Kathleen Stock Quotes

My husband claims I have an unhealthy obsession with secondhand bookshops. That I spend too much time daydreaming altogether. But either you intrinsically understand the attraction of searching for hidden treasure amongst rows of dusty shelves or you don't; it's a passion, bordering on a spiritual illness, which cannot be explained to the unaffected. True, they're not for the faint of heart. Wild and chaotic, capricious and frustrating, there are certain physical laws that govern secondhand bookstores and like gravity, they're pretty much nonnegotiable. Paperback editions of D. H. Lawrence must constitute no less than 55 percent of all stock in any shop. Natural law also dictates that the remaining 45 percent consist of at least two shelves worth of literary criticism on Paradise Lost and there should always be an entire room in the basement devoted to military history which, by sheer coincidence, will be haunted by a man in his seventies. (Personal studies prove it's the same man. No matter how quickly you move from one bookshop to the next, he's always there. He's forgotten something about the war that no book can contain, but like a figure in Greek mythology, is doomed to spend his days wandering from basement room to basement room, searching through memoirs of the best/worst days of his life.) Modern booksellers can't really compare with these eccentric charms. They keep regular hours, have central heating, and are staffed by freshly scrubbed young people in black T-shirts. They're devoid of both basement rooms and fallen Greek heroes in smelly tweeds. You'll find no dogs or cats curled up next to ancient space heathers like familiars nor the intoxicating smell of mold and mildew that could emanate equally from the unevenly stacked volumes or from the owner himself. People visit Waterstone's and leave. But secondhand bookshops have pilgrims. The words out of print are a call to arms for those who seek a Holy Grail made of paper and ink.

From the 2000s on, it started to be a relatively commonly held belief in progressive circles that it is not your biological sex nor even your ‘social role’ that makes you a woman or man – it is having a female or male gender identity that does it.

Sexual orientations are ‘identities’ now. They follow from, and depend upon, a prior and more fundamental one: gender identity.

I am critical of gender identity theory – but not of trans people, for whom I have friendly sympathy and respect.

A first thing to note, in case it’s unclear, is that I am not arguing against legal protections for trans people against violence, discrimination or coercive surgeries. I enthusiastically support these protections.

And perhaps most awkwardly, they have been left unable properly to explain why, internationally, half the population in a given culture might be disproportionately subject to specific experiences like rape, sexual slavery, female genital mutilation, honour killing, female infanticide, banishment to menstrual huts, surrogacy tourism or death by stoning for the act of adultery. Clue: it’s not possession of a female gender identity.

Stable biological facts have contingent social effects in a given society in conjunction with other social aspects. A society can always choose to mitigate those effects by instigating different social arrangements and structures.

Gender identity theory doesn’t just say that gender identity exists, is fundamental to human beings, and should be legally and politically protected. It also says that biological sex is irrelevant and needs no such legal protection.

Butler makes the general assumption that anything at all humans can meaningfully think about is socially constructed, ‘all the way down’ as it were. This means she thinks there are no material facts before language – that is, prior to culturally specific linguistic and social constructions of them. Linguistic categories, including scientific and biological ones, aren’t a means of reflecting existing divisions in the world, but a means of creating things that otherwise wouldn’t have existed.

Trans people are trans people. We should get over it. They deserve to be safe, to be visible throughout society without shame or stigma, and to have exactly the life opportunities non-trans people do. Their transness makes no difference to any of this. What trans people don’t deserve, however, is to be publicly misrepresented in philosophical terms that make no sense; nor to have their everyday struggles instrumentalised in the name of political initiatives most didn’t ask for, and which alienate other groups by rigidly encroaching on their hard-won rights. Nor do trans people deserve to be terrified by activist propaganda into thinking themselves more vulnerable to violence than they actually are.

It is standard for academics to subject their work to rigorous critique by peers: papers get torn to shreds in seminars and referee reports, and experiments pored over to look for potentially confounding variables. And for good reason: history is littered with bad theories and empty theoretical concepts, from inner demons to bodily humours to phlogiston. There’s no reason to think there isn’t room for similar error here – in fact, there is extra reason to think there is, inasmuch as some (though not all) trans people so clearly desperately want gender identity theory to work, which might be affecting their neutrality. Many trans people assume – wrongly, as I will eventually argue – that the existence and recognition of their political and legal rights depends upon gender identity theory’s correctness.

