(By the way, in posting this new topic, the Discourse Software helpfully reminded me that "Your topic is similar to . . . " some topics from 2019 and 2018. Wow. I had completely forgotten that something was posted about FFRF some seven years ago.)
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As usual, Jerry Coyne is right.
I have found developments on this subject in recent years downright bizarre. I didnât know that I was a âgender-criticalâ feminist, and didnât even know what that term meant, until all of a sudden I started seeing people declare that âtrans women are women, period.â
People like me, who believe that sex is real while gender (in the non-sex-linked sense in which people increasingly use the word) is a social construct, are very much unliked these days in some circles. âGender,â which appears to be nothing more than a kind of amalgam of sex stereotypes, is suddenly touted as a core, indispensable aspect of human identity. But by the tests of âgender,â my wife is very bad at being a woman and I am very bad at being a man. Our reaction is not to suppose that we are therefore the other sex, but rather to suppose that cultural norms and expectations are often bullshit.
But Iâve watched with dismay as ACLU and FFRF, among others, have gone pretty hard over to this gender ideology. I donât and wonât give them money any longer, for this reason.
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No, Jerry Coyne is wrong, and the type of rhetoric he uses is going to get people hurt. One doesnât have to understand or even agree with âtrans ideologyâ to understand the harm that results from claiming a certain group of people is more likely to commit crimes. Donât you find it disturbing that Coyne is supporting the same kind of policies that are proposed by far-right politicians?
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Is he?
The article you cite evoked a responding article:
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 theyâre 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 crimesâsee Coyne âs 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.
In sum, my assessment of Rabinowitz âs critique of Coyne âs 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 heâs an ethics expert (he didnât)âwhile not criticizing Grant for making ethical claims. Rabinowitz also insists that Coyne is âanti-transâ 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 âin fact.â It bothers me that there does not seem to be what Iâve referred to as âhonest disagreementâ hereânot just in Aaron Rabinowitz âs 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 itâs outrageous to not merely explain why you disagree with someoneâs words, but to accuse them flatly of bigotry.
I would, if that were true. But it appears that it isnât:
Jerry Coyne (and many othersâJ. K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame, for example) have been roundly condemned as âanti-transââbut what does that mean? After all, Coyne explicitly does not deny the legitimate existence of transgendered people. He wrote, in the essay heâs 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 camelâs-hump modes around âmaleâ and âfemale.â 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 âone who denies that transgender roles are possible or even acceptable,â 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 doesnât really careâthat he sees all âtrans issuesâ as things he can exploit politically, not as actual issues.)
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Very hesitant to comment here, as transgender issues are outside my personal experience. Minorities seem to be more at risk from majorities than vice versa, exacerbated by the spreading political polarisation and media rhetoric. Cynical manipulation of majority against a minority target seems to be effective. Just choose your target. I could add a long list here but I doubt I need to.
I did once have a couple of conversations with an Olympic marathon runner who at one time described how there were two groups of competitor, those who used performance-enhancing drugs and those who didnât. She was philosophical about it, saying that she understood the pressures athletes were under to succeed.
When the issue of transgender women competing at Olympic level became newsworthy, she was again philosophical, drawing a parallel with the drug-taking saga, only saying it seemed unfair at international and Olympic level where life-time commitment could be outflanked by testosterone levels. She was excoriated for her views after publishing a newspaper article
(and I was surprised at the negative reaction when I mentioned it in an online discussion) and Iâve not seen further public comment from her on the issue.
My surprise is how almost instantly polarised discussion becomes. Indeed, Coyne and Myers, once apparently united in debunking the âIntelligent Designâ movement, exemplify how nuance has disappeared and âwhose side are you onâ overrides informed discussion.
Competitive sport makes no sense between individuals who are unfairly matched but other than that, I see no harm if someone feels happier being transgender and Iâm baffled why going out in public in clothing you prefer can result in you being beaten to death.
