK Media Has Seriously Bungled the Kathleen Stock Story. in: www.gracelavery.org, 17.10.2021, http://www.gracelavery.org/uk-media-biased-stock-sussex (last accessed 30.10.2022) When, for example, Amelia Jones, student representative for trans* and non-binary people at the University of Sussex, explained in an interview with the BBC why Kathleen Stock, as an active member of the transphobic LGB Alliance and her signature on the Women’s Declaration of Sex-Based Rights—a manifesto against trans* rights—created an unsafe atmosphere for trans* students21Thorburn, Jacob: BBC is forced to air ‚correction‘ from feminist professor Kathleen Stock after allowing students‘ union officer to ‚falsely‘ claim that she signed a ‚declaration to … Continue reading, Stock started a media campaign against the student, who had to close her social media accounts after attacks by Stock’s supporters.22Lavery, Grace: The UK Media Has Seriously Bungled the Kathleen Stock Story. in: http://www.gracelavery.org, 17.10.2021, http://www.gracelavery.org/uk-media-biased-stock-sussex (last accessed … Continue reading

And the statements made by the Vice-Chancellor Adam Tickell on the University of Sussex Twitter account are indeed a violation of students’ rights to academic freedom by threatening to launch investigations and consequences for those who publish arguments in favor of Kathleen Stock’s suspension, i.e. put up posters. Thus, while Kathleen Stock is continually allowed to speak out in numerous media outlets and backed by the university administration, particularly Vice Chancellor Adam Tickell, the activists’ position and arguments are muzzled in the media portrayal.

The mode of reporting clearly illustrates the prevailing power relations in the gender debate, and the fact that Kathleen Stock is offered (and accepts)23Woolcock, Nicola: Kathleen Stock: Exiled academic joins free-speech college The University of Austin. in: The Times, 10.11.2021, … Continue reading a teaching position at the ‘free-speech’ University of Austin in Texas a few days after her resignation is only further evidence of the fallacy of the cancel-culture narrative, which claims that progressive debates continually lead to the systematic and forceful exclusion of previously established positions. On the contrary, the fact that activists were able to achieve Kathleen Stock’s resignation through their protests is not something we should take for granted. They have had to act loudly, multi-media, and consistently in order to be taken seriously in their demands, and yet both the British and German media have inevitably followed the cis-heterosexist perspective24Steinhoff, Uwe: Was man nicht kritisieren darf. in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22.11.2021, … Continue reading, taking some of the most extreme and frightening positions in the current debate about the human rights of trans* people.

In a final statement, the activists write about their partial success:

We have organized as a network of autonomous actors – and it is due to our anonymity, plurality of tactics and decentralized structure that we have succeeded. Fuck the national press media who happily collaborated with the university and Stock to turn this into a debate about ‘free speech’ and ‘academic freedoms’. […] For those reaching out to this account, we will not speak to the press because we will never debate, discuss or organize on the terms of the people who have enabled discrimination and transphobia. […] But the struggle isn’t over. Institutional transphobia lives on, it runs deeper than Stock or Tickell or Sussex or any university. Trans liberation is possible in our lifetimes but we must stand strong together in the face of structures that support eliminationists and bigots.25antiterfsussex: ANTI-STOCK ACTION 2021, 28.10.2021, https://www.instagram.com/p/CVlRyn3gcrs (last accessed 31.10.2022)


TERF Aesthetics and their Proximity to Neo-Fascist Narratives

The transmisogynistic claim that trans* women are and remain ‘biological men’ is not new. It is underpinned by an outdated but widespread biologistic binary that divides humanity into two groups: the XX group and the XY group, and pathologizes all those who disrupt this binary. Any debate that seeks to discuss the antecedent conditions of this division, thus questioning its objectivity, is in turn, in an attempt to delegitimize it, accused of subjective (i.e. ‘unscientific’) affectedness. 

