Actually, in my experience the decay is spread everywhere
A commenter made me aware of a conflict I’d completely missed. The FFRF, an organization I’ve always appreciated, published an article by Jerry Coyne. It was the usual anti-trans, anti-scientific, hateful heap of bogosity; the FFRF retracted it, too late; Coyne was chagrined by the retraction; and I just missed it all. Here’s a good summary.
If you believe gender-related issues are tangential to atheism, I assure you that religious conservatives believe the topic is perfectly intertwined with their faith. Just as they used religion to fight marriage equality and abortion rights, they’re using the Book of Genesis in defense of their anti-trans beliefs. If you don’t want religion dictating our laws, and you believe LGBTQ people deserve civil rights, then you understand why these are issues atheist activists ought to care about.
And yet some prominent figures in our loose movement have spent years arguing the opposite, allowing white evangelicals to control the debate on LGBTQ rights—and often taking their side. Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True and Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible, is another one of those atheists who has spent years spreading anti-trans rhetoric on his website. His blog is now mostly a cesspool of blockquotes from his favorite conservative writers. A deep dive through his “sex and gender” posts will rid you of any respect you may have had for him. (Coyne gave a similar anti-trans talk at the Center For Inquiry’s CSICon in October. Dr. Steven Novella, who spoke at the same event, rebutted it here.)
Accurate. That’s one of my complaints about the atheist movement. Coyne is still a member of FFRF’s honorary board; Richard Dawkins is still a big name in the atheist community; his handpicked agent, Robyn Blumner, still runs CSI. The rot isn’t just a scattered subset of the community, it’s rooted deep in the leadership, and it’s not going anywhere soon. It makes me wary of wading into even the shallow end of the pool.
As I pointed out on the Discord yesterday Coyne, Dawkins, AND Pinker are on said board:
https://ffrf.org/about/staff-and-board/honorary-board/honorary-board/
Slightly OT to start.
I have been an atheist since I was 12 (in 1968). My father made a deal with me, he would read one of my books if I read one of his. That included all 27 books of Halliburton’s translation of the Arabian Nights. That led to a deep dive into mythology. That led to history and the comparison of local gods/heroes and the way the Catholic Church repurposed them.
So…how the hell do you use Genesis to substantiate anti-trans? Eve was Adam’s clone, and then god switched the gender. So WhyTF do these people that claim to follow the bible have such a problem with trans?
These folks don’t have any point except hatred and punishment for their phobias.
And thank you. I found you early when you started, and you have helped keep my sanity through all the iterations of atheists that were just disguised bigots.
Slightly OT to start.
I have been an atheist since I was 12 (in 1968). My father made a deal with me, he would read one of my books if I read one of his. That included all 27 books of Halliburton’s translation of the Arabian Nights. That led to a deep dive into mythology. That led to history and the comparison of local gods/heroes and the way the Catholic Church repurposed them.
So…how the hell do you use Genesis to substantiate anti-trans? Eve was Adam’s clone, and then god switched the gender. So WhyTF do these people that claim to follow the bible have such a problem with trans?
These folks don’t have any point except hatred and punishment for their phobias.
And thank you. I found you early when you started, and you have helped keep my sanity through all the iterations of atheists that were just disguised bigots.
Slightly OT to start.
I have been an atheist since I was 12 (in 1968). My father made a deal with me, he would read one of my books if I read one of his. That included all 27 books of Halliburton’s translation of the Arabian Nights. That led to a deep dive into mythology. That led to history and the comparison of local gods/heroes and the way the Catholic Church repurposed them.
So…how the hell do you use Genesis to substantiate anti-trans? Eve was Adam’s clone, and then god switched the gender. So WhyTF do these people that claim to follow the bible have such a problem with trans?
These folks don’t have any point except hatred and punishment for their phobias.
And thank you. I found you early when you started, and you have helped keep my sanity through all the iterations of atheists that were just disguised bigots.
That’s what happens when you prioritize Famous Atheists.