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I avoided calling it bigotry in my comment because I think discussions of bigotry are mostly pointless. I canât read anyone elseâs mind. Maybe Donald Trump secretly likes illegal immigrants but is just using them as a political tool. So I also donât really care about whether anyone agrees philosophically with trans people about gender (but it is a matter of philosophy, not of science, despite what many right-wingers and apparently Jerry Coyne claim).
What I do care about is whether rhetoric is likely to help or to harm people. This is especially true of the trans community which has been under assault from the government for years. What the research shows is that trans people consistently view themselves as being the opposite gender than they were assigned at birth, and that preventing them from presenting as that gender can be extremely (mentally) harmful.
I wonât weigh in on any sports issue except to point out that itâs been used by right-wingers to hurt cis women as well (Imane Khelif).
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 crimesâsee Coyneâs 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.
I didnât impute malevolence to Coyne, although I guess I linked to an article that did, so thatâs on me. Like I said above, I only care about whether his rhetoric is harmful or not. And here it certainly is. Itâs tantamount to citing a study on U.S. arrest reports and concluding that âWhile these data are imperfect because theyâre based only on those who are caught, they suggest that Black people are far more likely to commit violent crimes than other races.â That ignores the many confounding factors and targets a marginalized group of people for further state repression.
I was referring to this part of his article:
Transgender women, for example, should not compete athletically against biological women; should not serve as rape counselors and workers in battered womenâs shelters; or, if convicted of a crime, should not be placed in a womenâs prison.
These are clearly moral and political conclusions to what was supposed to be a biological essay, and furthermore they are the same conclusions that right-wing politicians endorse. This whole affair just reinforces the rightâs belief that they have âbasic biologyâ on their side.
If the definition of anti-trans is âone who denies that transgender roles are possible or even acceptable,â 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.
[Coyne: I sincerely hope that the FFRF does not insist on adopting a âprogressiveâ political stance, rationalizing it as part of its battle against âChristian Nationalism.â As a liberal atheist, I am about as far from Christian nationalism as one can get!]
While Coyne isnât a Christian nationalist and heâs probably not a bigot, he is using his position of influence to attack an already marginalized group that is under fire from Christian nationalists.
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I am so disappointed in people I used to look up to.
This is such an easy question. Are trans people real? Is sex more complicated than a M/F binary? Obviously yes and I donât understand how a bunch of people who in theory are well versed in biology not only have wrong opinions, but extremely strongly held wrong opinions. Itâs okay to change your mind when you learn more stuff! Just be less wrong going forward. But now itâs a culture war thing and Coyne et al. have picked their side, itâs a question of identity rather than biology now, and theyâre not going to change.
Fortunately my generation is a lot more realistic about these things.
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I agree they are moral and ethical statements, but I also think there are moral and ethical implications to certain biological facts. Itâs not obvious to me whatâs wrong with those conclusions of Coynes, really. At least I believe I can see what the case for them would be based on, and I donât see them as intrinsically bigoted.
But they always will be, so when can he voice opinions on the matter?
If Coyne sees a political movement to give trans people rights he thinks do not make sense (trans women competing in womenâs sports, say), and nobody else (or too few) on âhisâ side of the political spectrum are willing to speak up on the matter, should he just shut up and let legislation he disagrees with be written into law because itâs also opposed by Christian bigots?
How could he, and when, voice the opinion that he is opposed to trans women competing in womenâs sports, without this earning him the label of bigot or anti-trans? Or alternatively, missing his chance to have his voice heard when it really mattered?
It seems to me you have to speak up exactly when the issue is politically contentious and has the potential to affect what is written into law. Then you have to speak regardless of who else is also speaking and what they say. Otherwise you miss your chance to affect public opinion and legislation before any legislation takes effect. Before itâs become so ingrained itâs too late to turn it around again. In a way this sorta looks like Coyne is being asked to shut up and let change he disagrees with happen anyway. Who in their right mind would do that?
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I hadnât seen the piece by Coyne to which you refer, and my statement that he is right was based upon his comments on leaving FFRF. However, reading Coyneâs actual piece, rather than commentary thereon, I find little if anything to disagree with.
