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.
I honestly think my Letters... blog has hit the big-time when Richard Dawkins replies! And the more so when he does with such cogency and clarity. Many thanks. (As to the double posting, that is, as far as I can tell, a technical glitch from Substack--and I don't really know how to correct it or delete one.) Thanks again!
As I just discovered your blog, Ed, I'm gratified and impressed that both Richard and Jerry are readers, as is Massimo Pigliucci with whom I've briefly interacted and follow. I suspect that there are a few other readers whom I've learned from in the past. Re the duplicate, I 'liked' both versions, then clicked the three dots at the upper right across from the poster's name. One option is to collapse the comment, which at least removes it from one's eyes!
That's an absurd defense of Coyne. What is Coyne's purpose in arguing that trans women are much more likely to be sexual predators in his essay if it is not to support his view that they should be discriminated against in some settings?
As noted in my Letter, Coyne was writing in reply to an essay by Kat Grant. Countering her assertions, however wisely or well, was his stated purpose. I see no reason to doubt that statement. Anyone who doesn't agree with his argument(s) can certainly counter those. But "absurd"? Not apparently.
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.
If you have to be a professional ethicist to make a moral judgment, I guess the rest of us are free to be amoral anarchists. How silly can you get? Can ethics be grounded in biology? Sure. Aristotle did it. He had the fundamental insight that to know the human good you need to know what kind of an organism the human being is.
Coyne is only making a distinction feminists have always made. Sex is biology and gender is identity. As Coyne notes, these two strongly correlate but do not completely overlap. In any given context, the biology or the identity might be more important. With respect to athletic competition, biological sex is what matters. The fastest woman in the 100m was Florence Griffifth-Joyner at 10.49 seconds. The fastest man was Usain Bolt at 9.58 seconds, almost a whole second faster (in the 100m dash, a second is an eternity). The U.S. Army conducted studies concerning women in infantry combat roles and found that women on average had 50% less upper body strength than men. Men have more muscle mass and a higher proportion of muscle to body fat.
Of course, many individual women are far more athletic (or dangerous!) than many individual men. I recently read a most satisfying story about a 115 pound woman who was approached by a much larger man. He tried to steal her cell phone. She, however, was a professional mixed martial artist, and she proceeded to beat the snot out of him and hold him until the police arrived. Yet in athletic competition, the biological differences do matter, and a biological male competing against biological females is inherently unfair.
Ed, once again I find myself in agreement. I know, this is getting boring. As you point out, in no reasonable sense of ”anti-trans” are Coyne, Rowling, Dawkins, and a host of others (including me!) anti-trans. But sure, if “anti-trans” simply means “anyone who disagrees with a very specific line of thought about trans issues” then yeah, a lot of people will turn out to be anti-trans. That second meaning, however, reveals the sort of truly intolerant attitudes that led Obama recently to warn that sections of the Left are engaging in a circular firing squad, i.e., shooting at their own allies, rather than at Trump, Johnson, and Christian Nationalists—who are their real enemy.
One thing that has bothered me in this whole discussion is that people usually make two distinctions where there should be three or four. We keep talking about sex (biological, defined by gamete size) and gender (presumably socially constructed). But if gender is entirely socially constructed then declarations like “I feel trapped in the wrong body” would be difficult to make sense of. Such statements seem to indicate that people who suffer from gender dysphoria feel their predicament isn’t a choice, and it certainly is not imposed by society. So perhaps there is some biology there too. Then we have a third concept, that of gender roles. One can feel a woman (gender) but not wanting to stay at home, take care of the kids, and prepare a martini for her husband when he comes back home (a gender role as defined, say, in 1950s America). And we have a fourth concept: sexual preference (you know, heterosexuals, male homosexuals, lesbians, and a number of others). Many of these people also say that their preference doesn’t feel like a choice, which suggests at least some degree of biology, not just culture. So it’s damn complicated, with more distinctions to be made than it is usually acknowledged, and more confusing interactions between biology and culture, nature and nurture. Which means that anyone taking simple, rigid positions on the basis that they absolutely know this or that is a fool or attempting to take us for fools.