I wish I could claim to have a mother from steady, pragmatic stock, to balance out the Ravenel wildness. Unfortunately she was worse.” “Worse?” Kathleen asked, her eyes widening. “She had a temper?” “No, but she was unstable. Flighty. It’s no exaggeration to say there were days at a time when she forgot she even had children.” “My parents were very attentive and involved,” Kathleen volunteered after a moment. “As long as you were a horse.

At the very least, it’s clear the decision to use sex-incongruent language of any sort should normally be a free choice. It’s not acceptable on the part of any organisation to coercively require this on pain of sanction. Trying to encourage social norms of politeness in a company or institution, including encouraging people to use preferred pronouns where sex isn’t relevant, is one thing; having HR departments threaten people with accusations of ‘transphobia’ and ‘hate speech’ if they don’t is quite another. As a trans person, having your preferred pronouns or other sex-incongruent terms used by others is a courtesy on their part and not a right on yours.

So, my dear…” She faced him with thudding heart, the crystal piece clutched desperately in her hand, but she was hardly aware that she even held it. “… You say I have let another man into my bed.” Erienne opened her mouth to speak. Her first impulse was to chatter some inanity that could magically take the edge from his callous half statement, half question. No great enlightenment dawned, however, and her dry, parched throat issued no sound of its own. She inspected the stopper closely, turning it slowly in her hand rather than meet the accusing stare. From behind the mask, Lord Saxton observed his wife closely, well aware that the next moments would form the basis for the rest of his life or leave it an empty husk. After this, there could be no turning back. “I think, my dear,” his words made her start, “that whatever the cost, ’tis time you met the beast of Saxton Hall.” Erienne swallowed hard and clasped the stopper with whitened knuckles, as if to draw some bit of courage from the crystal piece. As she watched, Lord Saxton doffed his coat, waistcoat, and stock, and she wondered if it was a trick of her imagination that he seemed somewhat lighter of frame. After their removal, he caught the heel of his right boot over the toe of the left and slowly drew the heavy, misshapen encumbrance from his foot. She frowned in open bemusement, unable to detect a flaw. He flexed the leg a moment before slipping off the other boot. His movements seemed pained as he shed the gloves, and Erienne’s eyes fastened on the long, tan, unscarred hands that rose to the mask and, with deliberate movements, flipped the lacings loose. She half turned, dropping the stopper and colliding with the desk as he reached to the other side of the leather helm and lifted it away with a single motion. She braved a quick glance and gasped in astonishment when she found translucent eyes calmly smiling at her. “Christopher! What…?” She could not form a question, though her mind raced in a frantic search for logic. He rose from the chair with an effort. “Christopher Stuart Saxton, lord of Saxton Hall.” His voice no longer bore a hint of a rasp. “Your servant, my lady.” “But… but where is…?” The truth was only just beginning to dawn on her, and the name she spoke sounded small and thin. “… Stuart?” “One and the same, madam.” He stepped near, and those translucent eyes commanded her attention. “Look at me, Erienne. Look very closely.” He towered over her, and his lean, hard face bore no hint of humor. “And tell me again if you think I would ever allow another man in your bed while I yet breathe.” -Christopher & Erienne

some 70s feminists then seemed to reason in a couple of defective ways about biological determinism and sex. On the one hand, some assumed all binary theories of sex must imply determinism: that is, that these theories must be saying something about the fundamental individual ‘natures’ of males and females in terms of dominance for males, and passivity and submission for females. Working backwards, they therefore concluded that, since biological determinism isn’t true, binary sex must be a myth. Meanwhile, an alternative feminist response from some seemed to go roughly: ‘If there were no natural differences at all between males and females, biological determinism would obviously be false. We all want biological determinism to be false. Hence there are no natural differences between males and females.’ Compare: Jed really wants it to be false that he’s got cancer. If there were no such thing as cancer, it would be false that he’s got it. Hence, Jed concludes, there’s no such thing as cancer.