No. I cannot support the âdreadful consequences argufier,â in relation to theism, âgender,â or, frankly, anything else. One has got to address oneself to what the right understanding of the world is, and what the right reaction to it is, first. Concern for other people perceiving that I have odious allies is not high on my list. As a person with a strong environmental ethos and as a constitutional litigator, I found that many people who shared that ethos were also inclined toward denying due process to those they perceived (often incorrectly) as environmental wrongdoers. I did not shrink from being seen as an ally to ecosystem-destroyers, if the fact was that on the issue at hand, they were right and the environmentalists or environmental regulators were wrong. If the gender-critical are misperceived as allies of the religious right, thatâs a perception that needs correcting, not a reason to change oneâs mind.
From my perspective as one who regards gender as bullshit and sex as real, it seems to me that the meaningful ideological similarity here is between the fundamentalists (âChristian nationalists,â if you like, though I think thatâs a narrower category) and the gender activists. They both believe that gender is a deeply imbedded, innate aspect of humanity which lies at the very core of our authentic identity. They differ only in one detail: their views on whether this abstract âgenderâ is tied to biological sex. I believe that the concept of âgenderâ as used here, whether tied to sex or not, is harmful; if gender is defined as the gender activists define it, I have to say that I do not have a gender and hope never to have one. I do not âidentifyâ as male. I merely have certain biological attributes which make me one, and which do not determine much else about me. When I think of what it would mean to âidentify asâ male I am repelled by the whole idea; and Iâd be very, very bad at satisfying the archetypes and stereotypes surrounding âmasculinity.â
I have spent my entire life among women who would, by many peopleâs standards, be regarded as quite masculine. My mother, who bore nine children, hated essentially every aspect of âfemininity.â I donât think she wore a dress even once in the last thirty-five years of her life, or makeup in the last fifty. She spoke of being âin dragâ when she did. My wife, who shares these inclinations and behaviors, is not infrequently misgendered. She doesnât think itâs a big deal. So, gender nonconformity? Great with me. Brilliant, wonderful, an expression of the individualâs own feelings and orientation to the world. But women are, of course, still women, and men are still men; a liberal and open-minded sense of the world regards that as determining a few things about them, but little else.
But if we are to talk about dreadful consequences of a position, my own personal experience with teenaged girls who, confronted with gender ideology, now reinterpret their ordinary puberty-driven bodily anxieties as âgender dysphoria,â is that the consequences of gender ideology are awful. I donât want to go into a lot of detail here as some of it is quite personal, and much involves people I do not feel privileged to talk about publicly. But watching kids medicalize these ordinary anxieties is harrowing; watching some of them go off the deep end and actually act on that is horrible. The intensity of their internalized societal misogyny, and the intensity of their feeling that somehow they have to opt out of something they really cannot opt out of â when the path to personal freedom in these matters is and has always been open to them â it is deeply saddening, and completely unnecessary. The pressure being placed on parents by gender ideology, when they are confronted with these issues, is unreasonable and unconscionable, with the result that many of these girls are not getting the help they actually need and are actually being steered toward self-harm.
The perceived similarities between the fundamentalists and the gender-critical on trans issues are no more than skin deep. We disagree profoundly on the nature of âgenderâ and, of course, on issues of tolerance and acceptance.
And it is, as so often, women who take the brunt of it. Womenâs athletics and spaces are being imposed upon; and, of course, women are supposed to accommodate all of that, without complaint, and preferably with a smile, even at the rape crisis center.
There are legitimate issues, of course, with some questions. For example, there were times when âtrans womenâ were uncritically just placed in all-male prisons without consideration for the inmate-security issues this involved. I remember some cases on this which I encountered (though I did not work on) during my own inmate-rights litigation work. But uncritically placing them in all-women prisons is also not good policy, also for reasons of inmate security. Thorny situations require nuance and reasoned accommodation.
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As a long time active member of FFRF, I was quite upset about the whole thing. Having Coyne, Picker and Dawkins resign from the honorary board was terrible. Now the entire Honorary Board was abolished. I feel that the strong point of FFRF is going after church/state violations. Mission creep into the debate on sex and gender is not something I am interested in.