I completely agree with your assessment of Rabinowitz’s essay. Coyne did not pretend to be an ethicist; everyone is entitled to (reasoned, fact based) opinions on ethics; and the conclusion about “we moral reasoners” is presumptuous, disgusting, and most definitely not an example of freethinking.
I also agree that it is highly unfortunate that FFRF has fallen prey to this sort of dogmatism, which is particularly ironic for an organization devoted to freethinking.
One last comment: the problem that we are talking about is not a problem with “the Left.” It is a problem with a small (if highly vocal and currently influential) fraction of the Left. There are plenty of liberal progressives who are perfectly fine with what Coyne has written and wished we moved away from this whole thing and face the real problems that affect millions both in the US and worldwide. Like the problem posed by the rise of Christian Nationalism in the US, or of Neo-Nazism in Germany.
The idea that gender is entirely a social construct is a gratuitous assumption, widely accepted as an ideological imperative rather than as an empirical fact. Of course, gender roles and expected behaviors do differ somewhat across time and cultures. When I was a boy, I was taught that girls cry but that boys suck it up. Crying was sissy. Then I read the Iliad where Achilles cries inconsolably over the death of Patroclus. There was certainly nothing sissy about Achilles. In that riveting scene in Book I, Achilles starts to draw his great sword to cut down Agamemnon. It took Athena's intervention to stop him. No human could have. This made me think that not everything I had been told about being a boy was true.
Keith, love the mythological example! Agreed, that too is a gratuitous assumption. For instance, it’s *possible* that natural selection built different type of child-caring instincts in females as compared to males. But a lot of Leftists simply don’t want to hear about that because they think it opens a path to the exploitation of women. And that’s true. But it’s also true that we can acknowledge the influence of biology without therefore having to bow to it. Pinker once wrote that he chose not to have children and to focus on writing and friends instead, adding “and if my genes don’t like it they can go jump into the river.” Agreed.
She also stated that in saying than trans women are women the Labor Party showed itself to be unable to defend women's rights placing the claim of trans identity in direct opposition to women's rights.
If I carefully analyzed all the kerfuffle about JKR, perhaps I'd change my mind. I care about these issues, but they're not my top priority. I personally have no doubt that transgender people have suffered hate crimes and deserve protection. I support trans rights but not absolutely--not in opposition to clear women's rights. My personal interactions with trans women have all been positive--though not many.
I think it's reasonable for these issues to not be your top priority. I would add that even if trans rights are a high priority for you, you don't have to take the time to go research JKR's statements about trans people. But then I would say it's inappropriate to defend JKR from the claim that she is anti-trans as Massimo does above from people who have taken the time to look into her behavior.
Well, I know and trust Massimo. And I've read some absurd claims about JKR before, related to women's prisons as I recall. If I support restrictions on who is sent to women's prisons, does that make me anti-trans? Anti-men? Guy though I am, I'm firmly opposed to convicted people with dicks being housed in women's prison.
I presented specific facts. There's no need to be hypothetical. Does opposing the inclusion of trans people in a hate crime bill qualify as anti-trans?
JKR's opposition to the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, which came into force on April 1 (!) 2024 was concerned with the possibility that it would become illegal to state someone's factual sex. She tested that proposition with her tweets, which were found not to breach the law. Trans people have the right to exist, but not to compel the speech of everyone else.
Of course that's hypothetical--what exactly does the bill say, and how can it be interpreted? What unintended consequences might it have? I've given you my opinion, but I'm no legislator or legal expert. If the bill could somehow pass or fail based on my vote, I'd certainly investigate. Do you support bills by GA state reps designed to protect voting rights? Why or why not?
If the category "woman" includes some men who claim to have an unverifiable feeling that they themselves are women, then the category becomes utterly meaningless.
How can women fight for their rights if they can't even define themselves?
