Now, both Jerry Coyne and Steven Pinker have announced their resignation from the honorary board at the FFRF. Good. They were a terrible influence, and their departure strengthens the FFRF as a defender of reason.
Their latest post on their website declares Freedom From Religion Foundation supports LGBTQIA-plus rights. They admit that they erred in permitting someone (Coyne, of course) to publish an article in their newsletter that was ignorantly prejudicial against transgender individuals.
However, advocacy is rarely perfect, and progress is not always linear. Recently, we published a guest blog post as part of an effort to provide a forum for various voices within the framework of our mission. Although we included a disclaimer that the viewpoints expressed within the post were not necessarily reflective of the organization, it has wrongfully been perceived as such.
Despite our best efforts to champion reason and equality, we recognize mistakes can happen, and this incident is a reminder of the importance of constant reflection and growth. Publishing this post was an error of judgment, and we have decided to remove it as it does not reflect our values or principles. We regret any distress caused by this post and are committed to ensuring it doesn’t happen again.
Moving forward, we are reviewing our content guidelines and internal processes to ensure our public messaging consistently reflects our values. We are committed to learning from this experience.
We stand firmly with the LGBTQIA-plus community and their allies in advocating for equality, dignity and the freedom to live without fear of religiously motivated discrimination. Our mission to keep religion out of government is inextricably linked to preserving and advancing these fundamental rights.
Together, we will continue to champion a society where all people — no matter their sexual orientation, gender identity, beliefs or nonbeliefs — are treated equally under the law.
That article is currently flooded with comments criticizing the FFRF — many of them seem to be coming from the horde of haters at Coyne’s blog. The gist of many of their comments seems to be that the FFRF is the transphobic one, which is ludicrous and little more than a childish playground taunt. I think we can ignore that nonsense.
Some of them are claiming that Coyne’s claim that sex is totally binary is scientific, and that it is unscientific to argue for a more complex continuum of traits. This is also nonsense. Don’t argue with me, though, take it up with the Society for the Study of Evolution’s position on transgender identity from back in 2018.
We, the Council of the Society for the Study of Evolution, strongly oppose attempts by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to claim that there is a biological basis to defining gender as a strictly binary trait (male/female) determined by genitalia at birth. Variation in biological sex and in gendered expression has been well documented in many species, including humans, through hundreds of scientific articles. Such variation is observed at both the genetic level and at the individual level (including hormone levels, secondary sexual characteristics, as well as genital morphology). Moreover, models predict that variation should exist within the categories that HHS proposes as “male” and “female”, indicating that sex should be more accurately viewed as a continuum.* Indeed, experiments in other organisms have confirmed that variation in traits associated with sex is more extensive than for many other traits. Beyond the false claim that science backs up a simple binary definition of sex or gender, the lived experience of people clearly demonstrates that the genitalia one is born with do not define one’s identity. Diversity is a hallmark of biological species, including humans. As a Society, we welcome this diversity and commit to serving and protecting members regardless of their biological sex, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation.
*Here we are speaking of the multi-dimensional aspects that underlie male-ness and female-ness, including hormones, physiology, morphology, development, and genetic aspects. We acknowledge that many of these aspects are bimodal. Furthermore, some of these aspects are discrete categories (e.g., XX/XY, SRY presence/absence, gamete size, sperm production vs egg production, presence/absence of certain genitalia), but these categories don’t always align within individuals, are not always binary, and should be irrelevant to the determination of a person’s legal rights and freedoms.
There’s a second letter there, too.
As scientists, we write to express our concerns about the attempt by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to claim that there is a biological basis to defining gender as a strictly binary trait (male/female) determined by genitalia at birth.
Variation in biological sex and in gendered expression has been well documented in many species, including humans, through hundreds of scientific articles. Such variation is observed at both the genetic level and at the individual level (including hormone levels, secondary sexual characteristics, as well as genital morphology). Moreover, models predict that variation should exist within the categories that HHS proposes as “male” and “female”, indicating that sex should be more accurately viewed as a continuum. Indeed, experiments in other organisms have confirmed that variation in traits associated with sex is more extensive than for many other traits. Beyond the incorrect claim that science backs up a simple binary definition of sex or gender, the lived experience of people clearly demonstrates that the genitalia one is born with do not define one’s identity.