At this point I’m caught between feeling suspicion towards atheists who continue to associate with atheist orgs, and feeling respect towards the very same atheists for continuing to fight from within. Props to them for pressuring FFRF to retract.
I just listened to a podcast where a Neo-Nazi group had a bit of a freakout when one of their members was a trans-man: https://www.didnothingwrongpod.com/p/episode-165-what-is-a-woman-dont
These “bare minimum” atheists can piss off for all I care. Yes we have read the dictionary, now grow some values or get the fuck away.
@Lethe
“So…how the hell do you use Genesis to substantiate anti-trans? Eve was Adam’s clone, and then god switched the gender.”
Actually some Biblical interpretations have the original Adam as intersex and they were split to create Eve and the later Adam (see Bereishit Rabba 8:1, circa 500 CE).
Why do some old Atheists turn hard Right in old age? I find myself, in my 80th year, more left wing than I was at 20!
I think it’s complicated. Some may have always been conservative but have over time increasingly cared less about what others thought of them.
Lethe @ # 2: … all 27 books of Halliburton’s translation of the Arabian Nights.
Perhaps you mean Richard F. Burton‘s translation? (Not the actor, but the 19th-century explorer/adventurer/scholar of the same name.)
Or maybe the guy(?) who named the oil-drilling etc corporation after him(?)self also translated books, I dunno… I only made it through the first four volumes of Sir Richard’s version, IIRC. Not stuff for most young kids…
They are atheists, no?
I don’t get why that’s not enough, but then I don’t get why people would organise about atheism, either.
Anyway, for them, PZ is not the proper sort of atheist, and for PZ, they are not the right sort of atheist.
(Atheism — just do it!)
Probably fair to say that any Bible point of view about transsexuality comes very much from what people read into it. Of crouse, that’s true of most of the things people believe are in the Bible. That may be particularly true of the creation myths in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 & 3. They are not from the same era. Genesis 2 & 3 is thought to be an older version of the narrative in which god’s creation is flawed. Genesis 1 is a latter update in which what god creates god sees as “good”, and also creates man and woman at the same time.
Why this need to form and join organizations you think aspire to the same things you do?
Part of the problem with organized religion is the “organized” part. In society, people with an agenda need to organize to get things done. As an introvert, my default mode is staying away from groups of people, including those with some agenda. Any organization is going to have, schisms, outliers, and its share of bigots and assholes. Organized atheism is no exception.
flange, political reasons for those who care about having representation for atheists — same as any other minority.
But that’s politics, not atheism.
@12 John Morales
Why do members of a highly social species organize around anything, like Star Trek fandom or home owners associations? I dunno, though seems with atheists it might be a shared perception of a beleaguered minority with a stake in the game of church-state separation…a politics of identity like any other.
Funny that some opinion leaders of atheism in the 21st century make an identity out of decrying identity politics then engage in the thing they mock. Some of them lump together under the right-leaning banner of Atheists for Liberty. Or they express such right-leaning tendencies under the badge of antiwokeness.
In addition to the political or civil rights aspects people lacking a church to attend still crave affiliation or social cohesion. Atheist or freethought groups provide that though this goes against the apparent trend of becoming unaffiliated, so maybe lumping atheists with “nones” as survey based categorization is a misnomer.
Are you a hermit or loner? You’re drawn here obviously as are others. For some atheism is part of that allure.
See, when you write “opinion leaders of atheism” I can tell you don’t get what I am saying.
Atheism does not entail gregariousness.
To imply that I’m suggesting that Coyne is not an atheist (or conversely, that Coyne thinks I’m not) is an irritating attempt at distraction. That is not and has never been the issue.
John Morales
Maybe such things don’t work that way for you. Could you see someone identifying as an atheist, since they lack belief in deities, and that identity drives part of their political behaviors? Lacking a belief in deities may make them wish to prevent being coerced into some overtly or covertly theistic behavior like standing for an opening prayer at a government meeting or taking an oath instead of affirmation in a court of law perhaps?