JKR's first foray into the sex/gender issue was her tweet saying, "Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill"
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.
I have a BA in Philosophy NYU, 1968, and some grad courses there and at Tufts (3 decades later) where I met Dan Dennett a few times. He was a wonderful man who died too soon.
I agree with your analysis, and most of what Coyne has written recently on this topic. FFRF is in the wrong. Nothing to add, except to reinforce that trans women shouldn't be allowed to compete with biological women in sports requiring strength and speed. Fairness for and risk to the latter are primary.
I will venture a brief comment on atheism, which is often attacked as 'having no evidence' for their position. Should anyone present solid evidence for the existence of anything not physical (energy-matter-information) or dependent upon it for existence, a Nobel Prize surely awaits. Asking for proof of non-existence commits The Negative Fallacy. In an open, complex system, that's impossible. One can prove that there are no coins in one's right front pants pocket as that is a closed, simple system. Reality has no known boundaries, so is best defined as "open."
The burden of proof is on the claimant of existence. Positing a "beginning" to reality is a speculation as no boundaries have yet been found. A Big Bang requires energy to occur, and some cosmologists including Martin Rees (past president of the Royal Society) hold that infinite multiverses are possible, even likely. Thus positing a "first cause" is a second order speculation based upon the first.
Leaps of faith are such because of the above reasons. 80+% of humans supposedly believe in supernaturals. Those trying to justify it have no grounds. Those claiming a leap are being honest, and I respect their position.
Thanks--Dennett was indeed a good man/writer/thinker, who I had the honor to meet a time or two--and whose books are grand. Your analysis of atheism/leaps of faith seem spot on to me. If you're ever inclined to write a guest essay for Letters... let me know. Regards, Ed B., ed@buckners.us
Ed, I'm a man of brevity. It's a combination of laziness, a desire to have minimal words to define, and probably my heredity. Kurtz or kurz means short in German, and my heritage is short stature. A curt reply is from the same root, which a quick search informed me is from Latin, and appears also as cort in French.
My main interest is in the reversal of Plague Phase which a quadrupling of human population in the lifespan of living members qualifies according to some esteemed ecologists like Bill Rees (Ecological Footprint). Fertility is crashing which is Nature's way of rebalancing us using our own negative feedback.
Lastly, I think free will is vastly overrated. (Robert Sapolsky, Gregg Caruso, Galen Strawson). Dennett was a compatibilist, holding both determinism and free will. We disagreed, as I view them as internally inconsistent. (physicalism) This makes "Free Country" in need of more research by me, as I'm new here! If I get stimulated to write something longer than this comment, I'll not be shy.
As you point out, the most significant problems often start out in the definitions. The gender activists at FFRF would likely quarrel with more than Jerry’s definition of a woman (“an adult human female.”) They will also take issue with how he defines their own terms:
Transwomen: men who identify as women.
Gender: the sex role one assumes in society
Instead, they’re probably using these:
Trans Woman: a woman who was assigned male at birth.
Gender: an inner sense or perception of being a man or woman.
Given the disparity between the two, the offended would have been frothing at the mouth from the get go.
And, by the way, I don't insist that only Coyne (or others) can define these terms. I'm fine with people defining away, then arguing from where that starts you. Just not with declaring (apparently incorrectly) their opponents "anti-trans" or "bigoted" because they disagree.
Given that both sets of definitions are loaded with the controversy at issue,* the arguing is going to start on the definitions.
Otherwise, it’s a bit like trying to debate a theist who insists you use “God - that Divine Creator Who Really Exists” — but please do go on from that point.
*Are “trans women” a type of man, or a type of woman? Do we all possess an inner sense of being a man or woman (which is unconnected to both our sex and social stereotypes?)
As no expert on these matters--not a biologist nor an ethicist nor a philosopher, not one who has carefully studied the issues--my concern is not with whose definitions are right or most reasonable but with freethought--with honest disagreements. Were I debating the hypothetical theist you cite above, I'd certainly not accept his definition--and I'd say why. But I wouldn't call him an asshole or insist--based only on that--that he's "anti-atheist."