We need more baskets,” Pandora said triumphantly, entering the hall. The twins, who were clearly having a splendid time, had adorned themselves outlandishly. Cassandra was dressed in a green opera cloak with a jeweled feather ornament affixed to her hair. Pandora had tucked a light blue lace parasol beneath one arm, and a pair of lawn tennis rackets beneath the other, and was wearing a flowery diadem headdress that had slipped partially over one eye. “From the looks of it,” Kathleen said, “you’ve done enough shopping already.” Cassandra looked concerned. “Oh, no, we still have at least eighty departments to visit.” Kathleen couldn’t help glancing at Devon, who was trying, without success, to stifle a grin. It was the first time she had seen him truly smile in days. Enthusiastically the girls lugged the baskets to her and began to set objects on the counter in an unwieldy pile…perfumed soaps, powders, pomades, stockings, books, new corset laces and racks of hairpins, artificial flowers, tins of biscuits, licorice pastilles and barley sweets, a metal mesh tea infuser, hosiery tucked in little netted bags, a set of drawing pencils, and a tiny glass bottle filled with bright red liquid. “What is this?” Kathleen asked, picking up the bottle and viewing it suspiciously. “It’s a beautifier,” Pandora said. “Bloom of Rose,” Cassandra chimed in. Kathleen gasped as she realized what it was. “It’s rouge.” She had never even held a container of rouge before. Setting it on the counter, she said firmly, “No.” “But Kathleen--” “No to rouge,” she said, “now and for all time.” “We need to enhance our complexions,” Pandora protested. “It won’t do any harm,” Cassandra chimed in. “The bottle says that Bloom of Rose is ‘delicate and inoffensive’…It’s written right there, you see?” “The comments you would receive if you wore rouge in public would assuredly not be delicate or inoffensive. People would assume you were a fallen woman. Or worse, an actress.” Pandora turned to Devon. “Lord Trenear, what do you think?” “This is one of those times when it’s best for a man to avoid thinking altogether,” he said hastily.

This is a very fine nightshirt,” she remarked inanely. “I wasn’t even aware that I owned one, until Sutton brought it out.” Kathleen paused, perplexed. “What do you wear to sleep, if not a nightshirt?” Devon gave her a speaking glance, one corner of his mouth quirking. Her jaw went slack as his meaning sank in. “Does that shock you?” he asked, a glint of laughter in his eyes. “Certainly not. I was already aware that you’re a barbarian.” But she turned the color of a ripe pomegranate as she concentrated resolutely on the buttons. The nightshirt gaped open, revealing a brawny, lightly furred chest. She cleared her throat before asking, “Are you able to lift up?” For answer, Devon pushed away from the pillows with a grunt of effort. Kathleen let her shawl drop and reached beneath him, searching for the end of the cloth binding. It was tucked in at the center. “Just a moment--” She reached around him with her other arm to pull at the end of the cloth. It was longer than she’d expected, requiring several tugs to free it. No longer able to maintain the position, Devon dropped back to the pillows with a pained sound, his weight pinning her hands. “Sorry,” he managed. Kathleen tugged at her imprisoned arms. “Not at all…but if you wouldn’t mind…” Recovering his breath, Devon was slow to respond as he took stock of the situation. She was torn between amusement and outrage as she saw the glint of mischief in his eyes. “Let me up, you rogue.” His warm hands came up to the backs of her shoulders, caressing in slow circles. “Climb into bed with me.” “Are you mad?” As she strained to free herself, he reached for the loose braid that hung over her shoulder and played with it idly. “You did last night,” he pointed out. Kathleen went still, her eyes widening. So he did remember. “You can hardly expect me to make a habit of it,” she said breathlessly. “Besides, my maid will come looking for me soon.” Devon moved to his side and tugged her fully onto the bed. “She won’t come in here.