Someone may OTOH be mostly apolitical, so could their atheist identity drive them into joining an atheist or freethought group to meet likeminded people? Or follow a blog?
Maybe such things don’t appeal to you personally but can you project your strict view on what atheism means onto others?
[hopefully with PZ’s tolerance, more explanatory than pedantic, I hope]
Hemidactylus,
Q: Could you see someone identifying as an atheist, since they lack belief in deities, and that identity drives part of their political behaviors?
A: My identity is far more complex and nuanced than a mere attribute. So, no.
(One can be an atheist without identifying as an atheist, externally.
I was an altar-boy until I was 15, but I always identified as ‘me’)
Q: Lacking a belief in deities may make them wish to prevent being coerced into some overtly or covertly theistic behavior like standing for an opening prayer at a government meeting or taking an oath instead of affirmation in a court of law perhaps?
A: Sure. But that’s temperament, not ideology.
(Anthropology and sociology, not atheism)
Q: Maybe such things don’t appeal to you personally but can you project your strict view on what atheism means onto others?
A: Of course not. That’s the problem, this projection of some strict view.
Here’s my succinct view:
Atheism is a privative term, and uses the a- prefix to denote a lack of some attribute.
Theism is fancy talk for goddism; the belief in a personal god (or gods) that care about you.
(You know the old droll observation about others seeing your not being a stamp collector as your hobby?)
So that’s my “strict” view; but if you don’t care to share it, it bothers me not at all.
It’s my own view, of course. I’m not one of those whose opinions are borrowed from opinionators.
Righto.
Regarding PZ’s stance and the (in my mind, failed) Atheism+ experiment; yes, since atheism by definition allows for no god-given strictures or morality or ethos or whatever, the only remaining source of such things is humanism. Humanism in the broadest sense; that is, the best people themselves can come up with given their milieu and their circumstances.
That obviously has implications about social and political belief structures.
Also, the conflation between skepticism and atheism is a bit unfortunate.
(For example, one can be a total atheist yet be utterly credulous about other stuff; I know more than one apatheist in that category)
flange–
Lots of people enjoy doing things with others who share their interests, and some endeavours require the organised effort of many people to achieve. That’s why organisations exist. The problem with organised religion is not the organised part, it’s the authoritarian heirarchy part. Secular organisations with unaccountable power structures are just as guilty of protecting abusers such as Olympic gymnastics program doctors or football coaches or BBC hosts or Miramax producers or FOX News execs.
[related, contextual, topical]
Interesting snippet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson#Spirituality_and_philosophy
—
It is my personal belief that when people claim agnosticism, they really are atheists.
They just don’t want to, ahem, identify as such.
That’s the very simplicity of my definition; they do not believe in gods, so they qualify as atheistic.
Yes, they also do not disbelieve in gods, but that’s not part of my simple definition.
To sum up, I think too many people try to make this very simple concept very complicated and nuanced and full of implications.
It could hardly be simpler: “Do ya believe in God?”
(Discriminator is anything other than a yes)
John: It is my personal belief that when people claim atheism, they are really claiming a belief that there are no gods. Cue the silly word games.
“Cue the silly word games.”
Apparently, I’m considered the needler, Rob.
On the question of why all these people are conservative, i would point out that they are all white men. Mostly straight AFAIK
Religion has always been a less important axis of power than race and patriarchy
Looking at the very busy comments section on Mehta’s blog post, I see some of Coyne’s own regressive commenting thugs have invaded.
dangerousbeans —
And money. Not all of them are rich (I would expect Coyne to be comfortable but not wealthy on a prof’s salary), but quite a few are.
