First Person In-Trans-itive Tense?
Monday, 6 January 2025
Transitive Future Perfect
OK, I’m just making shit up. But if you’re not a professional grammarian, maybe you didn’t know?
Does Ed STILL Not Know What He’s Talking About?
Does Ed (that’s still me, folks) still not know what he’s talking about? You decide.
I posted on Friendly Atheist, a site with vastly more readers/subscribers than my own Letters, in response to a guest essay by Aaron Rabinowitz thereon titled: “Biology is Not Ethics: A Response to Jerry Coyne's Anti-trans Essay”:
As a tentative backer of the alleged Coyne-Pinker-Dawkins "cult" and as a non-biologist/ethicist/philosopher and as a friend and fan of Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor (FFRF leaders), please allow me to say that Aaron Rabinowitz's essay looks interesting and I plan (tentatively) to comment/reply to it on my blog, Letters to a Free Country, on Monday—AFTER I read it with some care. I'm a bit discouraged that at least a few commenters here on FA have "pre-attacked" anyone who is willing to read and reply to Rabinowitz. We—everyone, on all sides—really do need to read and contemplate, THEN hold forth. Yes, that includes me.
If all I read were the title of Rabinowitz's essay, I’d say “agree” to the primary title and “disagree” to the subtitle. But now I’ve read the whole essay.
As noted, I make no claim to being a biologist, an ethicist, or a philosopher. So what is my “expertise,” if any?
My undergraduate major, many decades ago, was English—so perhaps the expertise I want to claim is linguistic. But really what I claim—because it’s important to me, not because it must be to you—is a respect for and devotion to freethought, to honest debate, and to free expression. And that necessarily means support for give-and-take, where those doing the discussing (on all sides) can make claims, be criticized, can then change their claims or clarify them or improve their defense of them. And can, when relevant, cite sources for claims in a way that those sources can be examined and considered by others. All without being called an asshole or some other pointless insult unrelated to the discussion.
I’ve been in dozens of debates, all across the US (plus a few in the UK), on mostly related topics: existence of any gods; church/state separation; atheism vs. Christianity; etc. Words matter. Definitions matter.
Definitions
Especially in formal debates, but actually in any sort of disagreement, defining key terms can often be the most important bit. If you define “atheism” the way I do, that’s quite different from the way it has sometimes been defined historically: “lack of the required beliefs about the preferred or accepted god(s).” So, many is the time that a Catholic Christian has considered a Protestant Christian irreligious—and has disparagingly called Protestants atheists. And vice versa, of course.
And not just in debates, formal or otherwise: if your national community is called America, then what “American” means is quite important. If you support “women’s basketball,” you need to define what both words mean: not only what “basketball” means, but whether are you talking middle school basketball or college-level or professional. And “women” also means something, or there’s no need to differentiate it from “men’s.” And of course it’s not just regarding sports.
If “women’s prison” means anything at all, it depends on what “women” means. If, to be plain here, “a woman is whoever she says she is” then the only one who can define “woman” is someone claiming to be one. Then everyone convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison can choose what prison system they prefer. Segregation by sex or gender will cease to be meaningful. If someone making the claim that “a woman is whoever she says she is” is instead really claiming that prisons should not be segregated by sex or gender, he should, as I see it, say so plainly—and then we can discuss that.
Ethicist: An ethicist is a person who specializes in a set of moral principles: in a theory or system of moral values
Worth noting, I think, about this definition—and any other I could find—is that it does not exclude non-professional ethicists from expressing opinions on ethical questions. If it did, that would surely be unethical. I think. More about this below.
Trans or Anti-trans?
Jerry Coyne (and many others—J. K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame, for example) have been roundly condemned as “anti-trans”—but what does that mean? After all, Coyne explicitly does not deny the legitimate existence of transgendered people. He wrote, in the essay he’s now been excoriated over, that
. . . gender, the sex role one assumes in society. To all intents and purposes, sex is binary, but gender is more spectrum-like, though it still has two camel’s-hump modes around “male” and “female.” While most people enact gender roles associated with their biological sex (those camel humps), an appreciable number of people mix both roles or even reject male and female roles altogether.
If the definition of anti-trans is “one who denies that transgender roles are possible or even acceptable,” then Coyne is not anti-trans. By that definition one can make a good case that President-Elect Donald Trump or freshly re-elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Christian Nationalists in general are anti-trans. (My personal speculative opinion is that Trump doesn’t really care—that he sees all “trans issues” as things he can exploit politically, not as actual issues.)