Are you able to lift up?” For answer, Devon pushed away from the pillows with a grunt of effort. Kathleen let her shawl drop and reached beneath him, searching for the end of the cloth binding. It was tucked in at the center. “Just a moment--” She reached around him with her other arm to pull at the end of the cloth. It was longer than she’d expected, requiring several tugs to free it. No longer able to maintain the position, Devon dropped back to the pillows with a pained sound, his weight pinning her hands. “Sorry,” he managed. Kathleen tugged at her imprisoned arms. “Not at all…but if you wouldn’t mind…” Recovering his breath, Devon was slow to respond as he took stock of the situation. She was torn between amusement and outrage as she saw the glint of mischief in his eyes. “Let me up, you rogue.” His warm hands came up to the backs of her shoulders, caressing in slow circles. “Climb into bed with me.” “Are you mad?

No longer able to maintain the position, Devon dropped back to the pillows with a pained sound, his weight pinning her hands. “Sorry,” he managed. Kathleen tugged at her imprisoned arms. “Not at all…but if you wouldn’t mind…” Recovering his breath, Devon was slow to respond as he took stock of the situation. She was torn between amusement and outrage as she saw the glint of mischief in his eyes. “Let me up, you rogue.” His warm hands came up to the backs of her shoulders, caressing in slow circles. “Climb into bed with me.” “Are you mad?” As she strained to free herself, he reached for the loose braid that hung over her shoulder and played with it idly. “You did last night,” he pointed out. Kathleen went still, her eyes widening. So he did remember.

It took two hours to read the report, which was more thorough than Devon would have ever expected--and it didn’t appear to be finished by half. Apparently West was visiting every tenant farm on the estate, making detailed notes about each family’s problems and concerns, the conditions of their property, their knowledge and views of farming techniques. Sensing a movement, Devon turned in his chair and saw Kathleen in the doorway. She was dressed in widow’s weeds again, her hair pinned in a braided coil, her wrists encircled with demure white cuffs. Her cheeks were very pink. Devon could have devoured her in one bite. Instead, he gave her a neutral glance as he rose to his feet. “Skirts,” he said in a tone of mild surprise, as if it were a novelty to see her in a dress. “Where are you going?” “To the library for a lesson with the girls. But I noticed that you were in here, and I wondered if you’d read Mr. Ravenel’s report.” “I have. I’m impressed by his dedication. Also rather astonished, since West advised me to sell the estate, lock, stock, and barrel, just before he left London.” Kathleen smiled and studied him with those tip-tilted eyes. He could see tiny rays in the light brown irises, like gold threads. “I’m very glad you didn’t,” she said softly. “I think perhaps he might be too.” All the heat from their earlier encounter came rushing back so fast that it hurt, his flesh rising with a swift ache beneath the layers of his clothes. Devon was profoundly grateful for the concealment of his suit coat.

Kathleen and Devon managed to focus most of the conversation on one of Lady Berwick's favorite subjects: horses. Both Lord and Lady Berwick were keen horse enthusiasts, occupying themselves with the training of thoroughbreds at their Leominster estate. In fact, that was how they had originally become acquainted with Kathleen's parents, Lord and Lady Carbery, who had owned an Arabian stud farm in Ireland. Lady Berwick displayed a lively interest upon learning that Kathleen would inherit at least two dozen horses of purebred Arabian stock, and a parcel of land comprising a riding school, stables, paddocks, and an arena.

So, hard cases are not a special fact about the categories male and female. Many categories are bound, eventually, to run into hard cases that can’t be automatically settled one way or the other on present understandings of the category. We mostly form our categories as conceptual tools to help us negotiate the everyday world and the sort of cases we encounter most. So it’s not surprising that, when an unusual case turns up, we don’t always know how to classify it.

To academic philosophers like me, keen to connect philosophy with working science in fruitful ways and to make appropriately nuanced distinctions between what is discovered by humans in the world as opposed to what is put there by them, Butler’s worldview looks adolescently, simplistically monotonic. In short: she thinks it’s all put there. Yet

