It is also worth considering the history of the gender-critical philosophers’ definition of “woman”: “adult human female.” This definition is central to their thesis, and a philosopher might want to treat it as if it fell straight down from Plato’s heaven. But in truth, it first gained currency on the transphobic internet forum Mumsnet Towers in 2015; and it was popularized in 2018 by the right-wing activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, a.k.a. Posie Parker, who began a public campaign centered on the phrase. She and others paid for “adult human female” billboards, draped “adult human female” t-shirts over the statues of famous women, and harassed trans people by stickering their houses. And where did Parker get the money for all this? American evangelicals; the Heritage Foundation; money laundered through massive anonymous crowdfunding donations.12 Kathleen Stock and her fellow travelers are merely putting a respectable face on a right-wing hate movement, like the “race realists” who make white supremacy sound polite. We should give their ideas about as much credence as we give modern-day phrenologists.
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