The film theorist and literary scholar Teresa de Lauretis is one of the many representatives of gender and queer studies who have been writing against this accusation for decades. She regards the cultural production of gender in the understanding of Michel Foucault as a ‘technology of sex’, which “is a product of various social technologies such as cinema and institutionalized discourses, epistemologies, critical forms of practice, and also of everyday practice”26de Lauretis, Teresa: Die Technologie des Geschlechts. In: Kathrin Peters (Hg.), Andrea Seier (Hg.), Gender & Medien-Reader, S. 459. (last accessed 31.10.2022). In other words, technology is composed of multiple practices/discourses (pop culture, laws, police, art, media discourses, science) that continuously (re)produce concepts like ‘sex’ and ‘gender’.

The trans- and queerphobic trope of the serial killer or sex offender dressed in women’s clothing is, in fact, found in pop culture in multiple forms, such as in the award-winning and million-received motion pictures Psycho from 1960, in which the serial killer believes his jealous deceased mother has taken possession of him, and therefore murders the women he desires dressed in women’s clothes and wigs, or 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, in which a man kidnaps women, murders them, and skins them to make a dress based on his desire to be a woman. These transmisogynistic narratives are a direct product of the misogyny of patriarchy, which inherently demonizes women acting in a self-determined manner and accordingly declares men who explore their femininity to be insane and monstrous.

PSYCHO, 1960, © SUNSET BOULEVARD/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES

Not only do TERFs pick up on these pop culture-enhanced, violent narratives in their arguments, but in right-wing circles, explicitly transphobic and anti-feminist beliefs have also become a cornerstone of neo-fascist ideology. Sascha Krahnke, who researches right-wing extremism at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, describes how right-wing extremist and transphobic disinformation campaigns are converging: “For a few years now, or increasingly this year, [we’ve seen] the strong focus on the trans issue. And especially trans women or trans-feminine people as an enemy image, as a threat.”27Kogel, Dennis: Genzmer, Jenny: Die Anfeindungen nehmen zu. in: Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 16.07.2022, https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/transpersonen-desinformationen-100.html (last accessed … Continue reading 

However, disinformation is only one example of the tactics and rhetoric of TERFs that are alarmingly similar to those of (neo-)fascist movements. Another tactic is the appropriation of originally leftist terms and theses: Expressions such as cancel culture and woke/wokeness/wokistan, which originated in queer and/or Black (internet) communities, are now combative terminologies of right-wing conservative politics, much like the concept of political correctness. The appropriation, distortion, and inversion of leftist images, concepts, and narratives is known in the Identitarian movement as ‘Metapolitics'28https://www.identitaere-bewegung.de/faq/was-ist-unter-dem-begriff-metapolitik-zu-verstehen (last accessed 04.12.2022), a political strategy absurdly coined by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci.

The last example brings us back to Kathleen Stock: similar to neo-fascist ideologies, the narrative of the hero/martyr who dares to speak out against the supposedly discourse-dominating gender ideology can also be found in this case. Thus the slogan of the German TERF magazine Emma reads “Stay brave!”, a magazine that Kathleen Stock defended in a long article29Louis, Chantal: Kathleen Stock: Realität & Ideologie. in: Emma, 23.02.2022, https://www.emma.de/artikel/realitaet-wiegt-schwerer-als-ideologie-339251 (last accessed 31.10.2022), a few weeks after it not just implicitly referred to the Green party politician and trans* woman Tessa Ganserer as a man in women’s clothes30Ganserer: Die Quotenfrau. in: Emma, 19.02.2022, https://www.emma.de/artikel/markus-ganserer-die-quotenfrau-339185 (last accessed 31.10.2022). And the narrative voice set to emotive music in the promotional video for the so-called ‘Forbidden Courses’, a summer school at the University of Austin, Texas, where Stock now teaches, enthuses about the university’s concept: “willing to take intellectual risk will attract the intellectual risk takers and those of course are the intellectual innovators”31https://www.uaustin.org/forbidden-courses (last accessed 31.10.2022). At the same time, with the rise of the religious right in the U.S., more and more trans* people are fleeing Texas for fear of losing their human rights.32Kogel, Dennis: Genzmer, Jenny: Die Anfeindungen nehmen zu. in: Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 16.07.2022, https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/transpersonen-desinformationen-100.html (last accessed … Continue reading