I suspect the high level of belligerence is proportionate to the conviction that trans people are uniquely vulnerable, marginalized, attacked, and fragile when it comes to what’s purportedly their core sense of self.
It's a fundamental requirement that transwomen are men. If they weren't, they wouldn't be trans at all. JK Rowling, say, could certainly never be a transwoman.
“Trans Woman: a woman who was assigned male at birth.” That is sophistry. Birth certificates identify biological sex, infants do not have an identifiable gender. Ipso-facto this is not an assignment like flipping a coin. It is an observation . For humans testes=male, ovaries=female. The observation is not 100% guaranteed to be correct 100% of the time, there are complications, but it should be legally correctable retroactively when it was wrong due to ambiguous or misleading-appearing genitals.
Oh, I left off one important thing I wanted to say.
I also think we have to give FFRF grace and understanding. This is a really tough time for progressives. We have to forgive each other and work together for these very great threats we face.
Agreed--as I said last week, I love and respect Annie Laurie and Dan, and I remain a Life Member of FFRF. I think they erred, but they've done great things.
I realize this is an ostensibly non-partisan blog, but my comments are from the perspective of an Democrat to my core who believes we may be entering a Third Reich of our own in this country under Trump/Russ Vought/Steven Miller/Musk et al and the astonishingly rapid capitulation of our media and business leaders to them. To me, nothing is more important than electing Democrats right now. (sep. of church and state pales in comparison because it is so much longer term.) Also, I am not an intellectual like some of the responders here. I am obsessed with the MAGA takeover of our country and possibly world and spend my retirement in Georgia working to elect more Democrats to fight them.
Given that, LET'S JUST STOP THIS NONSENSE!! It is killing us (non-MAGA people of any party) and it's not a existential threat to millions like climate change, losing Ukraine, cruelty to migrants, losing our free press. FFS - it effects a teeny percent of people and this conversation would be unintelligible and weird as hell to 99% of the country. And yes, this issue may be existential to that teeny percent but their worst fears should be that only Christian Nationalists get elected because of this nonsense on the left. Except orgs that are specifically mission focused on LGBTQIA whatever, all others - including FFRF - should take a position like "We will never torment anyone on the basis of sex/gender/whatever and we support full civil/legal rights for everyone except possibly in cases where other individuals are harmed (e.g.. competitive sports, rape counseling centers. Society needs to work through those issues and that is all we have to say on the subject."
I thought the Carolina Curmudgeon response and the title of it to FFRF's retraction was brilliant.
Every policy decision and discussion should focus on the merits and substance of that policy. The identity of people who take this or that position regarding the policy under discussion is rarely more than of secondary significance. A narrow and restricted, ‘identity of the advocates’ focused partisan approach is an unserious, unreliable, short-cut, propagandistic heuristic that should not displace. or replace, an unhindered analysis and discussion.
Stay tuned--I had a somewhat contentious podcast interview today with Aaron Rabinowitz of Embrace the Void fame. Will be public in a couple of weeks (around beginning of February, I think). I'll advise when it's posted/public.
So... Heavily implying we are sex offenders (okay, actually saying it, but let's not be pedantic) based on data that is faulty on its face IS NOT free speech. It is a lie. But since you don't also find JKR to be anti-trans... who would be?
I reject your premise--see essay (last week's also) as to why. But as to the second part, here is what I wrote in the current essay about that: "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.)"
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.
I honestly think my Letters... blog has hit the big-time when Richard Dawkins replies! And the more so when he does with such cogency and clarity. Many thanks. (As to the double posting, that is, as far as I can tell, a technical glitch from Substack--and I don't really know how to correct it or delete one.) Thanks again!
As I just discovered your blog, Ed, I'm gratified and impressed that both Richard and Jerry are readers, as is Massimo Pigliucci with whom I've briefly interacted and follow. I suspect that there are a few other readers whom I've learned from in the past. Re the duplicate, I 'liked' both versions, then clicked the three dots at the upper right across from the poster's name. One option is to collapse the comment, which at least removes it from one's eyes!