As I commented in the previous article ‘Do I want to hang out with atheists any more?’: ‘Wow, it seems as if bigotry is infiltrating everywhere.’ (as if any of us are completely free of biases and subtle bigotry) And, all the info about these organizations seems to confirm it. Our organization has been members of FFRF and we didn’t look at the honorary board, so we didn’t see the odious Jerry Coyne name on it. And, we do not like having our reputation compromised by association with bigots and hateful, intolerant people. We are going to have to pay attention to what transpires and consider renewal of our membership in FFRF very carefully. We don’t (to paraphrase PZ) want to wade into a cesspool. Are we correct in interpreting that the title of this article: ‘Why should I trust an organization that honors the worst among us?’ means that PZ’s opinion of FFRF has dropped like a rock?
Based on our evaluation (without consideration of the comments above) The clear distinction has been muddied, We see atheism is a statement about deities only. However, some atheists seem to espouse bigotry, hate and intolerance. Thus, we hesitate to be involved in organizations where they allow the waters to be easily muddied.
@14 flange wrote: Why this need to form and join organizations you think aspire to the same things you do? . . .Any organization is going to have, schisms. . .bigots and assholes
I reply: Good points. I have always thought that the reason for most organizations was to provide ‘strength in numbers’ to protect the members and better further their cause. And, while I agree that organizations can be (and some are) corrupted, I would hope that most organizations would be disciplined enough to prevent ‘rot from within’.
follow up to my @29: If I decide to be part of an organization, I need to look more closely for decency, honesty, tolerance, rationality (atheistic) and sufficient discipline to prevent ‘rot from within’.
It’s pretty obvious that people got into ‘movement atheism’ for a variety of reasons not having to do solely with their lack of belief in a deity. Being an atheist certainly doesn’t obligate one to engage with atheism as a political or social rallying point any more than an enjoyment of Star Trek requires one to attend conventions or do cosplay. Conversely, many athiests belong to religious communities, and simply participate there for their own reasons as well – some even serving as clergy.
Those of us who associated with what was then called New Atheism(blech) , loosely attached to the works of the ‘four horsemen’ (double-blech) all had our reasons. I was an edgy-post-teen Athiest who grew up with vague traces of family catholicism, but I just loved debate and discussion – and I could find lots of it with people in that movement. Friends from the era had different backgrounds, some had serious religious trauma, others had actually experienced religiously-based state oppression. We came because we liked the company. And most of us left when the company turned sour.
I look with some embarassment at my consumption of books/media from around that era: Hitchens (erudite but pretentious and warmongering), Harris (right about christianity, obsessed with his hatred of Islam, Muslims and lately immigrants), Dawkins (at his heart, a Tory. Rebellious only so far as it wouldn’t threaten his standing with the upper classes. Bigot.) Bhogossian (what the hell happened to him?)…. the list goes on. But hopefully we all get to grow up and move on.
About the only thing from that era that I still consume is, aptly, this blog. When the rest of them started succumbing to the rot flowing down from the head, PZ didn’t. That’s why I stuck around. Didn’t really comment for years though, but I’ve been here since the consecrated host.
@ snarkhuntr
Very good comment. And spot on pithy characterizations.
Somewhat relevant: Rebecca Watson, Steven Novella, community rot.
Preserving here to keep it from falling into the memory hole.
Rebecca Watson’s blog – Why I’ve Left SGU (2014-12-27)
Watson’s private 2014 reasons and SGU Twitter’s 2023 denial
https://nitter.poast.org/SkepticsGuide/status/1647705504662126595https://x.com/SkepticsGuide/status/1647705504662126595* Reasons 1-3 were not shared.
I suggested editing her blog, but she either missed the reply or didn’t think it merited the effort.
Watson’s blog – A Critical Analysis of Brian Dunning’s Explanation (2014-08-07)
Watson in comments there:
Dunning was a guest on Novella’s SGU podcast in 2013 before he pled guilty but while the litigation was occurring.
And, oh no. He was back again in 2018, for “redemption”.
Skeptic’s Guide podcast – Episode 656 (2018-02-03)
https://x.com/rebeccawatson/status/966728267548958720Oh god. Those names. DJ Grothe, Brian Dunning, Emery Emery…I just want to forget they ever existed, or that I tangled with them at all.