The circle closes with the abundance of references to persons from neo-Nazi networks among the supporters of the LGB Alliance, of which Kathleen Stock is a member.33Parsons, Vic: Neo-Nazis and homophobes are among the supporters of the ‘anti-trans’ group LGB Alliance. in: PinkNews, … Continue reading The statement on their website that “a religious person who is struggling with their sexuality [should] be allowed to seek guidance or counselling from their faith group or religious leaders”34https://lgballiance.org.uk/end-conversion-therapy (last accessed 31.10.2022)—conversion therapy light, so to speak—and the close ties many members have to conservative and religious groups such as the Heritage Foundation, the Alliance Defending Freedom or the Centre for Bioethics and Culture35Lavery, Grace: The UK Media Has Seriously Bungled the Kathleen Stock Story. in: www.gracelavery.org, 17.10.2021, http://www.gracelavery.org/uk-media-biased-stock-sussex (last accessed 30.10.2022), is ultimately no wonder.


TERFake News, TERFascism, TERFundamentalism…?

By re-tracing the debate it becomes clear that transphobia, and especially transmisogyny, is, just like racism or anti-Semitism, an inherent part of Western societies, which for some time now has been used by right-wing political groups to strengthen their fascist ideologies and make them more acceptable to society. This approach is calculated and extremely effective and can only be interrupted by making visible the structural discrimination in Western societies and the subsequent consistent, power-critical reappraisal of these structures. Or to put it more concretely in Grace Lavery’s words:

Sussex University needs to start acting like a University again. Adam Tickell, who misunderstands academic freedom and who issues vague threats against student protestors, needs to lose his job. […] And the British media needs to grow a spine, swallow its pride, and hire a bunch of trans editors, any of whom could have seen this coming a mile off.36Lavery, Grace: The UK Media Has Seriously Bungled the Kathleen Stock Story. in: www.gracelavery.org, 17.10.2021, http://www.gracelavery.org/uk-media-biased-stock-sussex (last accessed 30.10.2022)