Diversity is a hallmark of biological species, including humans. Our three scientific societies represent over 3000 scientists, many of whom are experts on the variability that is found in sexual expression throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. If you wish to speak to one of our experts or receive peer-reviewed papers that explain why there is a continuum of sexual expression, please contact us at president@evolutionsociety.org.
Sincerely,
Dr. Hopi Hoekstra
President, Society for the Study of Evolution
Professor, Harvard UniversityDr. Sharon Strauss
President, American Society of Naturalists
Professor, University of California, DavisDr. Susana Magallón
President, Society of Systematic Biologists
Professor, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Hmmm. Hoekstra has published with Coyne in the past, so maybe that will have some weight with him.
I look forward to Coyne’s resignation from the SSE, as well. Or maybe he’s waiting and hoping for a purge of all those woke scientists from the Society? He might get his wish, given the ascendancy of the ideology he favors in our government.
Breaking news: Richard Dawkins has also resigned from the FFRF! And there was much rejoicing!
I’m going to go investigate the comments at FFRF. Wish me strength.
@1 Crip Dyke
There’s some overlap between those commenters at FFRF and the ones who swarmed like gnats on Mehta’s comments.
Out of curiosity, what’s the deal with that snotty shit Sanderson who keeps showing up in Coyne’s comments when the topic turns to PZ and this blog? He’s obsessed with PZ for some odd reason.
As an aside I note that Hitchens is listed In Memoriam on FFRF’s honorary board site. Coyne greatly admires him, yet never acknowledges Hitchens’ very Israel critical views. An inconvenient truth that disrupts the WEIT narrative that lionizes Hitchens. If he wasn’t Hitchens and was some college student publishing in a school newspaper or on Youtube, they might have branded him an antisemite for those same views. Awkward!
One thing that always puzzles me, even before I was in kindergarten I knew that there were boys and girls. It didn’t take a degree in biology. If one is fortunate enough to get such a degree you SURELY must learn that nothing in biology is simple. There are XX men and XY women, inter-sexed people, etc. What good is a PhD if you don’t understand anything better than a five year old.
The other perplexing question, as I understand it is not a question of “sex”. I assume very few transsexual people are inter-sexed. It was NEVER a question of biology, it is a question of gender identification. Why do Dawkins, Coyne, et al even think they are qualified to weigh in on the issue completely outside their field.
Sanderson is a bizarre British freak who was a hysterical contributor to elevatorgate. He’s been at this for ten or 15 years, and he also harassed numerous other people, like Rebecca Watson. It’s an indictment of Coyne that he has long tolerated an infamous troll at his blog.
Okay, that was ridiculous, but not actually as bad as I feared. I’ve been involved in comment threads that were so much worse.
According to Coyne on his blog Dawkins has resigned from FFRF’s honorary board too. Hat trick or trifecta.
Imagine the gaskets blown if FFRF asked PZ and Hemant Mehta if they wanted to be on this board now and they accepted. Still too soon?
Every kerfuffle needs a label, right? Shall we call this “FFRFgate” or “Coynegate”?
The deliberately encouraged invasion of FFRF’s comments could be a “Coyne Op”.
I have just now read the article by Kat Grant that so enraged Coyne, and it’s fine. Perfectly reasonable. The imposition of binary categories was nicely rejected by pointing out all the ambiguities in the sexes. I don’t detect the faintest whiff of transphobia in her article, although as a cis man I might have missed something. Let me know if I did — I promise that if I got something wrong I won’t say you should be thrown into a prison for people with the sex your were assigned at birth, nor will I announce that you can’t possibly serve as a counselor to “real” women.
There have been many fights, historically, attempting to set the borders of trans existence. People do this for any number of reasons, but fairly often it comes down to one of two motivations:
1) Medical diagnosis is a stigma that something is wrong with you, and must be thrown off, even ended entirely so that the existence of someone else’s diagnosis cannot be used by hateful people to attack yourself. If there is no diagnosis, there is no stigma, and only when there is no stigma can freedom and safety be achieved.
2) Medical diagnosis is vital and must be preserved, because it’s proof that you had no choice, and if you had no choice, then your parents screaming at you for ruining your family and your teachers screaming at you for making them use inconvenient pronouns are all full of shit. If you didn’t have choice, you can’t have guilt.
Neither of these positions are correct, of course, but in a minority under constant attack it’s easy to settle on a defense that feels good to you, as the point is to rid yourself of bad feelings (guilt or the feeling of being stigmatized).
