Thank you for taking this topic on. I got about 5 minutes into Dawkins’ podcast and noped out to spare my sanity. It hurts too much to write about it much myself, since my loved ones and I are among the targets of his anti-scientific bigotry.
It was writers like Dawkins who helped me to finally embrace atheism after years of post-Christianity wandering. I've shared his books and other media content with many people over the years, including my own father who also came to identify as an atheist after reading The God Delusion. (We even went on a road trip together to see Dawkins speak and meet him in person.)
But now Dawkins is doing so much harm, not just to the atheist movement, but to science itself. And it hurts me personally to see him advance these ideas that have completely destabilized my loved ones and me.
I am agender and my fiancée is trans. My son and his partner are trans. My oldest kid is gender non-conforming and their partner is intersex and nonbinary. Because of anti-trans rhetoric and laws being passed, we were no longer safe in the U.S., the country we were all born in. My fiancée even fought for her country as an Army Ranger and is permanently disabled as a result, but was unsafe in that same country she nearly gave her life itself for.
We fled to Portugal, leaving behind everything we owned that couldn’t be fit into our suitcases because of this bigotry. We lost everything, including our primary source of income, because of America's descent into fascism and scapegoating of people like us.
Not only is he just flat out factually wrong, he is toxic. He is a traitor to his profession and to humanity.
38:46: “Nobody wants to be called a bigot, but why does all the abuse go one way?… Why did all the bullying go one way?”
Richard, are you saying that the bigots are being bullied? The people who not only advocate for removing human rights from a class of people out of a hatred for those people are the only ones being bullied?
Have the bigots been beaten to death, dragged by cars down dirt roads, hung by their necks, shot for walking down the street? No the bigots have not, but they’ve done this to other people. Pushing back against violent rhetoric and actions is not bullying. Expecting folks to act with respect, consideration, empathy, and kindness, even when you don’t like a person, is not bullying. It’s a social contract that society has always needed to survive.
All the rest of what he said were just excuses for him to behave counter to the social contract. He just tried to find ways that trans people caused harm, but was not able to really find any harm caused by them, so he stretched for it. Transgender people in sports are not the disaster he claims. Thompson didn’t blow the competition out of the water, she was competitive at the level she was in. It’s remarkable that the one competitor who has a problem with Thompson was tied for fifth place in the race she won, it wasn’t like she would have had an advantage if Thompson wasn’t there. She was the mediocre athlete who is trying to get sympathy by attacking another athlete.
Anyway, these arguments are just excuses to be nasty to a group of marginalized people. Dawkins should just say what it is he’s worried about, being attracted to someone who might have a penis.
Jul 31, 2023·edited Jul 31, 2023Liked by Hemant Mehta
What a disappointment and embarrassment Dawkins has become. He's a demonstration of the hazard of an excellent scientist stepping out of his field of expertise and making a complete fool of himself. Fame and praise are seductive, insidious, and toxic. They can gradually make even the most sober, humble, and rational expert IN ONE FIELD have delusions of universal expertise.
No, I don't want to hear a geologist who works for a petrochemical company opine on anthropogenic climate change. No, I don't want to hear a psychologist, or a particle physicist, or a mathematician, or an astronomer discuss evolutionary theory. Would you get on a plane solely designed by an evolutionary biologist? Neither would I.
Years ago, I got a hat with the embroidered badge of the RDF, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, but I've been too embarrassed to wear it for the last few years. I'm going to throw it away because it just makes me sad.
The God Delusion was one of the first books I read when I started to deconstruct my faith. It was invaluable to me to see the problems with religion so clearly laid out and addressed. That makes it all the more disappointing to me to see Dawkins go down this path of transphobia. Trans people are asking for only the most basic recognition of human rights. The Christian Right in America demonizes these people and continues to spread lies and misinformation that directly harms lives. Dawkins has the perfect platform to call out this bigotry and approach things from a skeptical, rational viewpoint yet he chooses hate instead.
Ooooookay. Most of the time, I don't post too much in this sort of thread, but I guess today I'm brave or something. Normally, I just read the article and wish Dawkins would shut up about it since it's pretty clear his opinion is more than a shade irrational. Today, I guess I'm up for more.
As a very boring cis woman, I don't understand despite best efforts why some folks are trans and what that really means to them. I'm not sure I'm equipped to understand, if I'm being truthful. That isn't important here. What's important (to me, anyway) is that I recognize that not everybody got the same luxury I did: born with the same body parts that match up to what I think I am. Life isn't fair, and it can be unfair in more ways than I have space to go over in one post and the whole gender match-up thing is just one of the ways it can be unfair. It seems to me that at some point, we as humans should at least make an effort to be better than how life treats us, because if we don't, it's just not going to happen.