That's an absurd defense of Coyne. What is Coyne's purpose in arguing that trans women are much more likely to be sexual predators in his essay if it is not to support his view that they should be discriminated against in some settings?
As noted in my Letter, Coyne was writing in reply to an essay by Kat Grant. Countering her assertions, however wisely or well, was his stated purpose. I see no reason to doubt that statement. Anyone who doesn't agree with his argument(s) can certainly counter those. But "absurd"? Not apparently.
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.
An honor to be read by--and to get a reply from--Jerry Coyne!
If you have to be a professional ethicist to make a moral judgment, I guess the rest of us are free to be amoral anarchists. How silly can you get? Can ethics be grounded in biology? Sure. Aristotle did it. He had the fundamental insight that to know the human good you need to know what kind of an organism the human being is.
Coyne is only making a distinction feminists have always made. Sex is biology and gender is identity. As Coyne notes, these two strongly correlate but do not completely overlap. In any given context, the biology or the identity might be more important. With respect to athletic competition, biological sex is what matters. The fastest woman in the 100m was Florence Griffifth-Joyner at 10.49 seconds. The fastest man was Usain Bolt at 9.58 seconds, almost a whole second faster (in the 100m dash, a second is an eternity). The U.S. Army conducted studies concerning women in infantry combat roles and found that women on average had 50% less upper body strength than men. Men have more muscle mass and a higher proportion of muscle to body fat.
Of course, many individual women are far more athletic (or dangerous!) than many individual men. I recently read a most satisfying story about a 115 pound woman who was approached by a much larger man. He tried to steal her cell phone. She, however, was a professional mixed martial artist, and she proceeded to beat the snot out of him and hold him until the police arrived. Yet in athletic competition, the biological differences do matter, and a biological male competing against biological females is inherently unfair.
Ed, once again I find myself in agreement. I know, this is getting boring. As you point out, in no reasonable sense of ”anti-trans” are Coyne, Rowling, Dawkins, and a host of others (including me!) anti-trans. But sure, if “anti-trans” simply means “anyone who disagrees with a very specific line of thought about trans issues” then yeah, a lot of people will turn out to be anti-trans. That second meaning, however, reveals the sort of truly intolerant attitudes that led Obama recently to warn that sections of the Left are engaging in a circular firing squad, i.e., shooting at their own allies, rather than at Trump, Johnson, and Christian Nationalists—who are their real enemy.
One thing that has bothered me in this whole discussion is that people usually make two distinctions where there should be three or four. We keep talking about sex (biological, defined by gamete size) and gender (presumably socially constructed). But if gender is entirely socially constructed then declarations like “I feel trapped in the wrong body” would be difficult to make sense of. Such statements seem to indicate that people who suffer from gender dysphoria feel their predicament isn’t a choice, and it certainly is not imposed by society. So perhaps there is some biology there too. Then we have a third concept, that of gender roles. One can feel a woman (gender) but not wanting to stay at home, take care of the kids, and prepare a martini for her husband when he comes back home (a gender role as defined, say, in 1950s America). And we have a fourth concept: sexual preference (you know, heterosexuals, male homosexuals, lesbians, and a number of others). Many of these people also say that their preference doesn’t feel like a choice, which suggests at least some degree of biology, not just culture. So it’s damn complicated, with more distinctions to be made than it is usually acknowledged, and more confusing interactions between biology and culture, nature and nurture. Which means that anyone taking simple, rigid positions on the basis that they absolutely know this or that is a fool or attempting to take us for fools.
I completely agree with your assessment of Rabinowitz’s essay. Coyne did not pretend to be an ethicist; everyone is entitled to (reasoned, fact based) opinions on ethics; and the conclusion about “we moral reasoners” is presumptuous, disgusting, and most definitely not an example of freethinking.