And, according to Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American):
As Musk and Trump appear to be making up for their defense of immigration by courting the far right again, Anthony Adragna of Politico reported today that incoming House Republicans are also relying on culture wars to hold their coalition together. Adragna reports they are planning to make trans rights their “marquee fight” of 2025.
What about people who think that transgender roles exist but are necessarily improper, immoral, perverted, illegal or the like? Again Trump and Johnson and Christian Nationalists likely fit the definition (again with the caveat that Trump may well actually be personally indifferent). But Coyne? He wrote, in the same essay replying to Grant,
Transgender people should surely enjoy all the moral and legal rights of everyone else. But moral and legal rights do not extend to areas in which the “indelible stamp” of sex results in compromising the legal and moral rights of others.
One can disagree with Coyne’s conclusions—I don’t—but it seems absurd to claim, in light of these words, that he claims transgender = improper, illegal, immoral, etc.
So, is Coyne’s definition of “trans” correct? I don’t know. But whatever one means by anti-trans, one must first define “trans” and “anti-trans” before anyone can judge whether anyone is anti-trans.
Rabinowitz’s essay
To turn now more specifically to Aaron Rabinowitz’s essay on Friendly Atheist (link below if you missed it), he criticized Jerry Coyne for allegedly pretending to expertise as an ethicist, for overstepping his status as a pre-eminent biologist. But I reread Coyne’s essay with care and nowhere did he state or imply that he’s an ethicist, expert or otherwise.
He was not publishing an essay in Ethics Quarterly or the International Journal of Ethics—he was responding to an essay on an FFRF site by an intern. She (Kat Grant—she and Coyne both refer to her as “they”—but that is confusing and irrational to an old English major like me) makes claims about transgender women. Coyne attempts to rebut those, offering published sources in response—and he includes links so readers can evaluate those sources.
Rabinowitz’s argument about Coyne-as-ethicist is slightly more nuanced than this—but only slightly. And he does not make his case.
I did find Coyne’s discussion a bit careless and misleading in one important respect. He wrote:
A cross-comparison of statistics from the U.K. Ministry of Justice and the U.K. Census shows that while almost 20 percent of male prisoners and a maximum of 3 percent of female prisoners have committed sex offenses, at least 41 percent of trans-identifying prisoners were convicted of these crimes. Transgender, then, appear to be twice as likely as natal males and at least 14 times as likely as natal females to be sex offenders. While these data are imperfect because they’re based only on those who are caught, or on some who declare their female gender only after conviction, they suggest that transgender women are far more sexually predatory than biological women and somewhat more predatory than biological men. There are suggestions of similar trends in Scotland, New Zealand, and Australia.
My problem with this is that it under-emphasizes the problems with the data for part of it (based only on those caught and convicted of crimes—see Coyne’s sentence that I added italics to for emphasis). There are any number of factors (class, income, ethnicity, approach of the legal system in question) that could affect data like this only among convicts and Coyne should have said as much. Imputing malevolence or bigotry to Coyne is, however, not reasonably justified.
Coyne does offer some opinions that are related to ethics, of course.
For example,
Transgender women, for example, should not compete athletically against biological women; should not serve as rape counselors and workers in battered women’s shelters; or, if convicted of a crime, should not be placed in a women’s prison.
My own “ethical” opinion is close to Coyne’s. I would probably—but only after I studied the matter more carefully, including discussions with rape counselors and probably even with women who’ve been victims of rape or of women-batterers, modify some of what Coyne wrote slightly to say:
Neither men or women, cis- or trans-gendered, should serve as rape counselors and as workers in battered women’s shelters, unless the counselors or others working there pass a background check; even then, no one should so serve unless the clients are aware of and accept the status of the counselors/workers.
I can imagine circumstances where there might be an advantage to victims of having a man or a trans woman on hand, but the rights, needs, and wants of the victims, even if sometimes irrational, should be paramount.
My opinion, above, certainly has ethical implications, and it is perhaps ill-informed enough that it deserves criticisms in ways I’m unaware of. And, again, I’m not an ethicist. But I cannot imagine a world where no one is entitled to express opinions that ethics bear on unless they can prove they have ethicist credentials. That goes for Jerry Coyne—but it also goes for Kat Grant.
In sum, my assessment of Rabinowitz’s critique of Coyne’s reply to Grant is that the critique is misleadingly and unfairly harsh. Among other problems, he declares that Coyne is making ethical claims (he is) and pretending he’s an ethics expert (he didn’t)—while not criticizing Grant for making ethical claims. Rabinowitz also insists that Coyne is “anti-trans” without ever defining what that means (beyond just disagreeing with Kat Grant and Rabinowitz.) Disgustingly, Rabinowitz closes with an unwarranted insult:
That is why it is our obligation as moral reasoners to point out when those conclusions are, in fact, bigotry.