References

References
1 Smythe, Viv: An apology and a promise. in: Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog, 19.08.2008, https://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/an-apology-and-a-promise (last accessed 30.10.2022)
2, 3 Williams, Cristan: TERF: What It Means And Where It Came From. in: The Trans Advocate, 03.2014, https://www.transadvocate.com/terf-what-it-means-and-where-it-came-from_n_13066.htm (last accessed 30.10.2022)
4 Dixon, Hayley: Tavistock clinic ‘putting young gay people at risk by treating them as trans’. in: The Telegraph, 12.09.2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/12/nhs-clinic-transing-gay-away (last accessed 30.10.2022)
5 Stock, Kathleen: Academic philosophy and the UK Gender Recognition Act. in: Medium, 07.05.2022, https://medium.com/@kathleenstock/academic-philosophy-and-the-uk-gender-recognition-act-6179b315b9dd (last accessed 30.10.2022)
6 Doherty-Cove, Jody: ‚Trans women are still males with male genitalia‘ – university lecturer airs controversial views. in: The Argus, 15.07.2018, https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/16334391.trans-women-still-males-male-genitalia—university-lecturer-airs-controversial-views (last accessed 30.10.2022)
7 Stock, Kathleen: Changing the concept of “woman” will cause unintended harms. in The Economist, 06.07.2018, https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/06/changing-the-concept-of-woman-will-cause-unintended-harms (last accessed 30.10.2022)
8 antiterfsussex, 06.10.2021, https://www.instagram.com/p/CUrjq01MbQ1 (last accessed 31.10.2022)
9 Bindel, Julie: Terrorised off campus by the trans hate mob: Balaclava-clad fanatics targeted her for daring to speak up for women‘s rights. But here, ex-university lecturer Kathleen Stock defiantly says she WON‘T be silenced in fight for freedom of thought. in: The Daily Mail, 03.11.2021, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10163007/Ex-university-lecturer-Kathleen-Stock-says-WONT-silenced-fight-freedom-thought.html (last accessed 30.10.2022)
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12 Feddersen, Jan: Antifreiheitliches Wokistan. in: taz, 01.11.2021, https://taz.de/Professorin-tritt-nach-trans-Eklat-ab/!5809038 (last accessed 30.10.2022)
13 Vukadinović, Vojin Saša: Gezielte Kampagnen. in: Die Zeit, 26.11.2021, https://www.zeit.de/2021/48/kathleen-stock-wissenschaftsfreiheit-feministen-transaktivisten-philosophin (last accessed 04.12.2022)
14 Vukadinović, Vojin Saša: Butler erhebt „Rassismus“-Vorwurf. in: Emma, 28.06.2017, https://www.emma.de/artikel/gender-studies-sargnaegel-des-feminismus-334569 (last accessed 30.10.2022)
15 Open Letter Concerning Transphobia in Philosophy, 06.2021, https://sites.google.com/view/trans-phil-letter (last accessed 30.10.2022)
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17, 18, 19 Celikates, Robin; Hoppe, Katharina; Loick, Daniel; Nonhoff, Martin; von Redecker, Eva; Vogelmann, Frieder: Wissenschaftsfreiheit, die wir meinen. in: Die Zeit, 18.11.2021, https://www.zeit.de/2021/47/wissenschaftsfreiheit-universitaeten-cancel-culture-kathleen-stock (last accessed 30.10.2022)
20, 35, 36 Lavery, Grace: The UK Media Has Seriously Bungled the Kathleen Stock Story. in: www.gracelavery.org, 17.10.2021, http://www.gracelavery.org/uk-media-biased-stock-sussex (last accessed 30.10.2022)
21 Thorburn, Jacob: BBC is forced to air ‚correction‘ from feminist professor Kathleen Stock after allowing students‘ union officer to ‚falsely‘ claim that she signed a ‚declaration to eliminate trans people in law‘ during live broadcast. in: MailOnline, 15.10.2021, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10095721/BBC-apologises-student-union-rep-says-professor-supports-elimination-trans-people-law.html#v-642147033211617435 (last accessed 30.10.2022)
22 Lavery, Grace: The UK Media Has Seriously Bungled the Kathleen Stock Story. in: http://www.gracelavery.org, 17.10.2021, http://www.gracelavery.org/uk-media-biased-stock-sussex (last accessed 30.10.2022)
23 Woolcock, Nicola: Kathleen Stock: Exiled academic joins free-speech college The University of Austin. in: The Times, 10.11.2021, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kathleen-stock-exiled-academic-joins-free-speech-college-the-university-of-austin-kdrf883sj (last accessed 30.10.2022)
24 Steinhoff, Uwe: Was man nicht kritisieren darf. in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22.11.2021, https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/gender-studies-konformismus-im-fall-kathleen-stock-gefordert-17645134.html (last accessed 04.12.2022)
25 antiterfsussex: ANTI-STOCK ACTION 2021, 28.10.2021, https://www.instagram.com/p/CVlRyn3gcrs (last accessed 31.10.2022)
26 de Lauretis, Teresa: Die Technologie des Geschlechts. In: Kathrin Peters (Hg.), Andrea Seier (Hg.), Gender & Medien-Reader, S. 459. (last accessed 31.10.2022)
27, 32 Kogel, Dennis: Genzmer, Jenny: Die Anfeindungen nehmen zu. in: Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 16.07.2022, https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/transpersonen-desinformationen-100.html (last accessed 31.10.2022)
28 https://www.identitaere-bewegung.de/faq/was-ist-unter-dem-begriff-metapolitik-zu-verstehen (last accessed 04.12.2022)
29 Louis, Chantal: Kathleen Stock: Realität & Ideologie. in: Emma, 23.02.2022, https://www.emma.de/artikel/realitaet-wiegt-schwerer-als-ideologie-339251 (last accessed 31.10.2022)
30 Ganserer: Die Quotenfrau. in: Emma, 19.02.2022, https://www.emma.de/artikel/markus-ganserer-die-quotenfrau-339185 (last accessed 31.10.2022)
31 https://www.uaustin.org/forbidden-courses (last accessed 31.10.2022)
33 Parsons, Vic: Neo-Nazis and homophobes are among the supporters of the ‘anti-trans’ group LGB Alliance. in: PinkNews, 03.04.2022https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/04/03/lgb-alliance-neo-nazi-homophobia-spinster-death-head-charity-commission/ (last accessed 31.10.2022)
34 https://lgballiance.org.uk/end-conversion-therapy (last accessed 31.10.2022)


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Ableism is the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with differing physical and mental abilities and needs. It typically involves a negative assessment of a person’s body and mind due to skills and abilities, based on a supposed biological (physical and/or mental) norm of what an able-bodied, neurotypical person should be. Ableism can intersect with other forms of oppression such as racism and sexism. 

