An essay competition with a £10,000 prize will ask undergraduate students to settle the issue of whether “transwomen” are women.
The inaugural Edinlight contest will follow the principles of critical thinking espoused by John Stuart Mill, the 19th-century Scottish philosopher.
Whether the issue will be resolved by the winner is itself up for debate: the intriguing element of the competition is that entrants must persuasively argue each side of the proposition.
The organisers of Edinlight, which is open to all UK undergraduates, have already stoked controversy with their explanation of the term “transwomen” in the competition’s title.
Kapil Summan, 35, a journalist in Scotland, is one of the competition organisers. He said that trans activists used “trans women” as two words, because that implies that men who transition become women. He acknowledged that radical feminists were more likely to write “transwomen”.
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“It makes no sense for us to use ‘trans women’ [in the essay question] since it affirms the point we’re asking entrants to argue against,” he said. “It is true that ‘transwomen’ affirms the opposite,” he conceded, “but we have to choose one.”
Summan is running the competition with James Christie, founder of the Edinburgh Enlightenment Network. He said the competition was designed to “foster discussion and encourage nuanced thinking, both of which appear to have been in decline at universities over recent years”. The deadline for entries is January 14.
Christie, 50, an Edinburgh native, founded the network last year because of concern that freedom of speech was under threat.
Trans issues are a subject of robust debate in Scotland, with a ruling from an Edinburgh court pending over a dispute between Holyrood, which wants to reform gender recognition legislation, and Westminster.
Lord Sumption confirmed last night that he will be a judge in the competition.