No such thing is “in fact.” It bothers me that there does not seem to be what I’ve referred to as “honest disagreement” here—not just in Aaron Rabinowitz’s essay but in the actions of FFRF. There is no good reason, in my opinion, to even disagree with most of what Coyne wrote. But it’s outrageous to not merely explain why you disagree with someone’s words, but to accuse them flatly of bigotry.
What if, absurdly, I decided that Aaron Rabinowitz was anti-semitic—and was disagreeing with Coyne because Coyne is a Jewish atheist? And further imagine that I could find no evidence to support my conclusion (as indeed I couldn’t)—and then I concluded that his reply to Coyne was, “in fact, bigotry.” You’d be wise to dismiss my assertion out of hand.
Conclusion: Serious Freethinking
Serious freethinking, requires, in my view, expressing views and understanding and accepting that your views may not be accepted as correct by everyone. Real disagreement can occur, and this should not lead FFRF or anyone else to declare, as it did in (unwisely) removing Coyne’s reply to Grant,
We regret any distress caused by this post and are committed to ensuring it doesn’t happen again.
That’s a terrible outcome. Of course FFRF should not publish a hateful, bigoted essay (Coyne’s wasn’t) and then remove it—it should instead post essays that disagree with other essays and promise to keep posting words from people who think freely enough to not always toe anyone’s dogmatic party line—and to say so.
I am, I do solemnly affirm, eager for thoughtful comments, including those that take me to task. And I won’t delete your comment just because I don’t agree with it. If you declare that I’m an asshole, I’ll come up with some fitting, dignified, intellectual reply. Something involving rubber and glue and bouncing off me and sticking to you.
Relevant links of interest—
https://freethoughtnow.org/what-is-a-woman/. Kat Grant
https://web.archive.org/web/20241227095242/https://freethoughtnow.org/biology-is-not-bigotry/. Jerry Coyne reply to Kat Grant
https://freethoughtnow.org/freedom-from-religion-foundation-supports-lgbtqia-plus-rights/. FFRF’s statement on removing Coyne’s essay.
https://secularhumanism.org/exclusive/the-regrettable-dogmatism-of-ffrf/ Ron Lindsay
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-myth-of-the-god-shaped-hole/. Richard Dawkins
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/12/29/i-resign-from-the-freedom-from-religion-foundation/ Jerry Coyne on leaving FFRF
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/12/29/steve-pinker-resigns-from-the-freedom-of-religion-foundation/ Jerry Coyne on Pinker leaving FFRF
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/12/29/a-third-one-leaves-the-fold-richard-dawkins-resigns-from-the-freedom-from-religion-foundation/ Jerry Coyne on Dawkins leaving FFRF
https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/ Cornell mega study on treatment of gender dysphoria, etc.
https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/. J K Rowling
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/01/05/the-atlantic-on-womens-sports/. More on women’s sports
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Rabinowitz says, "Coyne used specious reasoning and flawed research to argue that transgender individuals are more likely to be sexual predators than cisgender individuals and that they should therefore be barred from some jobs and female-only spaces.”
But Coyne didn't say anything of the kind. His claim that "transgender individuals are more likely to be sexual predators than cisgender individuals” appears in a completely different part of his essay from “They should be barred from some jobs and female-only spaces”, and there is absolutely no suggestion of a “therefore” in his essay.
Many women prefer not to undress in the same room as people with penises. Many, if not most, rape counselling centres and shelters make a point of hiring only female staff out of consideration for the feelings of the traumatised rape victims. If there is discrimination here, it is against men in general, not specifically against men who have decided to identify as women. The latter may sincerely feel they are women. but a good case could be made that it's the feelings of the rape victims that matter.
Rabinowitz's linking of the two separate parts of Coyne's article with a gratuitous "therefore", if not downright mendacious, does no credit to the qualified ethicist that he claims to be.
Thank you for this. Yes, I agree with your rewriting of one bit of my piece, which is this:
My own “ethical” opinion is close to Coyne’s. I would probably—but only after I studied the matter more carefully, including discussions with rape counselors and probably even with women who’ve been victims of rape or of women-batterers, modify some of what Coyne wrote slightly to say:
Neither men or women, cis- or trans-gendered, should serve as rape counselors and as workers in battered women’s shelters, unless the counselors or others working there pass a background check; even then, no one should so serve unless the clients are aware of and accept the status of the counselors/workers.
I MEANT that but just forgot to insert the caveat. Let this be the real interpretation of what I said. And thanks again.