For me this quote from Russell sums it up pretty well. The beef with Coyne about transphobia etc,seems to be more political than philosophical
Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me. Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place they always ask me what is my religion.
I never know whether I should say “Agnostic” or whether I should say “Atheist”. It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.
On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.
None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof.
Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line. ”
― Bertrand Russell
This is off the main topic, but it’s on the topic of Brian Dunning. I have to imagine that he’s seething right now. Obviously-scammy coupon-clipping browser plugin Honey has recently been outed for doing essentially the same thing that Dunning spent time in Federal Prison for. Of course, the US being what it is, what would be a crime for a single person or small team to commit simply becomes ‘smart business’ if done by a corporation or by someone who made enough money to hire the best lawyers – so there won’t be any significant consequences.
Among several other scams, Honey will apply their affiliate marketing cookie to any transaction you make – whether they’re able to find you a discount or not. This isn’t a stones throw away from Dunning’s ‘cookie stuffing’ addons. So the same youtube and podcast creators taking honey’s money to shill for them can experience a significant decrease in their revenue from affiliate marketing. And some of that marketing is surprisingly lucrative, much more than I though it would be. One YouTuber who investigated this used his own affiliate links and mentioned his commission on someone foolish enough to sign up for NordVPN could be as high as $35US…. that’s got to be several orders of magnitude higher than any per-click rate that eBay was paying Bryan.
They also make side-deals with websites who pay them where they agree not to show Honey users coupons that the site doesn’t want them to see, so it doesn’t even actually offer the feature it uses to suck in the rubes – at least not to sites willing to pay protection.
I lost a bit of respect for the Scathing Atheist guys when they defended selling that crap product.
@35 Seversky. I immediately expected you to relay a different anecdote from Bertrand Russell, from his autobiography. He had been arrested at, I believe, an anti-nuclear demonstration, and when he was being processed at the police station he was asked what his religion was. When he replied “agnostic,” the cop looked puzzled and asked him how to spell it — the cop then immediately said “Never mind. We all worship the same god anyway….” Russell used this as an illustration of the ignorance of the general population.
As for losing trust in FFRF, I would have thought that their censorship of Coyne’s article does not sit well with the principle of upholding freedoms. The fact that some readers might find it distressing is not sufficient justification in my view. There is no recognized right not to be offended. If there were, I am offended by FFRF’s censorship
“I’m religious but I don’t like organized religion”
“I’m atheist but I don’t like organized atheism”
Re: seversky @38:
Offense wasn’t the justification. WHY would they find it distressing?
See the linked article:
is it censorship if the material in question is still freely and openly available? there’s no recognized right to a platform.
frankly, i think it’d be most helpful if people would just say the quiet part out loud instead of making some appeal to freedom and admit that they harbor a bias against transgender people and endorse bigotries against them.
Even if it was censorship private individuals can censor what they want within their own sphere of control. It’s deplatforming. Bigoted censorship and deplatforming is bad, and like protests, censorship and deplatforming is a tool private individuals can use against bigotry.
The issue was always government censorship. Government deplatforming would also be bad.
Freeze peach whiners can sputter.
I can’t be arsed to go and read Coyne’s words on the issue but from experience with people who argue that sex in humans is strictly binary, their position can usually be summed up as:
“Sex is binary as long as we deny the existence of anyone who does not fit into our definition of said binary.”
When they say that the binary is defined by gamates, it is trivial to point out people who do not produce gametes corresponding with their perceived sex. When they move the goalpost to the gonads and genitals for making and using the corresponding gametes, it is possible to point out the existence of intersex people and hermaphrodites, including people who produce both types of gamete (yes, they exist in humans). After that, they move the goalpost to karyotypes and the binary being XY and XX, at which point one has to be even more knowledgeable and able to point out the more than half a dozen other viable sex chromosome combinations as well as the documented cases of people whose phenotype is the exact opposite of their karyotype (and who, coincidentally, also often do not produce any gametes or the opposing gametes).
