Kathleen Stock

Kathleen Mary Linn Stock is a British philosopher and writer.

She was a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex until 2021.

She has published academic work on aesthetics, fiction, imagination, sexual objectification, and sexual orientation.

Her views on transgender rights and gender identity have become a contentious issue.

Following her graduation, Stock briefly taught at the University of Lancaster and the University of East Anglia before joining the University of Sussex in 2003, where she worked as a reader and later a professor of philosophy.

On 28 October 2021, the university announced Stock's resignation from the position following controversy around her views on gender identity; the announcement, written by the school's vice-chancellor, expressed regret that Stock did not "feel able to return to work" and that she had been subject to "bullying and harassment".

Stock has written one monograph as well as articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, and has contributed several chapters to edited volumes.

She has opposed transgender self-identification in regards to proposed reforms to the 2004 UK Gender Recognition Act, and has argued that allowing self-identification would "threaten a secure understanding of the concept 'lesbian. She has said that 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." She has denied opposing trans rights, saying, "I gladly and vocally assert the rights of trans people to live their lives free from fear, violence, harassment or any discrimination" and "I think that discussing female rights is compatible with defending these trans rights".

She edited Philosophers on Music: Experience, Meaning, and Work (first edition 2007), and together with Katherine Thomson-Jones, she edited New Waves in Aesthetics (2008).

In her monograph Only Imagine: Fiction, Interpretation and Imagination (2017), she argues for authorial intentionalism.

Students and academics began to criticise Stock's views in 2018, when she spoke against proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act; the changes would have allowed people of all ages to legally self-identify as a particular gender without the requirement of a psychological or medical diagnosis.

She received death threats as a result of her position.

Stock was the vice-president of the British Society of Aesthetics from 2019 to 2020.

She has given lectures at the University of York, the Aristotelian Society, the London Aesthetics Forum, the University of Wolverhampton, and the American Society for Aesthetics.

On 28 October 2021 Stock resigned from the University of Sussex.

Following Stock's resignation, she announced she would be joining the University of Austin as a fellow on a part-time basis without the requirement to move to Austin, Texas.

Stock is acknowledged as a prominent gender-critical feminist.

In 2019, Stock signed the "Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights" from the Women's Human Rights Campaign (WHRC).

In June 2019, Stock was invited to speak at the Aristotelian Society about her views on gender identity.

The organization Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) UK and their international counterpart released a joint statement against Stock speaking at the event, saying "Not every item of personal and ideological obsession is worthy of philosophical debate. In particular, scepticism about the rights of marginalised groups and individuals, where issues of life and death are at stake, are not up for debate."

In December 2020, she was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of services to higher education, a decision which was subsequently criticised by a group of over 600 academic philosophers who argued that Stock's "harmful rhetoric" contributed to the marginalisation of transgender people.

In October 2021, she resigned from the University of Sussex.

This came after a student campaign took place calling for her dismissal and the university trade union accused the university of "institutional transphobia."

A group of over 200 academic philosophers from the UK signed an open letter in support of Stock's academic freedom.

Stock was born in Aberdeen and raised in Montrose, Scotland; the daughter of a philosophy lecturer at Aberdeen University and a newspaper proofreader.

Stock read French and philosophy at Exeter College, Oxford, followed by an MA at the University of St Andrews.

She then won a scholarship to enable her to study for a PhD in philosophy at the University of Leeds.

In 2020, Stock testified before the Women and Equalities Committee of the House of Commons, and gave oral evidence in response to the reform of the Gender Recognition Act.

Journalist Janice Turner wrote in The Times that Stock "teaches trans students, respecting their pronouns, and has written repeatedly in support of their human rights".

In 2021, Stock made a submission to the proposed Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, highlighting what she described as harassment and a culture of fear and self-censorship in British universities in relation to her gender-critical views concerning "transactivist demands to recognise and prioritise gender identity".

Her 2021 book, Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, offers a critical discussion of gender identity theory.

Her thesis, according to reviewer Christina Patterson, is that there is "a new orthodoxy, one in which sex gives way to feeling, and feeling trumps facts".

In the book, Stock supports protective laws for trans people, but opposes, according to The Guardian, "the institutionalisation of the idea that gender identity is all that matters – that how you identify automatically confers all the entitlements of that sex".

She describes the law that gives trans people the right to change gender as a legal fiction, a kind of "useful untruth".

In May 2021, Stock was appointed as a trustee of the LGB Alliance.

In January 2023, Stock criticized the UK government's proposed ban on conversion therapy, saying that "Banning conversion therapy for minors will rob trans children of the chance to think again, putting them on a pathway to medical treatment".

In October 2021, a group describing themselves as queer, trans, and non-binary University of Sussex students began a campaign for Stock to be fired, stating that she was "espousing a bastardised version of radical feminism that excludes and endangers trans people".

Students criticised Stock for being a trustee for LGB Alliance and for signing the declaration of the Women's Human Rights Campaign.

The group, Anti Terf Sussex, said Stock was a danger to transgender people and that "We're not up for debate. We cannot be reasoned out of existence".

A statement on Instagram said it was from "an anonymous, unaffiliated group of queer, trans and non-binary students who will not allow our community to be slandered and harmed by someone who's [sic] salary comes from our pockets".