It will investigate the intellectual history of gender identity, showing how the concept is linked to a misguided philosophical picture which broadly rejects science and conflates facts about intersex people with facts about trans people. It makes a clear and humane feminist case for retaining the ability to discuss material reality about biological sex in a range of important contexts, including women-only spaces and resources, healthcare, epidemiology, political organization and data collection. Watch archived podcasts here.Material Girls presents a timely and opinionated critique of the culturally influential theory that we each have an inner feeling about our sex called a gender identity, and that this feeling is more socially significant than our actual biological sex. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. The podcast was recorded on June 8, 2022. Mentioned in this podcast are Stock’s book Material Girls and Rand’s book Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, especially chapter 7, “The Cognitive Role of Concepts.” The role of secondhandedness and authoritarianism in the acceptance of “gender identity theory.”.Similarities between Stock’s view of concepts and Ayn Rand’s.Stock’s view that the ability to change biological sex is a fiction many are immersed in.Stock’s model of gender identity as a psychological assessment of one’s own sex in relation to that of others.Stock’s critique of the idea that gender identity is a psychological state.Why we need a concept of biological sex.Stock’s argument that biological sex is real and essentially binary despite borderline cases.The value of Stock’s book for different audiences.The case that an orthodoxy has formed around “gender identity theory ”.The controversy over Stock’s opposition to gender self-identification laws in the UK.In this episode of New Ideal Live, Onkar Ghate, Dan Schwartz and Ben Bayer discuss British philosopher Kathleen Stock’s book Material Girls, in which Stock bravely challenges “gender identity theory,” the influential idea that gender is determined entirely by private feelings.

Material Girls by Kathleen Stock