After that, they can’t move the goalpost any further and they inevitably say these people are extremely rare or aberrations and thus they don’t count.
To which I answer that their rarity or perceived abnormality is not relevant. They exist and thus disprove a strict binary. One such person would disprove said binary, and there are literally millions. Some of can even live their whole lives without ever learning that the sex and gender with which they identify their whole life is at odds with some asshat’s definition of what it should be.
To give credit where it is due, I had one acquaintance with whom I had this exact long conversation and he ended it with “OK, I now understand it is more complicated than I was led to believe and I guess being trans is a valid thing.” But he was the exception. I also think he did not know that during this conversation, one of the other participants was an actual trans person.
Looking at Coyne’s recent blog posts today I see both he and Pinker have resigned their honorary board positions from FFRF.
@44 Charly: I don’t know if the data are available, but I wondered what percentage of intersex people consider themselves to be transgendered? I ask simply because I was under the impression that trans status is usually — statistically — a function of a lack of concordance between biological sex and psychological gender. If so, the debate over whether biological “sex” is binary or a continuum is not really very relevant to transgender issues.
seversky @38:
I would have thought that their censorship of Coyne’s article does not sit well with the principle of upholding freedoms.
Do we really need to call it “censorship” when an article is removed for being blatantly wrong, willfully ignorant, offensive to people who don’t deserve to be so offended, AND contrary to the basic values of the organization that had hosted the article in the first place? Disregarding and dismissing claims that have already been shown to be false or dishonest is not “censorship.” Just like it’s not “censorship” when we stop paying attention to people who are known to be liars.
The fact that some readers might find it distressing is not sufficient justification in my view.
Coyne’s BS wasn’t just “distressing,” it was obviously dead wrong and closely associated with actions and policies that are actually HARMFUL to innocent people.
There is no recognized right not to be offended.
Actually, yes, there is: we all understand — and have understood for a very long time — that people have a right to go out in public without being harassed or insulted, and to be treated with some degree of respect while interacting with others. We also understand — and have been taught since grade-school — that we all have an obligation to be at least minimally polite toward others and not say anything that might offend them without good reason. This “no right not to be offended” shtick is a VERY recent contrivance, and it’s nothing more than bullies and bully-wannabees saying they don’t have to be polite to people they don’t like.
[RB, be aware that you are accepting the seversky’s framing in your response; right away, you’ve ceded ground]
@33 – I’d missed those 2023 comments from Rebecca but it doesn’t surprise me at all. I stopped listening to SGU shortly after she left (further searching of the SGU archives suggests it was about a year after). At the time I believed her ‘simply time to move on’, but the way the guys had very obviously ignored the whole misogynist wing of the skeptic movement and tried to act like they were above it all sat badly with me. It was when they had Shermer on not long after the allegations had come out about him and they ignored them once again that I decided that they weren’t worth my time any more. I haven’t ever regretted unsubscribing
@46 davetaylor
I’m not intersex, but from what I know, there are intersex people who consider themselves transgender: their sex assigned at birth does not reflect their gender identity. Given that ‘sex assigned at birth’ is often based on only one dimension of biological sex (external genitalia), I would guess that ‘being transgender’ is more common among intersex people than perisex people, but it comes down to the individual person deciding if the label fits.
(The main article I found looked at better surveying intersex folks, and mentioned that relatively few diagnoses occurred around birth, so it was more useful to ask someone their sex assigned at birth (with an option for ‘don’t know’) and then follow up asking about intersex status.)
Honestly, this is one of those things where laws that assume biological sex is simple and binary are intended to attack trans folks hit intersex folks as collateral damage. It’s important to be clear that this is two groups, albeit ones that overlap: for instance, an author I follow is married to a fellow author who is both intersex and transgender.
John: What ground, exactly, have I ceded?