Now other people will settle on other defences than these, but we don’t always need to know exactly what a person’s particular thinking is to recognize that when someone is fighting border wars over who is really trans and who is appropriating trans existence (as L does repeatedly in that thread), they’ve come to use identity as defense, and destabilizing the identity category is then seen as disarming someone of their needed defense.
Given that suicide and murder take far too many trans lives, the mere act of destabilizing definitions can feel very much like a life-or-death personal attack. Trans people — like every group everywhere and everywhen — cannot uniformly stay positive and rational and reasonable when confronted with something they honestly believe (whether true or not) is a life or death threat.
It’s incredibly common, then, to see “appropriation” and “transphobia” thrown around where a more generous reading wouldn’t support those accusations. It’s how people who aren’t thinking clearly respond to a hostile society — circling the wagons, creating in-groups and out-groups, etc.
Grant isn’t employing transphobia. Grant is employing a broad, inclusive definition of trans people and communities that has many advantages, but can be seen by some who need fixed definitions for feelings of safety as an attack on all “real” trans people by permitting the “fake” trans people to misrepresent what being trans really is.
OK, I get it. When you insist on boundaries within an amorphous category, you’re going to offend someone who believes in completely different boundaries. And when someone says all the boundaries are invalid, then you’re going to piss off everyone who has any boundary at all.
Do you support FFRF’s exercise of censorship? I understand you disagree vehemently with Coyne but, again, is that sufficient justification for taking down his response to the debatable Kat Grant article which is left up there?
@seversky:
Do you support Coyne’s censorship by not publishing my work at his blog?
While I grant there’s a distinction to be made between a publication and retraction and an initial decision declining to publish, they still flow out of the same source: each person gets the freedom of expression to decide what they will and won’t endorse, and each organization of people gets to decide what the organization will and won’t endorse.
As near as I can tell, the FFRF was comfortable with the messages that they thought Coyne’s article would communicate to its audience, but they decided later that the article communicated some messages with which they weren’t comfortable and thus decided to remove it.
I have, in fact, posted something under my name and then later deleted it because it wasn’t coming across as intended. I’ve spoken to others who have done the same and indeed haven’t come across anyone who — when specifically asked — has denied ever deleting (or at least asking people to ignore when deletion isn’t possible, such as with an e-mail) something that they initially distributed under their own name.
Thus it seems like an unexceptional idea that an organization of human beings might also put forth a work with which they were initially comfortable and then change its mind.
No one at FFRF has advocated that Coyne be punished for his words or ideas — at least not that I’ve seen — so I don’t see any scary principle or violation of principle at work here.
I’m fine with Coyne having his own blog. I’m fine with FFRF having their own blog, and I’m fine with my having my own blog. And in every single case I support the right to not only publish, but also to retract when someone or some group changes their minds.
seversky, you are mistaken.
That article is still available, it’s just no longer hosted on the FFRF site.
That’s not censorship, at least not in the normal sense of the word.
—
Also, why you ask PZ whether his disagreement with Coyne justifies FFRF choosing to stop hosting Coyne’s opinion piece is left to the imagination, but mine is not too shabby.
You know, this could be evidence that the gods really do exist!!!
I don’t celebrate Xmas but do celebrate the Holidays, especially the Winter Solstice.
This news that Pinker, Dawkins, and Coyne have resigned from the FFRF is the best Holiday present I’ve had in many years.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is astonishingly impressive in these Dark times that we find ourselves.
I just made a year end donation on their website thanks to Coyne, Dawkins, and Pinker.
Nah. If Coyne were willing to reconsider his position, that would have happened six years ago when that statement was first published.
As noted above with Hitchens’ anti-Zionism, Coyne is perfectly capable of mental compartmentalization.
People are complicated, and Coyne’s commitment to oversimplification of sexual biology is now too deeply entrenched.
Probably, anyway. I am no prophet.
Deplatforming someone isn’t censorship. Learn to read and then learn to use a dictionary.
Coyne can and will babble away any where he can until he dies or gets dementia. He’s made it clear which groups he hates, which is almost everyone.
BTW, his blog is the least tolerant place I’ve ever seen on the internet. Coyne will immediately ban anyone who isn’t a sycophantic, hate filled, crackpot like he is.
It doesn’t even rise to the level of an internet slum.
What even is an internet slum?
Probably Xitter. Musk-as-rentier-slumlord feels right. He’s even been evicting formerly favored tenants for disrespecting him.