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Well, to be fair, heâs being asked to learn what heâs talking about before spouting off, and hopefully doing so would change his mind on the issue. But, to borrow a phrase, feelings donât care about facts, so that wouldnât happen.
Also, speaking personally, I donât care if he disagrees. Why? Because he is wrong about simple facts. Policy should be based on actual accurate information, not, depending on whoâs speaking, incorrect information, misunderstandings, lies, and scapegoating.
Also there have been trans and intersex athletes forever and itâs only a âthingâ now because itâs a useful political cudgel. Kinda like how Hobby Lobby sued over the ACA birth control mandate even though birth control had been in their employee healthcare plans for years.
This is a fake issue. There are, what, maybe a dozen trans D1 college athletes? The olympic boxer everyone got mad about last year was cis! This whole thing is demonizing an already marginalized group because itâs politically convenient, period, full stop, and itâs frustrating that weâre even pretending itâs real question independent of that.
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I agree. My viewpoint on such issues is similar that of the Wiccan Rede:
An it harm none do what ye will.
And my impression is that Jerry Coyne does as well. He reserves his concern for three areas in which harm to others may be a concern:
- sports
- rape counseling
- prisons
Does it? Or has research that suggests that things may be more nuanced and/or conflicted been âshouted downâ and/or self-censored?
I donât think you can legitimately condemn Coyneâs views without being willing to weigh in on their contents.
For me, the underlying issue is the question: why do we have separate mensâ and womensâ sports?
Coyne offers two answers:
-
Safety. Is there a sufficient differential, on average, in size, strength, bone-density, etc that it would put women at risk to compete with men? This seems particularly true for sports like rugby and boxing.
-
Equity. Do the above factors provide men with a sufficient advantage, on average, that it would be unfair for women to have to compete against them?
The question then becomes whether trans women retain these advantages to a sufficient degree that these issues remain a factor?
(Parenthetically, I would note that Imane Khelif has an XY chromesome â so may well be more accurately classified as âintersexâ than as a âcis womanâ.)
Yes, Coyne could have been more careful and nuanced in his treatment of this. However, at the end of the day how they ended up in prison is less of an issue than the question of whether they entail a heightened potential for harm to their fellow prisoners.
Imprisonment is an explicitly coercive and non-consensual process â which therefore entails that the authorities have a heightened duty of care to ensure the safety of those imprisoned.
As to rape counseling, I would suggest that the issue is less how trans people âview themselvesâ, than how a traumatised victim might view them.
Returning to the Wiccan Rede, I would suggest that, as well as assessing the âharmâ to trans women in these three situations, consideration also needs to be made for the potential for harm to:
- cis women competing against trans women in sports;
- prisoners imprisoned with them; and
- traumatised rape victims.
I do not know if Coyne is entirely right on this, but suspect that he is not entirely wrong â and would state that condemning his views, without being willing to âweigh inâ on the reasoning behind them, does both Coyne and the topic itself a disservice.
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If you will grant me the status of being in my âright mind,â I will answer: I would do that, in the event that my moral analysis showed me that my action (to âlet change I disagree with happen anywayâ) would mitigate or avoid complicity in much greater moral evil than whatever is on the table. In addition, privileged white male boomers need to fucking shut up every now and then, just in principle.
Complicity. Look it up.
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Really? This is the same defense that ID advocates use to explain why ID isnât mainstream. How is this defense any more valid when applied to this issue?
As Dan pointed out, this is effectively a non-issue because there are very few trans athletes. If there were more, and they were obviously dominating their sports, then it might be worth considering. But as it is, this is merely an excuse for right-wingers to further marginalize trans people, and theyâve dominated the conversation to the extent that weâre expected to take an absolute position on trans people in sports (for or against). I reject that framing of the discussion. Itâs not a serious issue, and if and when it becomes one, it should be decided on a case-by-case basis, not by eliminating all trans people from sports.
âŚaccording to a report from a Russian organization that has been criticized by the IOC well before this incident, which was released only after Khelif defeated a Russian athlete. Also according to other âunverified documents whose origin cannot be confirmedâ. Why are you putting stock into these weird rumors?