RB, here are aspects; you are ceding that one side only is offended, you are ceding FFRF needed justification. Me, I would have noted it’s Coyne who seems offended (he ragequit!), and that on their platform, they get to say what gets hosted.
Without needing to justify themselves, though they actually bothered.
(You did ask)
First, I was saying that one particular side HAD GOOD REASON to be offended by Coyne’s BS, while also noting that “offense” was not the only reason (or even necessarily the real reason) for removing Coyne’s article. And second, I was noting that FFRF had perfectly valid reasons for removing Coyne’s article, whether or not they needed to justify their actions to anyone.
Coyne also referred to the Algerian boxer as “he” and a “male”. He is a bigot. Like all the other bigots he tries to hide his bigotry behind generic agreeable phrases but every bigot does that. Remember “some I assume are good people” and “of course the death of any child in Gaza is a tragedy”.
@davetaylor #46 My post was meant as a short comment on the “sex in humans is a strict binary” nonsense, not an exhaustive treatise on transgender identity.
To answer you: Intersex and trans are not interchangeable terms and they describe different categories. Oversimplified description: Trans is about gender identity (brain), and intersex is about primary and secondary sexual characteristics (body). It is possible to be an intersex person or a person with intersex traits and be cis, as well as being endosex person and trans.
That is the problem with the issue, all the categories we are using to sort people for communication purposes under single words are in reality blurred around the edges, merging and overlapping with each other.
Anti-trans bigots fall in a sense into the same trap that religious people often do. They insist that because we have a word for a category/phenomenon or similar, they must be clearly defined and exist as distinct entities. They take language as prescriptive for what reality should be, instead of it being an imperfect descriptive tool for communication about an independent reality. As far as language goes, indeed there are cultures around the world that have more than two genders, but western bigots usually tend to ignore their existence, just like they do with everything that does not fit into their narrow-minded worldview.
@55 Charly. Thanks for your note. My question was prompted by the experience at our clinic (I’m a cardiologist), where one of my colleagues is an endocrinologist who works with much of the local transgender population — there are one or two intersex patients in that group, but the “trans” issue is the same for every one of them: a disconnect or lack of concordance between body and mind, between anatomical/physiological sex and psychological gender. How they define their anatomical/physiological (biological) sex is not really very important to establishing their transgender identity — it becomes an issue if they chose to alter their anatomy or physiology to achieve better concordance between their bodies and their sense of gender, but every patient is unique in that sense anyway. So, I wondered if the intersex issue is a distraction: more about how we parse biological sex than about how we understand transgender identity. Thanks again for your note.
Coyne also referred to the Algerian boxer [Imani Khaleif (sp?)] as “he” and a “male”.
STILL?! After all the ink and pixels spilled very clearly reporting that no one had ever found any evidence that Khaleif had ever been, or claimed to be, anything but a cis girl/woman? That old fool has even less integrity than I thought he had.
davetaylor: “So, I wondered if the intersex issue is a distraction: more about how we parse biological sex than about how we understand transgender identity.”
I suspect it is brought up as a way to illustrate that human anatomy is complex, and the genes often get a bit scrambled. As a cardiologist you would know this, I say this a parent of a young man with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (formally obstructive, but had surgery). This is why I tell those who get snarky about trans people to read Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi.
I first met a trans-woman over forty years ago. This was at a women in tech meeting, and she was a bit nervous. But we were fine with her, even in the restroom (stalls have doors!). I have been acquainted with many more over the years and I just do not understand what the fuss is about. Just let these people live their lives. Being different due to genetics is not a crime.
chris @58: I’d give your comment a thumb up if that were an option on these blogs. I’d add that, just as anatomy is complex and genes often get a bit scrambled, the complications are even more perplexing when we consider psychology.