So straight away I want to be absolutely clear about what I’m not saying, before I go on to explain and justify these points in more detail in the next chapter. (I can anticipate a lot of these misunderstandings because they’re frequently fired at me by critics, as assumptions about what I must really be saying.) I’m not saying that to physically alter oneself to look like the opposite sex, or unlike one’s own sex, or both, isn’t ever a reasonable thing for adults to do in response to developing a misaligned gender identity. I think it can be, and have explained why in Chapter 4. More generally, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with looking or being radically sex nonconforming, either naturally or artificially. Quite the opposite. Personally speaking, I value and celebrate sex nonconformity: masculine women, feminine men and androgyny. Indeed, it’s partly in the service of this evaluation that I’ve made the arguments I have. I’m not underplaying the psychological relief it gives many trans people to think of themselves as members of the opposite sex. Nor, perhaps surprisingly, am I saying that trans women and trans men, respectively, shouldn’t ever call themselves ‘women’ and ‘men’ or be referred to that way by those around them. I’ll explain why in the next chapter. I’m not saying trans people are ‘deceivers’, nor that they are ‘delusional’ or ‘duped’ – far from it. I’ll explain why in the next chapter, so there can be no doubt.

demiflux’ – that is, people ‘whose gender identity is partially fluid, with the other part(s) being static’.

standpoint epistemology’. This is the idea that some forms of knowledge are socially situated, so that only if you are in a particular social situation are you able to easily acquire that kind of knowledge. The term originally comes from Marxism and the idea that oppressed people can have insight into two perspectives or ‘standpoints’ at once – their own and their oppressors’ – whereas oppressors can have only one perspective (their own). Since the workers are subject to bourgeois rules and a bourgeois worldview, they get insight into the bourgeoisie’s standpoint. Additionally, though, workers have intimate knowledge of their own socially situated standpoint, which the bourgeoisie lacks. This idea has been adopted by several social justice movements, including feminism, critical race theory and trans activism.

pan-gender’, understood as people who identify ‘with a multitude, and perhaps infinite (going beyond the current knowledge of genders) number of genders either simultaneously, to varying degrees, or over the course of time’.

demifluid’ – that is, the policy states, people ‘whose gender identity is partially fluid whilst the other part(s) are static’.

The New Zealand psychologist and paediatrician John Money is perhaps most well known for his involvement in an ethically dubious clinical case: the involuntary medical ‘sex reassignment’ of male child David Reimer after a severely botched circumcision, whose tragic story ended in his suicide as an adult.

Facebook offers the user a choice of seventy-one ‘gender options’.

Ultimately, reality will hit you in the face at some point - because it's reality. We don't build it with words. We don't socially construct it through our acts of will. It's out there. It's real.

For chicken, beef, veal, or other meat-based stock, the method remains the same. You can just simmer chicken in water with the vegetables. That's known as white stock, Ted said. But you will get more flavor if you roast the bones first.

In any case, trans people reasonably disagree among themselves about gender identity. Trans people aren’t an intellectual monolith, and misaligned gender identity, understood as a general concept, is not something lived experience delivers straight to trans brains in a transparent and uninterpreted way.

The background assumption seems to be that, paradoxically, by identifying and discussing socially produced inequalities, we further entrench them; whereas if we ignore them, perhaps they will go away.

In a 2018 Populous survey in the UK involving 2,074 respondents (49% male, 51%female, weighted across a range of age groups), participants were asked 'to think about a person who was born male and has male genitalia but who identifies as a woman'. They were then asked: 'In your own personal view would you consider this person to be a woman or a man?' 19% answered 'woman'; 52% of respondents answered 'man', 7% said 'not a man or a woman', 20% said 'don't know', and 3% preferred not to say.

As developed by trans activists, standpoint epistemology says there are special forms of standpoint-related knowledge about trans experience available only to trans people, not cis people. For instance, only trans people can properly understand the pernicious effects of ‘cis privilege’, and how it intersects with other forms of oppression to produce certain kinds of lived experience. As with some versions of feminism and critical race theory, when transmuted through popular culture this has quickly become the idea that only trans people can legitimately say anything about their own nature and interests including on philosophical matters of gender identity. Cis people, including feminists and lesbians, have nothing useful to contribute here. Their assumption that they do have something useful to contribute is a further manifestation of their unmerited privilege.

LGBT activism also fails on intersectionality for trans people themselves. It has no interest in acknowledging the somewhat different political and social situations of trans men and trans women respectively, but insists on treating both as identical for the purposes of lobbying. As far as trans activism is apparently concerned, there is no relevant difference in the situations of a fourteen-year-old transidentifying teenage female, attracted to other females, who is crowdfunding ‘top surgery’ and self-harming in the meantime, and a forty-one-year-old late-transitioning autogynephilic heterosexual male with no intention of divorcing the wife.