I also agree that it is highly unfortunate that FFRF has fallen prey to this sort of dogmatism, which is particularly ironic for an organization devoted to freethinking.
One last comment: the problem that we are talking about is not a problem with “the Left.” It is a problem with a small (if highly vocal and currently influential) fraction of the Left. There are plenty of liberal progressives who are perfectly fine with what Coyne has written and wished we moved away from this whole thing and face the real problems that affect millions both in the US and worldwide. Like the problem posed by the rise of Christian Nationalism in the US, or of Neo-Nazism in Germany.
The idea that gender is entirely a social construct is a gratuitous assumption, widely accepted as an ideological imperative rather than as an empirical fact. Of course, gender roles and expected behaviors do differ somewhat across time and cultures. When I was a boy, I was taught that girls cry but that boys suck it up. Crying was sissy. Then I read the Iliad where Achilles cries inconsolably over the death of Patroclus. There was certainly nothing sissy about Achilles. In that riveting scene in Book I, Achilles starts to draw his great sword to cut down Agamemnon. It took Athena's intervention to stop him. No human could have. This made me think that not everything I had been told about being a boy was true.
Keith, love the mythological example! Agreed, that too is a gratuitous assumption. For instance, it’s *possible* that natural selection built different type of child-caring instincts in females as compared to males. But a lot of Leftists simply don’t want to hear about that because they think it opens a path to the exploitation of women. And that’s true. But it’s also true that we can acknowledge the influence of biology without therefore having to bow to it. Pinker once wrote that he chose not to have children and to focus on writing and friends instead, adding “and if my genes don’t like it they can go jump into the river.” Agreed.
Beautifully and succinctly put. My genes may be the "whispering within," but sometimes I tell them to shut up.
JK Rowling came out in opposition to the fact that a hate crime bill protects trans people.
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1774747068944265615
She also stated that in saying than trans women are women the Labor Party showed itself to be unable to defend women's rights placing the claim of trans identity in direct opposition to women's rights.
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1774747068944265615
Would either or both of these convince you JKR is anti-trans?
If I carefully analyzed all the kerfuffle about JKR, perhaps I'd change my mind. I care about these issues, but they're not my top priority. I personally have no doubt that transgender people have suffered hate crimes and deserve protection. I support trans rights but not absolutely--not in opposition to clear women's rights. My personal interactions with trans women have all been positive--though not many.
I think it's reasonable for these issues to not be your top priority. I would add that even if trans rights are a high priority for you, you don't have to take the time to go research JKR's statements about trans people. But then I would say it's inappropriate to defend JKR from the claim that she is anti-trans as Massimo does above from people who have taken the time to look into her behavior.
Well, I know and trust Massimo. And I've read some absurd claims about JKR before, related to women's prisons as I recall. If I support restrictions on who is sent to women's prisons, does that make me anti-trans? Anti-men? Guy though I am, I'm firmly opposed to convicted people with dicks being housed in women's prison.
I presented specific facts. There's no need to be hypothetical. Does opposing the inclusion of trans people in a hate crime bill qualify as anti-trans?
JKR's opposition to the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, which came into force on April 1 (!) 2024 was concerned with the possibility that it would become illegal to state someone's factual sex. She tested that proposition with her tweets, which were found not to breach the law. Trans people have the right to exist, but not to compel the speech of everyone else.
Of course that's hypothetical--what exactly does the bill say, and how can it be interpreted? What unintended consequences might it have? I've given you my opinion, but I'm no legislator or legal expert. If the bill could somehow pass or fail based on my vote, I'd certainly investigate. Do you support bills by GA state reps designed to protect voting rights? Why or why not?
Are you linking to an April's fool tweet to prove your point that JKR is transphobic?
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1774747068944265615
12:34 PM · 1 apr 2024
If the category "woman" includes some men who claim to have an unverifiable feeling that they themselves are women, then the category becomes utterly meaningless.
How can women fight for their rights if they can't even define themselves?
JKR's first foray into the sex/gender issue was her tweet saying, "Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill"
Is THAT anti-trans?