I support FFRF’s right to express their views on their own website, and to tell someone with conflicting views to post those views elsewhere.
Also, what’s “debatable” about Kat Grant’s article?
You seem to be fond of leading — misleading — statements.
Do you support FFRF’s exercise of censorship?
I, for one, support FFRF’s removal of Coyne’s transphobic bullshit. They were right, for all the reasons already stated here; and calling it “censorship” doesn’t make it any less right.
Can you explain why FFRF’s action was wrong, without simply calling it “censorship” over and over?
Regarding all of those recent resignations from FFRF, that’s good news!
I don’t consider people resigning to be a result of censorship. The people who resigned may no longer be comfortable in that organization because they are being confronted with facts, not just different opinions.
Retraction is not censorship. The article was poorly vetted and needed to be axed. It happens all the time.
@lotharloo:
Now you’re just making sense. You should stop that.
i support the FFRF’s right to determine how and by whom its platform is used. this is not censorship. stop beating around the bush.
Rats, I’m a little slow. A few minutes ago I sent this to FFRF:
FFRFcontact subject: values system and reputation
We expect organizations we belong to will hold high standards that reject bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and hate speech. We try to be civilized and avoid hateful speech and actions.
We have been made aware that FFRF published an article by Jerry Coyne containing very anti-trans, hateful and anti-scientific remarks. We do take note that, later, you retracted that article. The fact you felt it was appropriate to publish all is unacceptable to us. We see that Coyne, and some others are still members of FFRF’s honorary board. So, we question whether we want to continue supporting FFRF. And, in thoughtful discussions with many highly respected atheists and free-thinkers, we now question whether being members of FFRF compromises our reputation and integrity. To be fair, we hope to hear from you how you will reject all such egregious rhetoric in the future, remove bigots from your board and restore your reputation.
Now if Richard Dawkins would also resign from CFI, that would make me happy. I can’t stand what the org has been becoming ever since it merged with the Richard Dawkins Foundation.
I don’t see much chance of that happening. Dawkins basically bought CFI and installed a minion in place to run it.
It is nice to get the occasional good news. More power to the FFRF for realising their mistake and taking meaningful corrective action.
expatlurker@3–
Please retire the word “transsexual” and use “transgender” instead. The former word is generally considered a slur drawn from old, regressive medical texts.
Crip Dyke@10–
Very good post. I would add that a medical definition is crucial for the many transgender people who seek medical interventions. However, it is not that hard to come with a simple, effective definition of transgender for the purpose of developing a medical strategy. Base it on the person’s identity and wishes. The difficulty comes from those trying to muddy the waters in order to withhold interventions from people who need them.
Yes and no. It’s not necessary for access in theory. Facial feminization, breast removal/reduction, chest reconstruction, breast implants, testosterone, estrogen — all these things are available to cis people, frequently without a diagnosis. (Oddly the prescription medications are far more likely to need a diagnosis than the surgeries.)
However for medical insurance coverage a certain degree of necessity is required, and there are many people whose quality of life would be seriously impacted by the denial of care, and very many of those can’t just afford these things out of pocket.
So in practice there does need to be a diagnosis with a process of assessment that allows a medical professional to be reasonably confident that treatment is medically indicated.
Ultimately I’m agreeing with you here, I’m just trying to present the nuance for the benefit of readers who otherwise might not be convinced of the necessity of a diagnostic assessment given that cis people are constantly accessing, say, boob jobs without any diagnosis at all.
This stuff is medically indicated for many people. Demographically it’s at least plausible that there may exist some trans people who wish medical interventions and yet don’t present with any clinical distress or impairment. While I would feel bad for people who can’t convince a provider that this is in their medical best interest, I would feel worse if diagnostic assessments didn’t exist, since then zero people would get coverage. A diagnosis with established criteria for medical indication of this or that intervention is the best we can do in an imperfect world.
Crip Dyke@31–
I know the point you’re making, but from the perspective of a medical practitioner, it is essential to have a working diagnosis where possible even for people who have the money to pay for things out of their own pocket. There is an ethical obligation to have a reasonable medical hypothesis prior to treatment — this is essential to prevent rogue doctors prescribing all sorts of crap with impunity. Even if you don’t run into trouble with insurers because you make no claims, you can still end up in trouble with medical boards.