I’ve tried to think of every reason why I should wash my hands of this place. But I keep returning to the conclusion that I owe it to every man, woman, and child on this estate to try and save the estate. Eversby Priory has been the work of generations. I can’t destroy it.” “I think that’s a very admirable decision,” she said with a hesitant smile. His mouth twisted. “My brother calls it vanity. He predicts failure, of course.” “Then I’ll be the counterbalance,” she said impulsively, “and predict success.” Devon gave her an alert glance, and he dazzled her with a quick grin. “Don’t put money on it,” he advised. The smile faded except for a lingering quirk at one corner of his mouth. “I kept waking during the night,” he said, “arguing with myself. But then it occurred to me to wonder what my father would have done, had he lived long enough to find himself in my position.” “He would have saved the estate?” “No, he wouldn’t have considered it for a second.” Devon laughed shortly. “It’s safe to say that doing the opposite of what my father would have done is always the right choice.” Kathleen regarded him with sympathy. “Did he drink?” she dared to ask. “He did everything. And if he liked it, he did it to excess. A Ravenel through and through.” She nodded, thinking of Theo. “It has occurred to me,” she ventured, “that the family temperament isn’t well suited to stewardship.” Amusement glinted in his eyes. “Speaking as a man who has the family temperament in full measure, I agree. I wish I could claim to have a mother from steady, pragmatic stock, to balance out the Ravenel wildness. Unfortunately she was worse.” “Worse?” Kathleen asked, her eyes widening. “She had a temper?” “No, but she was unstable. Flighty. It’s no exaggeration to say there were days at a time when she forgot she even had children.” “My parents were very attentive and involved,” Kathleen volunteered after a moment. “As long as you were a horse.

In the morning, I jumped out of bed with a burst of excitement, the song “Child of Mine” playing in my head. Happy birthday to me! I’d been wanting a baby for the past several years, and finding a donor I felt so comfortable with seemed like the best birthday present ever. Heading to the computer, I smiled at my good fortune—I was really going to do this. I typed in the sperm bank’s URL, found the donor’s profile, and read it all over again. I was just as certain as I’d been the night before that he was The One—the one that would make sense to my child when he or she asked why, of all the possible donors, I chose this guy. I placed the donor in my online shopping cart—just as I might with a book on Amazon—double-checked the order, then clicked Purchase Vials. I’m having a baby! I thought. The moment felt monumental. As the order processed, I planned what I had to do next: Make an appointment for the insemination, buy prenatal vitamins, put together a baby registry, get the baby’s room set up. Between thoughts, I noticed that my order was taking a while to complete. The rotating circle on my screen, known as the “spinning wheel of death,” seemed to be spinning for an unusually long time. I waited, waited some more, and finally tried using the back button in case my computer was crashing. But nothing happened. Finally, the spinning wheel of death disappeared and a message popped up: Out of stock. Out of stock? I figured there must be some computer glitch—maybe when I pressed the back button?—so I speed-dialed the sperm bank and asked for Kathleen, but she was out and I got transferred to a customer-service rep named Barb. Barb looked into the matter and determined that this was no glitch. I’d selected a very popular donor, she said. She went on to explain that popular donors went quickly and that, while the company tried to “restock” their “inventory” often, there was a six-month hold for it so it could get quarantined and tested. Even when the inventory was made available, she said, there still might be a long wait, because some people had placed it on back order. As Barb spoke, I thought of how Kathleen had called just yesterday. Now it occurred to me that maybe she’d suggested this donor to several women. Like me, maybe many women had bonded with Kathleen over her honest appraisals of semen.

Their first and only child was born on 4 May 1929, on John’s fine old estate near Brussels. Edda Kathleen Hepburn van Heemstra, a long baby with the prettiest, ‘laughing’ eyes, came into the world at a time of grave economic and political unrest. The impending slump of 1929, with the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, would shake the financial structure of the whole world to its foundations. No continent would escape the catastrophe, but in Europe its consequences would be tragic. The slump would sweep through Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany like a hurricane, leaving wreckage and despair in its wake.