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.
Ed,
I have a BA in Philosophy NYU, 1968, and some grad courses there and at Tufts (3 decades later) where I met Dan Dennett a few times. He was a wonderful man who died too soon.
I agree with your analysis, and most of what Coyne has written recently on this topic. FFRF is in the wrong. Nothing to add, except to reinforce that trans women shouldn't be allowed to compete with biological women in sports requiring strength and speed. Fairness for and risk to the latter are primary.
I will venture a brief comment on atheism, which is often attacked as 'having no evidence' for their position. Should anyone present solid evidence for the existence of anything not physical (energy-matter-information) or dependent upon it for existence, a Nobel Prize surely awaits. Asking for proof of non-existence commits The Negative Fallacy. In an open, complex system, that's impossible. One can prove that there are no coins in one's right front pants pocket as that is a closed, simple system. Reality has no known boundaries, so is best defined as "open."
The burden of proof is on the claimant of existence. Positing a "beginning" to reality is a speculation as no boundaries have yet been found. A Big Bang requires energy to occur, and some cosmologists including Martin Rees (past president of the Royal Society) hold that infinite multiverses are possible, even likely. Thus positing a "first cause" is a second order speculation based upon the first.
Leaps of faith are such because of the above reasons. 80+% of humans supposedly believe in supernaturals. Those trying to justify it have no grounds. Those claiming a leap are being honest, and I respect their position.
Steve Kurtz
Amherst MA
Thanks--Dennett was indeed a good man/writer/thinker, who I had the honor to meet a time or two--and whose books are grand. Your analysis of atheism/leaps of faith seem spot on to me. If you're ever inclined to write a guest essay for Letters... let me know. Regards, Ed B., ed@buckners.us
Ed, I'm a man of brevity. It's a combination of laziness, a desire to have minimal words to define, and probably my heredity. Kurtz or kurz means short in German, and my heritage is short stature. A curt reply is from the same root, which a quick search informed me is from Latin, and appears also as cort in French.
My main interest is in the reversal of Plague Phase which a quadrupling of human population in the lifespan of living members qualifies according to some esteemed ecologists like Bill Rees (Ecological Footprint). Fertility is crashing which is Nature's way of rebalancing us using our own negative feedback.
Lastly, I think free will is vastly overrated. (Robert Sapolsky, Gregg Caruso, Galen Strawson). Dennett was a compatibilist, holding both determinism and free will. We disagreed, as I view them as internally inconsistent. (physicalism) This makes "Free Country" in need of more research by me, as I'm new here! If I get stimulated to write something longer than this comment, I'll not be shy.
I strongly second the request for a guest essay.
Please see my response to Ed above.
I'm glad you've stepped into the fray on this. The Left needs a course correction for sure. Thank you!
As you point out, the most significant problems often start out in the definitions. The gender activists at FFRF would likely quarrel with more than Jerry’s definition of a woman (“an adult human female.”) They will also take issue with how he defines their own terms:
Transwomen: men who identify as women.
Gender: the sex role one assumes in society
Instead, they’re probably using these:
Trans Woman: a woman who was assigned male at birth.
Gender: an inner sense or perception of being a man or woman.
Given the disparity between the two, the offended would have been frothing at the mouth from the get go.
And, by the way, I don't insist that only Coyne (or others) can define these terms. I'm fine with people defining away, then arguing from where that starts you. Just not with declaring (apparently incorrectly) their opponents "anti-trans" or "bigoted" because they disagree.
Given that both sets of definitions are loaded with the controversy at issue,* the arguing is going to start on the definitions.
Otherwise, it’s a bit like trying to debate a theist who insists you use “God - that Divine Creator Who Really Exists” — but please do go on from that point.
*Are “trans women” a type of man, or a type of woman? Do we all possess an inner sense of being a man or woman (which is unconnected to both our sex and social stereotypes?)