In the long run, treating trans people as their preferred gender with both the right name and the right pronoun is just a tiny little start. Allowing people to change physically to their gender identity should be the rule rather than the exception, since so far as I can tell there's really no good reason to stop them. I may not understand, but I firmly believe in compassion for the human condition in all its iterations, and I see no reason to stop that just because someone's gender identity causes some individuals not directly involved to be uncomfortable.
Valuing people as people should be the default, not a conditional offer.
Nearly all I learned about biology at school was between 30 and 25 years ago but I know this. Coupling 2 differents DNA is a roll of dices, sometimes you end up with 3 chromosomes instead of 2, sometimes you are born blind or albinos.
Who is dawkins to define who is a woman or not. I am a cis woman who can grow a beard, does that mean I am not a woman for someone who doesn't believe or understand hormones imbalance ? You just have to replace trans people by POC and remember Emmett Till, Breonna Taylor or Trayvon Martin. Transphobia kills.
Joan if you read this, you are more a sister for me than marine le pen or jk rowling.
"a child who said she went to a school where being gay or trans was seen as “cool,” and that made her question being heterosexual."
So it sounds like Dawkins, like this no doubt not-imaginary child, doesn't understand the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation. And we're supposed to respect his opinion on this subject? Yeah, sure.
And as for sports competition, I can't help wondering why the transphobes never mention the well-known instances where trans athletes have LOST to cis athletes. Remember the controversy a few months back about trans swimmer Lia Thomas? The phobes were screaming their heads off that she had such an unfair advantage, she was sure to win. Then...she lost. And from the phobes we heard nothing but crickets. And a few months ago in the UK a trans soccer ("football") team played in a high profile match against a--cis team...and LOST. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/04/all-trans-soccer-team-radiates-joy-in-history-making-match/ But no, no, no, trans athletes have such a hideous advantage that they will ALWAYS win over those poor, feeble cis jocks.. Un-huh.
Dawkins has a lot of damn nerve to be still presenting himself as a champion of reason when he obviously can't deal with clear, simple facts.
Dawkins reminds me a great deal of the "happy", "shiny" bigots of Evangelical land.
You know, the ones who say, "Oh, we accept anyone in our churches," and then spends all of their time talking about how homosexuality is a sin and voting for reich-wing bigot politicians. But they sure do "love" their gay neighbors, they say.
I received this as a reply to a post over at today's 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭'𝘴 𝘗𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴.
"The paradox of tolerance disappears when you stop seeing tolerance as a moral absolute and instead as a peace treaty. The protections of a peace treaty only extends to those abiding by its terms."
𝐓𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭
"Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact."
Dawkins may be a good resource for evolutionary biology, but sex determination and gender identity are definitely outside of his wheelhouse. He has allowed his prejudice to prevent him from updating his knowledge of that aspect of biology for half a century. Using the authority of his PhD to push his outdated notions makes him a garbage human.
To borrow a phrase: "What we got here ... is a failure to empathize." I'm not just talking about Dawkins here, though he and Rowling and too many others fall under that heading. I'm talking about ANYONE whose powers of perception haven't the ability to understand that gender is easily at least as much about MINDSET as it is about physiology. I'm not 100% certain why I get it, though a dear friend of mine helped when she related the story of her husband's bout with gender dysphoria, the transition, and the remarkable change in attitude, self-image, practically EVERY personality marker once she fully realized her true self.
Don't ask me WHY I get that, but I do. Wish others did. 😔
I am liking Richard Dawkins less and less every day. Though he has been good in fighting the religious non-sense, I think in this it could be an unexpressed bigotry at play here while pretending to be under the umbrella of science. Notice his remarks are that of sex and not gender.
Just this morning, I was reading a Slate profile of RFK Jr. A man who started off with a healthy skepticism about corporate malfeasance and regulatory capture, who came to believe that big pharma is pushing harmful vaccines and 5G is a plot to control our minds.
In my youth, I read pretty much everything Dawkins had to say and it had a role in shaping my world view (or at least providing scientific support to Bertrand Russell's more philosophical approach). Now he has come to this.
I hope this kind of irrational paranoia doesn't take over my brain as a I get older (I'm 60 now) but if it does I hope someone loves me enough to put me out of my misery.
Thank you for taking this topic on. I got about 5 minutes into Dawkins’ podcast and noped out to spare my sanity. It hurts too much to write about it much myself, since my loved ones and I are among the targets of his anti-scientific bigotry.
