£10k essay prize for arguing both sides of trans debate
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