As no expert on these matters--not a biologist nor an ethicist nor a philosopher, not one who has carefully studied the issues--my concern is not with whose definitions are right or most reasonable but with freethought--with honest disagreements. Were I debating the hypothetical theist you cite above, I'd certainly not accept his definition--and I'd say why. But I wouldn't call him an asshole or insist--based only on that--that he's "anti-atheist."
I suspect the high level of belligerence is proportionate to the conviction that trans people are uniquely vulnerable, marginalized, attacked, and fragile when it comes to what’s purportedly their core sense of self.
It's a fundamental requirement that transwomen are men. If they weren't, they wouldn't be trans at all. JK Rowling, say, could certainly never be a transwoman.
“Trans Woman: a woman who was assigned male at birth.” That is sophistry. Birth certificates identify biological sex, infants do not have an identifiable gender. Ipso-facto this is not an assignment like flipping a coin. It is an observation . For humans testes=male, ovaries=female. The observation is not 100% guaranteed to be correct 100% of the time, there are complications, but it should be legally correctable retroactively when it was wrong due to ambiguous or misleading-appearing genitals.
well, this post and the comments are super interesting. I now know I have to read the What is a Woman article that set this all off!
Pam--and anyone else interested--by all means read Kat Grant's essay and Jerry Coyne's reply--links to both at the end of my "Letter"
Oh, I left off one important thing I wanted to say.
I also think we have to give FFRF grace and understanding. This is a really tough time for progressives. We have to forgive each other and work together for these very great threats we face.
Agreed--as I said last week, I love and respect Annie Laurie and Dan, and I remain a Life Member of FFRF. I think they erred, but they've done great things.
I realize this is an ostensibly non-partisan blog, but my comments are from the perspective of an Democrat to my core who believes we may be entering a Third Reich of our own in this country under Trump/Russ Vought/Steven Miller/Musk et al and the astonishingly rapid capitulation of our media and business leaders to them. To me, nothing is more important than electing Democrats right now. (sep. of church and state pales in comparison because it is so much longer term.) Also, I am not an intellectual like some of the responders here. I am obsessed with the MAGA takeover of our country and possibly world and spend my retirement in Georgia working to elect more Democrats to fight them.
Given that, LET'S JUST STOP THIS NONSENSE!! It is killing us (non-MAGA people of any party) and it's not a existential threat to millions like climate change, losing Ukraine, cruelty to migrants, losing our free press. FFS - it effects a teeny percent of people and this conversation would be unintelligible and weird as hell to 99% of the country. And yes, this issue may be existential to that teeny percent but their worst fears should be that only Christian Nationalists get elected because of this nonsense on the left. Except orgs that are specifically mission focused on LGBTQIA whatever, all others - including FFRF - should take a position like "We will never torment anyone on the basis of sex/gender/whatever and we support full civil/legal rights for everyone except possibly in cases where other individuals are harmed (e.g.. competitive sports, rape counseling centers. Society needs to work through those issues and that is all we have to say on the subject."
I thought the Carolina Curmudgeon response and the title of it to FFRF's retraction was brilliant.
Every policy decision and discussion should focus on the merits and substance of that policy. The identity of people who take this or that position regarding the policy under discussion is rarely more than of secondary significance. A narrow and restricted, ‘identity of the advocates’ focused partisan approach is an unserious, unreliable, short-cut, propagandistic heuristic that should not displace. or replace, an unhindered analysis and discussion.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/01/23/bidens-new-sex-and-gender-policy/
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/01/23/bidens-new-sex-and-gender-policy/
Stay tuned--I had a somewhat contentious podcast interview today with Aaron Rabinowitz of Embrace the Void fame. Will be public in a couple of weeks (around beginning of February, I think). I'll advise when it's posted/public.
So... Heavily implying we are sex offenders (okay, actually saying it, but let's not be pedantic) based on data that is faulty on its face IS NOT free speech. It is a lie. But since you don't also find JKR to be anti-trans... who would be?
I reject your premise--see essay (last week's also) as to why. But as to the second part, here is what I wrote in the current essay about that: "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.)"