It was writers like Dawkins who helped me to finally embrace atheism after years of post-Christianity wandering. I've shared his books and other media content with many people over the years, including my own father who also came to identify as an atheist after reading The God Delusion. (We even went on a road trip together to see Dawkins speak and meet him in person.)
But now Dawkins is doing so much harm, not just to the atheist movement, but to science itself. And it hurts me personally to see him advance these ideas that have completely destabilized my loved ones and me.
I am agender and my fiancée is trans. My son and his partner are trans. My oldest kid is gender non-conforming and their partner is intersex and nonbinary. Because of anti-trans rhetoric and laws being passed, we were no longer safe in the U.S., the country we were all born in. My fiancée even fought for her country as an Army Ranger and is permanently disabled as a result, but was unsafe in that same country she nearly gave her life itself for.
We fled to Portugal, leaving behind everything we owned that couldn’t be fit into our suitcases because of this bigotry. We lost everything, including our primary source of income, because of America's descent into fascism and scapegoating of people like us.
Not only is he just flat out factually wrong, he is toxic. He is a traitor to his profession and to humanity.
38:46: “Nobody wants to be called a bigot, but why does all the abuse go one way?… Why did all the bullying go one way?”
Richard, are you saying that the bigots are being bullied? The people who not only advocate for removing human rights from a class of people out of a hatred for those people are the only ones being bullied?
Have the bigots been beaten to death, dragged by cars down dirt roads, hung by their necks, shot for walking down the street? No the bigots have not, but they’ve done this to other people. Pushing back against violent rhetoric and actions is not bullying. Expecting folks to act with respect, consideration, empathy, and kindness, even when you don’t like a person, is not bullying. It’s a social contract that society has always needed to survive.
All the rest of what he said were just excuses for him to behave counter to the social contract. He just tried to find ways that trans people caused harm, but was not able to really find any harm caused by them, so he stretched for it. Transgender people in sports are not the disaster he claims. Thompson didn’t blow the competition out of the water, she was competitive at the level she was in. It’s remarkable that the one competitor who has a problem with Thompson was tied for fifth place in the race she won, it wasn’t like she would have had an advantage if Thompson wasn’t there. She was the mediocre athlete who is trying to get sympathy by attacking another athlete.
Anyway, these arguments are just excuses to be nasty to a group of marginalized people. Dawkins should just say what it is he’s worried about, being attracted to someone who might have a penis.
What a disappointment and embarrassment Dawkins has become. He's a demonstration of the hazard of an excellent scientist stepping out of his field of expertise and making a complete fool of himself. Fame and praise are seductive, insidious, and toxic. They can gradually make even the most sober, humble, and rational expert IN ONE FIELD have delusions of universal expertise.
No, I don't want to hear a geologist who works for a petrochemical company opine on anthropogenic climate change. No, I don't want to hear a psychologist, or a particle physicist, or a mathematician, or an astronomer discuss evolutionary theory. Would you get on a plane solely designed by an evolutionary biologist? Neither would I.
Years ago, I got a hat with the embroidered badge of the RDF, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, but I've been too embarrassed to wear it for the last few years. I'm going to throw it away because it just makes me sad.
The God Delusion was one of the first books I read when I started to deconstruct my faith. It was invaluable to me to see the problems with religion so clearly laid out and addressed. That makes it all the more disappointing to me to see Dawkins go down this path of transphobia. Trans people are asking for only the most basic recognition of human rights. The Christian Right in America demonizes these people and continues to spread lies and misinformation that directly harms lives. Dawkins has the perfect platform to call out this bigotry and approach things from a skeptical, rational viewpoint yet he chooses hate instead.
Ooooookay. Most of the time, I don't post too much in this sort of thread, but I guess today I'm brave or something. Normally, I just read the article and wish Dawkins would shut up about it since it's pretty clear his opinion is more than a shade irrational. Today, I guess I'm up for more.
As a very boring cis woman, I don't understand despite best efforts why some folks are trans and what that really means to them. I'm not sure I'm equipped to understand, if I'm being truthful. That isn't important here. What's important (to me, anyway) is that I recognize that not everybody got the same luxury I did: born with the same body parts that match up to what I think I am. Life isn't fair, and it can be unfair in more ways than I have space to go over in one post and the whole gender match-up thing is just one of the ways it can be unfair. It seems to me that at some point, we as humans should at least make an effort to be better than how life treats us, because if we don't, it's just not going to happen.