Adultism is the discrimination found in everyday life and law based on unequal power relationships between adults, on the one hand, and children, adolescents, and young people on the other. 

The General Equal Treatment Act (AGG), enforced since 2006, is the uniform central body of regulations in Germany for the implementation of four European anti-discrimination directives. For the first time, a law was created in Germany that comprehensively regulates protection against discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, gender identification, religion or belief, ability, age, or sexual orientation.

Antisemitism is a belief system based on hatred/hostility towards or discrimination against Jewish people as a religious or racial group, Jewish institutions or anyone/anything that is perceived Jewish. Antisemitism varies over time and between cultures, with antisemitism intensifying in different historical moments.   

Accessibility names the extent to which a product, service, or environment can be used and accessed by as many people as possible. Inclusive accessibility therefore assesses the needs and desires of all possible people—including those who are neurodivergent or who have varying abilities—and incorporates these into its design and function. Changes to enable those with different abilities to have equal opportunity and participation are often referred to as accommodations.  

Harassment is undesired and non-consensual conduct that violates the dignity of another person. Harassment can often create intimidating, hostile, humiliating, or offensive environments, and can be based on someone’s sexual orientation, religion, national origin, disability, age, race, gender, and more. Harassment can take a variety of forms, including verbal, physical, and/or sexual. 

The gender binary is the classification of gender into two distinct and opposite categories of man/masculine and woman/feminine. This belief system assumes that one’s sex or gender assigned at birth will align with traditional social constructions of masculine and feminine identity, expression, and sexuality. Assignment beyond the gender binary is typically viewed as a deviation of the norm. 

Sex refers to a person’s biological status and is typically assigned at birth, usually based on external anatomy. Sex is typically categorized as male, female, or intersex. 

Cisgender, or simply cis, refers to people who identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. Cis comes from the Latin prefix which means “on this side of.” 

This concept, according to Birgit Rommelspacher, assumes that there is a system of hierarchies, rule and power in which the various racist, sexist, classist, and other forms of governance intertwine. In this interconnectedness, a dominant group maintains power, which is socially negotiated again and again. In a given society, the dominant group achieves their role by being perceived as pertaining to a majority of the population and having a significant presence in societal institutions. 

The prison-industrial complex (PIC) is a term that describes the complex and interrelated dependencies between a government and the various businesses and institutions that benefit from practices of incarceration (such as prisons, jails, detention facilities, and psychiatric hospitals). Based on the term “military-industrial complex,” PIC urges a more comprehensive analysis of how imprisonment is used in a society, noting all the interest groups that prioritize financial gain over keeping people out of prisons. 

Gender-expansive is an adjective that can describe someone with a more flexible and fluid gender identity than might be associated with the typical gender binary. 

Gender is often defined as a social construct of norms, behaviors, and roles that vary between societies and over time. Gender is often categorized as male, female, or nonbinary. 

Gender transition is a process a person might take to bring themselves and/or their bodies into alignment with their gender identity. This process is not a singular step nor does it have a definite end. Rather, it can include any, none, or all of the following: telling one’s family and social circles; changing one’s name and pronouns; updating legal documents; medical interventions such as hormone therapy; or surgical intervention, often called gender confirmation surgery. 

Gender expression is how a person presents gender outwardly, most typically signalled through clothing, voice, behavior, and other perceived characteristics. Society identifies these cues and performances as masculine or feminine, although what is considered masculine or feminine varies over time and between cultures.  

Gender dysphoria refers to psychological distress that results from the incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity. People of all genders may experience dysphoria at varying levels of intensity, or not at all. 

Gender identity is one’s own internal sense of self and their gender. Unlike gender expression, gender identity is not externally visible to others. 

Heteronormativity is the concept that heterosexuality—romantic and/or sexual attraction between people of the “opposite” gender—is the normative or acceptable sexual orientation in a society. Heteronormativity assumes the gender binary, and therefore involves a belief in the alignment between sexuality, gender identity, gender roles, and biological sex. As a dominant social norm, heteronormativity results in discrimination and oppression against those who do not identify as heterosexual.   