Having said that, 99.9% of the controversy about transgender identity and gender-affirming treatment is driven by transphobia and a desire to harm transgender people while dressing up bigotry as concern for patient safety. The same strategy was used to block HIV treatment in the early 90s. You know the drill: “These people’s safety is paramount. That’s why they must die.”
I completely agree with you, though, that nuance is needed. We have to treat people who not have a definite diagnosis, we have to treat people where the diagnosis is scientifically controversial, we have to treat people with definite diagnoses but where the literature on treatment is murky, and we have to treat people with definite diagnoses and well-evidenced treatment options that are not usable in that individual. And it’s interesting to see doctors like Cass insist that all these matters have to be nailed down with absolutely incontrovertible impossible-to-attain evidence while at the same time being completely unfazed by the many off-label and poorly supported treatments that are common in other contexts.
(Oh, and by diagnosis, I don’t mean “disease.”)
I’m sufficiently sophisticated to know the difference, though of course it’s not bad to be clear for others reading along.
Cass flat out lies when she says that she’s interested in ensuring that treatment is evidenced based. While you can debate (mostly in bad faith, but still) the value of current research and clinical judgement in treating trans people and compare it to some hypothetical “gold standard” of scientific certainty, there is literally no research on treating detransitioners. She found “almost 10” detransitioners in a sample of more than 3300 folks treated through NHS gender services and recommended that they be given immediate access to medical care to assist their detransition.
If she was at all consistent she would have advocated withholding care until we had some scientific certainty about what protocols and interventions aid those detransitioning. I read the entire report and she wavered not once on this point. No humility at all.
On top of that, she insisted that MtF people have vastly outnumbered FtM folks for “many centuries”. Note that she didn’t provide a citation there, so one presumes that as part of the official review she went and did original research on the MtF/FtM ration of 12th century citizens of the Khmer Empire. Seriously, how do you claim to be standing up for good research practices and simultaneously just making shit up like this that can’t possibly have any good evidentiary foundation?
She doesn’t care about evidence. She cares about limiting trans care and probably (though this is less certain) limiting social acceptance of trans people.
Thanks, PZ for providing this info. I see the departure of Coyne, et. al. as a significant positive (first) step in discrediting hateful bigots. It would be nice if it became a trend.
As a member, I just wrote a note to FFRF expressing thanks for their declaring respect for ALL people and condemning bigotry. I also expressed renewed support for them.
Crip Dyke@33–
QFT. I was astonished how many times in the Cass Report she rejected very well supported treatments because there was only a small number of RCTs, but then anything anti-GAHT was accepted uncritically when the only evidence was anecdotal. She literally inverted the hierarchy of evidence pyramid when it suited her.
I looked at the Cass report long enough to see that it was a Transphobic document made up by a Transphobe to limit any sort of medical treatment for Trans people.
Everything was wrong with that report and it was impossible to take it seriously.
This was the conclusion of just about everyone who actually works in the area of providing health care for Trans people.
Here is what the World Professional Association for Transgender Health had to say.
QFFT
Crip Dyke @ 1
If I had any strength left to give, you would get it all.
(Maybe you can delegate the task to the group that runs “God Awful Movies”, they are used to being exposed to horrors)
Raven @ 36
Ah, yes, the Cass report (headdesk).
I wish I had the energy for that comment section. It’s amazing how many people just get by on pure assertion, and assumptions about a group just because of anatomy. It’s culture that allows sexual abuse. Transphobes will do nothing to protect themselves or others from abuse, they’ll just use different abuse to police one another based on fear of anatomy.
I think I will have the energy for brain and behavior related posting soon though. After wading into some stuff on anatomy, behavior and accessory olfactory systems (and our species lack of the same) maybe I can introduce people to Ruffs. Nature doesn’t care about preconceptions about what anatomical kinds are supposed to do, so many species have subtypes that look and act like the other type. The Ruffs don’t care about transphobe feelings and opinions so I don’t either.
Actually I think I will go challenge some bigots in those comments
“censorship”
GASP!
I fully support censorship both on the internet and in meat space, but only for seversky and no one else.
Sadly, nor do I, and after that anti-trans screed published in SI by Blumner, I’m this close to being totally done with CFI.
I seem to have lost my posting ability and posts at FRFF. Meanwhile quite a lot of transphobia remains as wells as some people straight up slandering PZ and FTB. I’m considering how I’m going to address this.
I do love the “But Jerry Coyne was so polite” comments. Some people still think that odious comments made in a nice way are somehow more acceptable.