Why do some old Atheists turn hard Right in old age? I find myself, in my 80th year, more left wing than I was at 20!I’m two decades behind you, but I’m finding the same thing happening to me. Believe it or not, the very first vote I ever cast in a presidential election was for Ronald Reagan. (I am not proud of this.) I was pretty reliably conservative and Republican until the early 2000s, when a combination of the growing anti-science bent among Republicans led by Newt Gingrich, coupled with the lies used to justify the invasion of Iraq, finally became too much for me. Since then, I’ve found myself drifting further and further left.
As for the answer to your question, I think it’s a question that applies not just to atheists, but to human beings, a depressing number of whom seem to turn hard right as they get older. Atheists are human beings and not immune to this phenomenon, and we’ve seen a depressing number of high profile examples. Were they always right wing, just closeted, and now just don’t care what people think? Did their politics shift as they got older? Who knows?
Let’s try this again. The formatting was totally messed up in my first attempt to reply. Maybe PZ can delete the original…
I’m two decades behind you, but I’m finding the same thing happening to me. Believe it or not, the very first vote I ever cast in a presidential election was for Ronald Reagan. (I am not proud of this.) I was pretty reliably conservative and Republican until the early 2000s, when a combination of the growing anti-science bent among Republicans led by Newt Gingrich, coupled with the lies used to justify the invasion of Iraq, finally became too much for me. Since then, I’ve found myself drifting further and further left.
As for the answer to your question, I think it’s a question that applies not just to atheists, but to human beings, a depressing number of whom seem to turn hard right as they get older. Atheists are human beings and not immune to this phenomenon, and we’ve seen a depressing number of high profile examples. Were they always right wing, just closeted, and now just don’t care what people think? Did their politics shift as they got older? Who knows?
“censorship”
OH NO!
@51 Becca Stareyes replied to @46 davetaylor . . .
Given that ‘sex assigned at birth’ is often based on only one dimension of biological sex (external genitalia)
I reply: Sadly, You are quite correct. If I had the wisdom/knowledge I have today to have filled out my own birth certificate, I would have not chosen ‘A’male or ‘B’female, I’d have chosen ‘C’ none of the above
I am so tired of people making such a big issue over pronouns, sex and gender. As I’ve pointed out in the past, a tradition in serious music auditions was for the performer to be behind a curtain so the judges could not tell ethnicity, gender, sex, height, weight, hair color, or how attractive they were. That is how I try to interact with people, concerned with the quality of their character and not superfluous physical characteristics.
shermanj @ # 64: … a tradition in serious music auditions was for the performer to be behind a curtain …
Thinking that “tradition” dated only from the 21st century, I looked it up (and found I had it wrong):
Down with shoe-ism!
I’m not going to fix the formatting of something written by a <gasp> Reagan voter!
Theism and atheism are a true binary. Believe in gods or don’t.
Atheism itself is not a monolith, as it has no dogma.
People attach stuff to their idea of atheism, same as Coyne attaches stuff to gender considerations.
Atheism = reason, skepticism, humanism whatever.
Consider a woman tied to a chair. A violin is nearby but out of reach. Can the woman play that violin? No.
Take the ropes off. Now can she play the violin? That depends on if she knows how.
Currently theism causes an immense amount of harm. Having atheist focussed groups is akin to cutting the woman’s ropes.
Learning reason, skepticism and humanism are all forms of violin lesson.
That groups calling themselves atheist groups have people involved that don’t do those things and have wierd hangups and biases is not so surprising.
“I don’t get why that’s not enough, but then I don’t get why people would organise about atheism, either.”
Sadly, what you have NEVER understood… is that you, personally, should avoid commenting on things you deliberately choose not to understand.
this… has always and ever been by far your biggest problem. take a break. think about it.
“I’m not going to fix the formatting of something written by a Reagan voter!”
the re-election of reagan was the first… and very last, time I ever voted GoP. I learned from experience how fire burns you.
Ichthyic, how’s that Kiwi clime suiting you?
And, therefore, you figure you understand me and my motivations and my sensibilities, right?
(Else, well… you certainly are commenting about my choices about commenting)
Bah.