Hormone therapy, sometimes called gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) or hormone replacement therapy (HRT), is the process by which sex hormones or other hormonal medications are administered. These hormone changes can trigger physical changes, called secondary sex characteristics, that can help better align the body with a person’s gender identity.

Institutional discrimination refers to prejudiced organizational policies and practices within institutions – such as universities, workplaces, and more – such that an individual or groups of individuals who are marginalized are unequally considered and have unequal rights. 

Inter*, or intersex, is an umbrella term that can describe people who have differences in reproductive anatomy, chromosomes, or hormones that do not fit typical definitions of male and female. The asterisks (*) emphasizes the plurality of intersex realities and physicalities. 

Intergenerational trauma refers to the trauma that is passed from a trauma survivor to their descendent. Due to violent and terrifying events—such as war, ethnic cleansing, political conflict, environmental catastrophe, and more—experienced by previous generations, descendants may experience adverse emotional, physical, and psychological effects. As the original sources of trauma are structured by forms of discrimination such as race and gender, intergenerational trauma also occurs along intersectional axes of oppression. For example, Black communities have brought to light the intergenerational trauma of enslavement. 
Intergenerational trauma is sometimes called historical trauma, multi- or transgenerational trauma, or secondary traumatization. 

Intersectionality names the interconnected nature of systems of oppression and social categorizations such as race, gender, sexuality, migratory background, and class. Intersectionality emphasizes how individual forms of discrimination do not exist independently of each other, nor can they be considered and addressed independently. Rather, addressing oppression should take into account the cumulative and interconnected axes of multiple forms of discrimination. 

Islamophobia is a belief system based on hatred/hostility towards or discrimination against Muslim people as a religious or racial group, muslim institutions or anyone/anything that is perceived Muslim. Islamophobia varies over time and between cultures, with Islamophobia intensifying in different historical moments.

Classism is a term that describes discrimination based on the belief that a person’s social or economic status determines their value in society. Classism, as a form of discrimination and stigmatization, is based on actual or assumed financial means, educational status, and social inclusion. “Inferior” classes in the hierarchy are problematised and stereotyped, and often receive unequal access and rights within society. 

Colonialism is the control and dominance of one power over a dependent area or people. In subjugating another people and land, colonialism entails violently conquering the population, often including mass displacement of people and the systematic exploitation of resources. Beyond material consequences, colonialism also includes processes of forcing the dominant power’s language and cultural values upon the subjugated people, thereby effecting cultural, psychological, and intergenerational trauma. 

Culturally argued racism is directed against people based on their presumed cultural or religious background. This form of discrimination can occur regardless of whether they actually practice one culture or religion and how religious they are (e.g. anti-Muslim racism and anti-Semitism). 

Cultural appropriation is the act of taking on aspects of a marginalized culture by a person or an institution who is outside of that culture, without comprehensive understanding of the context and often lacking respect for the significance of the original. Cultural appropriation, when promoting negative cultural or racial stereotypes, reproduces harm. Acts of cultural appropriation can often reveal power dynamics within a society: for example, a white person who wears a marginalized culture’s traditional dress is praised as fashionable, while a racialized person could be isolated from the dominant group and marked as foreign.  

Marginalization describes any process of displacing minorities to the social fringe. As a rule, marginalised groups are presumed to not correspond to the norm-oriented majority of society and are severely restricted in their ability to behave freely, have equal material access, enjoy public safety, and more.  

Microaggression names individual comments or actions that unconsciously or consciously demonstrate prejudice and enact discrimination against members of marginalized groups. As small, common, and cumulative occurrences, microaggressions can comprise of insults, stereotypes, devaluation, and/or exclusion. Microaggressions often negatively affect the person on the receiving end, affecting their psychological and physical health and wellbeing. 

Misogyny is a term for sexist oppression and contempt for women that is used to keep women at a lower social status than men, thereby maintaining patriarchal social roles. Misogyny can indicate an attitude held by individuals and a widespread cultural system that often devalues anything perceived as feminine. Misogyny can overlap with other instances of oppression and hate—such as homophobia, trans*-misogyny, and racism. 

