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I'll be looking out for a rebuttal (since I'm unlikely to bother to go and read the book itself).
I don't know much about Kathleen Stock though I do recognise that she's not one of the most rabid anti-trans people, and I'm pretty sure her views are honestly held.
However she does defend transphobes - or at least, she defends the right of transphobes to say things like 'trans women are men' - which means to me that she's a bit like what Jordan Peterson is to the far right, kind of a gateway drug.
I'm doing my very best on this to recognise my trans pals but also recognise that there are a lot of scared women out there who've been fed a pack of lies about how the GRA changes would mean blokes could just walk into your changing room and leer at you. Again I don't agree with Blair on much but I do agree that patient persuasion changes more minds than hurling insults.
ReekBlefs-
However she does defend transphobes - or at least, she defends the right of transphobes to say things like 'trans women are men' - which means to me that she's a bit like what Jordan Peterson is to the far right, kind of a gateway drug.
I know what you mean, but I'm not really a fan of finding stuff in people's back catalogue of writing as a justification for ignoring everything they say. That seems to be a specific habit of progressive types (which I'd broadly place myself within) that just polarises debates and feeds the right-wing narrative of them being the defenders of free speech. To be fair it's not a strong example, in any case, since it seems to be her discussion of whether hate crime legislation was applicable to the retweeting of a poem (that she agrees was rude and unkind). That seems like fairly meat-and-potatoes work for a philosopher whose work hinges on being able to use language to express sometimes unwelcome viewpoints without worrying about prosecution.
More broadly I think one has to find someone on the other side of the debate who can at least intelligently articulate arguments. If you can work out responses to those, then finding responses to more stupid arguments should be straightforward, and I think we need to maintain a healthy distinction regarding speech of where arguments are put as part of a genuine discussion vs. those that are actually inciting harm (as with Mill's corn dealer example). That's not to say that there's no such thing as fostering a negative environment (anyone who cycles and reads any newspaper opinion pieces knows that), but if we don't engage with any counter arguments at all (on the basis that the mere utterance of them is harmful), then we're not really doing anything other than saying "we've made everyone's mind up for them." (Obviously that being the perceived tone of the left is quite relevant to the rest of this thread).
It's is also possible, with a bit of effort not to get on a slippery slope as long as you read broadly. Taking your example, thinking that Jordan Peterson occasionally says interesting things is still completely compatible with the belief that Ben Shapiro is just a diminutive bellend with nothing interesting to say at all.
ffm
I realise I didn't respond to this. I think her take on it has, at least for me, clarified just how extensive and impactful some of the "structural stuff" is. Her contribution to this Guardian podcast (part 1 here) is interesting inasmuch as it lays out that legal recognition of gender reassignment is not the issue, but the subsequent emphasis on the primacy of (by-definition-personal and untestable) gender identity potentially restructures our concepts of categories and rights across the whole of society. That can't really be hand-waved away as some people do in this debate. She's also very forthright on what she thinks it means for the safeguarding of women. I, like many here, don't feel comfortable espousing or opposing any particular view on that aspect though. She's also just released a book that, predictably, is reviewed in all the wrong places, but here's an overview from the ES. I'll be looking out for a rebuttal (since I'm unlikely to bother to go and read the book itself).