In the long run, treating trans people as their preferred gender with both the right name and the right pronoun is just a tiny little start. Allowing people to change physically to their gender identity should be the rule rather than the exception, since so far as I can tell there's really no good reason to stop them. I may not understand, but I firmly believe in compassion for the human condition in all its iterations, and I see no reason to stop that just because someone's gender identity causes some individuals not directly involved to be uncomfortable.
Valuing people as people should be the default, not a conditional offer.
Nearly all I learned about biology at school was between 30 and 25 years ago but I know this. Coupling 2 differents DNA is a roll of dices, sometimes you end up with 3 chromosomes instead of 2, sometimes you are born blind or albinos.
Who is dawkins to define who is a woman or not. I am a cis woman who can grow a beard, does that mean I am not a woman for someone who doesn't believe or understand hormones imbalance ? You just have to replace trans people by POC and remember Emmett Till, Breonna Taylor or Trayvon Martin. Transphobia kills.
Joan if you read this, you are more a sister for me than marine le pen or jk rowling.
"a child who said she went to a school where being gay or trans was seen as “cool,” and that made her question being heterosexual."
So it sounds like Dawkins, like this no doubt not-imaginary child, doesn't understand the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation. And we're supposed to respect his opinion on this subject? Yeah, sure.
And as for sports competition, I can't help wondering why the transphobes never mention the well-known instances where trans athletes have LOST to cis athletes. Remember the controversy a few months back about trans swimmer Lia Thomas? The phobes were screaming their heads off that she had such an unfair advantage, she was sure to win. Then...she lost. And from the phobes we heard nothing but crickets. And a few months ago in the UK a trans soccer ("football") team played in a high profile match against a--cis team...and LOST. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/04/all-trans-soccer-team-radiates-joy-in-history-making-match/ But no, no, no, trans athletes have such a hideous advantage that they will ALWAYS win over those poor, feeble cis jocks.. Un-huh.
Dawkins has a lot of damn nerve to be still presenting himself as a champion of reason when he obviously can't deal with clear, simple facts.
Dawkins reminds me a great deal of the "happy", "shiny" bigots of Evangelical land.
You know, the ones who say, "Oh, we accept anyone in our churches," and then spends all of their time talking about how homosexuality is a sin and voting for reich-wing bigot politicians. But they sure do "love" their gay neighbors, they say.
OT
Paul Reubens, better known as Pee-wee Herman, has died at age 70.
I received this as a reply to a post over at today's 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭'𝘴 𝘗𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴.
"The paradox of tolerance disappears when you stop seeing tolerance as a moral absolute and instead as a peace treaty. The protections of a peace treaty only extends to those abiding by its terms."
𝐓𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭
"Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact."
https://medium.com/extra-extra/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1af7007d6376
https://thedevilspanties.com/archives/15655
Dawkins may be a good resource for evolutionary biology, but sex determination and gender identity are definitely outside of his wheelhouse. He has allowed his prejudice to prevent him from updating his knowledge of that aspect of biology for half a century. Using the authority of his PhD to push his outdated notions makes him a garbage human.
To borrow a phrase: "What we got here ... is a failure to empathize." I'm not just talking about Dawkins here, though he and Rowling and too many others fall under that heading. I'm talking about ANYONE whose powers of perception haven't the ability to understand that gender is easily at least as much about MINDSET as it is about physiology. I'm not 100% certain why I get it, though a dear friend of mine helped when she related the story of her husband's bout with gender dysphoria, the transition, and the remarkable change in attitude, self-image, practically EVERY personality marker once she fully realized her true self.
Don't ask me WHY I get that, but I do. Wish others did. 😔
I am liking Richard Dawkins less and less every day. Though he has been good in fighting the religious non-sense, I think in this it could be an unexpressed bigotry at play here while pretending to be under the umbrella of science. Notice his remarks are that of sex and not gender.
Just this morning, I was reading a Slate profile of RFK Jr. A man who started off with a healthy skepticism about corporate malfeasance and regulatory capture, who came to believe that big pharma is pushing harmful vaccines and 5G is a plot to control our minds.
In my youth, I read pretty much everything Dawkins had to say and it had a role in shaping my world view (or at least providing scientific support to Bertrand Russell's more philosophical approach). Now he has come to this.
I hope this kind of irrational paranoia doesn't take over my brain as a I get older (I'm 60 now) but if it does I hope someone loves me enough to put me out of my misery.
Helen Joyce, everyone:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Helen_Joyce
She seems nice. *rolls eyes*
"Unfortunately, however much we may deplore something, it does not stop being true"
-- Richard Dawkins
You deplore trans people, Dicky. Unfortunately for you, transgenderism doesn't stop being true because you deplore it.