Neurodiversity is a term that describes the unique ways each person’s brain structures function. The basic assumption of what kind of brain functioning is healthy and acceptable within a norm-oriented majority society is called neurotypical. 

Nonbinary is a term that can be used by persons who do not describe themselves or their genders as fitting into the binary categories of man or woman. A range of terms are used for these experiences, with nonbinary and genderqueer often used. 

Patriarchy is a social system whereby cis men dominantly hold positions of privilege both in public and private spheres. In feminist theory, patriarchy can be used to describe the power relationship between genders that favors male dominance, as well as the ideology of male superiority that justifies and enacts oppression against women and all non-normative genders. 

Pronouns, or personal gender pronouns (PGPs), are the set of pronouns that an individual uses to refer to themselves and desires for others to use when referring to them. The list of pronouns is continuously evolving. An individual may have several sets of preferred pronouns, or none. The intention of both asking and using a person’s pronouns correctly is to reduce the negative societal effects for those whose personal pronouns don’t match with the gender identity that’s assumed by a cisnormative society. Using gender-neutral wording and terms to refer to groups of people (such as “folks,” instead of “guys”) are also inclusive steps that resist the gender binary and cis-normativity. 

Racism is the process by which systems, policies, actions, and attitudes create unequal opportunities and outcomes for people based on race. More than individual or institutional prejudice, racism occurs when this discrimination is accompanied by the power to limit or oppress the rights of people and/or groups. Racism varies over time and between cultures, with racism towards different groups intensifying in different historical moments.   

Sex-gender difference names the distinction between the concept of “sex” as a biological fact and the concept of “gender” as a product of cultural and social processes, such as socially constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and gendered identities.

Sexism is the process by which systems, policies, actions, and attitudes create unequal opportunities and outcomes for people based on their attributed or supposed sex and the ideology underlying these phenomena. It is mostly used to name the power relations between dominant and marginalised genders within cisheteronormative patriarchal societies.

Sexual orientation is the term that describes which sex or gender a person feels emotionally, physically, romantically and/or sexually attracted to.

Social origin describes the socio-cultural values and norms into which one is born, including factors such as environment, class, caste, education biography, and more. The values that accompany one’s social origin are constructed, but often have material impact that privileges or under-privileges certain groups and people. For example, someone whose social origin includes living in a Western country, inheriting intergenerational wealth, and having a consistently good education will increase their chances for a high-paying job as an adult. Their social origin must therefore be taken into account, rather than their inherent worthiness for such a job. 

A social norm is a shared belief in the standard of acceptable behaviour by groups, both informal as well as institutionalized into policy or law. Social norms differ over time and between cultures and societies. 

Socioeconomic status, usually described as low, medium, or high, is a way of describing people based on their education, income, and type of job. The values and norms assigned to each socioeconomic class are socially constructed but have material impact. 

Structural discrimination refers to patterns of behaviour, policies, and attitudes found at the macro-level conditions of society. This discrimination of social groups is based on the nature of the structure of society as a whole. Structural discrimination is distinct from individual forms of discrimination (such as a single racist remark, which is a microaggression), though it often provides the contextual framework to understand why these individual instances occur. 

Tokenism is a superficial or symbolic gesture that includes minority members without significantly changing or addressing the structural discrimination of marginalization. Tokenism is a strategy intended to create the appearance of inclusion and to divert allegations of discrimination by requiring a single person to be representative of a minority. 

White supremacy names the beliefs and practices that privilege white people as an inherently superior race, built on the exclusion and detriment of other racial and ethnic groups. It can refer to the interconnected social, economic, and political systems that enable white people to enjoy structural advantages over other racial groups both on a collective and individual level. It can also refer to the underlying political ideology that imposes and maintains multiple forms of domination by white people and non-white supporters, from justifying European colonialism to present-day neo-fascisms. 

Whiteness is a socially and politically constructed behaviour that perpetuates an ideology, culture, history, and economy that results in the unequal distribution of power and privilege favoring those socially deemed white. The material benefits of whiteness are gained at the expense of Black, Indigenous, and people of color, who are systematically denied equal access to those material benefits. 
On our blog, white is often written in small italics to mark it as a political category and emphasize the privileges of whiteness which are often not named as such, but rather taken for granted as the invisible norm. 