Itâs not just about how trans people âview themselvesâ. Trans women are at a hugely increased risk of sexual violence within prisons according to the data. Isnât it weird that the people who supposedly want to stop sexual violence in prisons, want to put people who present as women into menâs prisons? Why are trans women constantly being presented as perpetrators of sexual violence when they are far more likely to be the victims? It has something to do with bigotry (again, not claiming that Coyne or you are bigots, but the discussion is sadly being framed by bigots).
As with sports, is this actually an issue? How many trans women are trying to become rape counselors? Are there more than just isolated incidents that have been hijacked by right-wingers trying to mainstream their bigotry?
Sorry to answer so many of your questions with questions, but I strenuously object to the way this discussion has been framed over the past few years. The way I see it, actual bigots have distorted the reality of the situation, resulting in reasonable people like yourself coming to faulty conclusions about the ethics of accepting trans people.
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You apparently completely missed the nuance provided. Iâve emphasized it for you.
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If weâre going to pretend this is about anything other than political opportunism, sure, we can talk about safety.
Letâs start with the fact that trans people are WAY more likely to be assaulted, murdered, etc. than any other demographic group.
But sure letâs make trans people the bad guys who other people need protecting from.
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One can only form an opinion on a matter when it enters their consciousness. Yes, we are all victims of âthe current thingâ whatever it is, in the interplay between the media and politicians. But that just doesnât seem to be a good excuse for not discussing something and forming an opinion on it.
Iâm not from Switzerland. Iâve never been to Switzerland. I will probably never go to Switzerland, and I donât recall ever having knowingly talked to a Swiss person (spits). I swear.
If I read a news story tomorrow that the Swiss are going to institute slavery, I will form an opinion on Switzerland and express it online. Despite it never going to affect me personally.
It only takes a very small minority of above average individuals from one group that has certain advantages compared to another, to completely upset the rankings in a certain sport, for a generation, for example. It would definitely depend a lot on the type of sport. In the sport of armwrestling a small handful of average males would utterly destroy womenâs armwrestling.
It is entirely possible that if more people become comfortable coming out as trans, and if more trans people become comfortable joining sports, it will become more of an issue than it has been in the past.
It would be a non-issue in the sense that I wouldnât take it to an election considering everything else thereâs wrong in the world, including but not limited to climate change, global health, economic inequality, Russian aggression in Ukraine, and so on.
But that doesnât mean one canât have (and express) opinions on it. And if, ideally, there is a choice between candidates that I agree with on basically everything else (elections in Denmark are considerably more nuanced and have more choices than the stultifying two-party system in the US), then of course I can take that into consideration too.
Itâs not an excuse. There are people who self-censor.
I rest my case.
Moderation means that I cannot easily add further information to previously-submitted posts, so Iâll add this as a separate (if bare-bones) post:
Abstract
Males enjoy physical performance advantages over females within competitive sport. The sex-based segregation into male and female sporting categories does not account for transgender persons who experience incongruence between their biological sex and their experienced gender identity. Accordingly, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) determined criteria by which a transgender woman may be eligible to compete in the female category, requiring total serum testosterone levels to be suppressed below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to and during competition. Whether this regulation removes the male performance advantage has not been scrutinized. Here, we review how differences in biological characteristics between biological males and females affect sporting performance and assess whether evidence exists to support the assumption that testosterone suppression in transgender women removes the male performance advantage and thus delivers fair and safe competition. We report that the performance gap between males and females becomes significant at puberty and often amounts to 10â50% depending on sport. The performance gap is more pronounced in sporting activities relying on muscle mass and explosive strength, particularly in the upper body. Longitudinal studies examining the effects of testosterone suppression on muscle mass and strength in transgender women consistently show very modest changes, where the loss of lean body mass, muscle area and strength typically amounts to approximately 5% after 12 months of treatment. Thus, the muscular advantage enjoyed by transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed. Sports organizations should consider this evidence when reassessing current policies regarding participation of transgender women in the female category of sport.
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