Xenophobia names the hostility towards groups or individuals perceived as “outsiders” based on their culture. Xenophobic attitudes are often associated with hostile reception of immigrants or refugees who arrive in societies and communities that are not their homelands. Xenophobic discrimination can result in barriers to equally access socioeconomic opportunities, as well as ethnic, racial, or religious prejudice.

Abolition is a term that names officially ending a system, practice, or institution. Rooted in 19th century movements to abolish slavery, present day abolitionism is often invoked to end the practice of policing and military and/or the interconnected carceral systems of prisons, refugee camps, detention centers, and more. For more, see the definition of prison-industrial complex). 

Accountability is the obligation and willingness to accept responsibility for one’s actions. In the context of social justice, accountability refers to the ways in which individuals and communities hold themselves to their principles and goals, as well as acknowledging the groups to which they are responsible. Accountability often requires a transparent process and continuous self- and collective awareness. 

Ageism is discrimination or prejudice based on a person’s age, such as when skills and abilities are questioned and assessed based on one’s older or younger age. 

Agender is an adjective that can be used by persons who do not identify as any gender.

BIPoC stands for Black, Indigenous and people of color. A term that originated in the U.S., it is a self-designation intended to center the specific experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other racialized groups, who are severely impacted by systemic racial injustice rooted in histories of enslavement and colonialism, and to unite people and groups affected by racism. 

Colorism is a term that describes the prejudice or discrimination favoring people with lighter skin tones over those with darker skin tones. This is especially used to describe the nuanced discrimination faced within a racial or ethnic group. 

The Critical Diversity Policy at UdK is a document whose intention is to emphasize and enforce the idea that differences in values, attitudes, cultural perspective, beliefs, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, gender identity, abilities, knowledge and life experiences of each individual in each group of people should be considered and overcome within the university.

Deadnaming is the act of calling a trans*, nonbinary, or gender-expansive person by their birth name, or an incorrect name, when they have changed their name as part of their gender expression. It is never okay or necessary to use a person’s deadname when they have changed their name, including when describing past events. If you deadname someone, take accountability by apologizing and commit to not doing so in the future. Take steps to know someone’s current name and commit to using it.   

This sociological term focuses on how people observe, (re-)produce, and make gender relevant in everyday life. Rather than taking gender as an innate quality, the acts of “doing gender” emphasize how gender is a social construct that is prevalent in daily human interaction. 

Misogynoir is a term, coined by Black feminist Moya Bailey in 2010, that describes the gendered and racial oppression faced by Black cis and transgender women (the latter sometimes referred to as trans*-misogynoir). Taking an intersectional lens, misogynoir examines how anti-Black racism and misogyny combine into a particular form of oppression and discrimination. 

Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. It Is used for a broad spectrum of non-normative sexual and/or gender identities and politics. 

Safer spaces are intended to be places where marginalized communities can gather and communicate shared experiences, free of bias, conflict, or harm perpetrated by members of a dominant group. Recognizing that there is no such thing as a perfectly safe space for marginalized people under the current systems of our society, the term “safer” indicates the goal of temporary relief, as well as acknowledging the fact that harm can be reproduced even within marginalized communities. 
Examples of safer spaces created in organizations and institutions are queer-only spaces and/or spaces only for Black, Indigenous, and people of color. 

Social justice is a form of activism and political movement that promotes the process of transforming society from an injust and unequal state to one that is just and equitable. Social justice is rooted in the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities, and the fundamental right to feel psychologically and physically secure. Social justice therefore aims to change governing laws and societal norms that have historically and presently oppressed some groups over others. Social justice is not just the absence of discrimination, but also the presence of deliberate systems and supports that achieve and sustain equity along lines of race, gender, class, ability, religion, and more. 

Transgender, or simply trans*, is an adjective that refers to people whose gender identity is different than the sex assigned at birth. Trans comes from the Latin prefix which means “across” or “beyond.” The self-designation is not an identity feature that automatically indicates whether this person identifies with a different gender, no gender or multiple genders. Thus, there are several trans* identities. The asterisks (*) emphasizes the plurality and fluidity of trans identities.