113 Search Results for: transgender

Schrödinger’s (Wo)Manhood

Published by Sebastian Cesario

Much like Schrödinger’s unfortunate cat, which is simultaneously dead and alive, manhood and womanhood in our era are held to be simultaneously entirely in the brain and everywhere except the brain. In matters concerning gender equity in STEM, one must profess that the differences between men and women manifest solely in the pelvic and chest anatomy, not the brain. Consequently, if women constitute less than 50 percent of the people studying or working in a field, the only acceptable explanation is sexism, not a difference in the typical preferences of the two sexes. On the other hand, transgender activists maintain that the distinction between being a man or a woman is entirely in the mind, and a person’s reproductive anatomy is not what defines them as male or female. Whatever a person states about his or her gender identity reflects their authentic inner nature, and may not be challenged. Scholars who raise questions about transgender identity face not only criticism and counterarguments (fair game for anyone making a claim), but also demands that their published …

Trans Activists’ Campaign Against ‘TERFs’ has Become an Attack on Science

Published by Julian Vigo

In a recent article for Forbes, “The Vaccination Debacle,” I discussed the frightening rise in the number of European measles cases. The reason for the spike is simple: Fed a daily online diet of nonsense and ideologically motivated activism, many people have come to reject mainstream medical science—including the science behind vaccinations. You’d think that “get vaccinated” would be a relatively straightforward message. But in the days following the article’s publication, I received a good dozen emails from doctors thanking me for writing the piece, and describing how difficult it has become to convince some patients that their local paediatrician isn’t part of an international conspiracy. But at least the effort to push back against anti-vaccination conspiracy theories is seen as a respectable form of discourse. In other spheres, it’s not so easy to speak common sense. Consider, for instance, last year’s saga involving Rebecca Tuvel—who was hounded by trans activists and scholars after applying a theoretical application of transgender ideology to the idea of “trans-racialism.” Scandalously, the article in question was edited post facto …

Confronting a New Threat to Female Athletics

Published by Julian Vigo

On 17 February, tennis legend Martina Navratilova published an article in the The Sunday Times wherein she voiced her concerns about men who “decide to be female” participating in women’s sports. The followup to this publication was met with Navratilova being subsequently dropped as an ambassador by Athlete Ally, an organisation which supports LGBT athletes, and she was removed from the advisory board of Trans Actualy, a non-profit U.S. organization. Here’s the back story. In December, Navratilova responded to a tweet from one of her followers about female-identified biological males participating in women’s sport: “Clearly that can’t be right. You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women. There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard.” Rachel McKinnon, a male-born Canadian philosophy professor who competes against women as a transgender athlete, weighed in with a lengthy social-media dissertation, in which McKinnon informed Navratilova that “people’s genitals are irrelevant to sports performance,” and called her comments “transphobic.” In recent days, this fight has entered a new phase, with Navratilova’s article …

A College President Stands Up for Academic Freedom

Published by Claire Lehmann

What happens when university students call on authority figures to censor students or staff at institutions of higher education? At Yale such students have been awarded prizes, at the University of Missouri they’ve been successful in forcing administrators to resign, at Claremont they were able to force their president to implement a long list of demands, and at Evergreen State College a throng of students were allowed to take control of the campus while harassed faculty sought refuge off-campus. At other colleges around America, and even on campuses in the U.K., Canada and Australia, university administrators have met illiberal student mobs with a parade of mealy-mouthed platitudes and prostrations. This pattern of weakness has been dismaying for all people who value academic freedom and open inquiry. This week, however, a line has been drawn by David Yager, President of Philadelphia’s University of Arts (UArts). In response to students calling for the censorship of Camille Paglia—one of the most admired humanities scholars in the world—he articulated a full-throated defence of intellectual freedom, showing administrators of supposedly superior …

Real Art Is Bound to Cause Offence

Published by Gabriel Scorgie

Artists traditionally have faced a choice: stay true to their calling, trading financial security for intellectual freedom—or put art aside in favour of a steady paycheque and the stifling strictures that come with corporate life. But in the current era, something has changed. Artists now experience the worst of both worlds: They still struggle to make ends meet, while enduring all of the oppressive controls that come with selling out. One well-known recent example is that of Anders Carlson-Wee, the poet who denounced his own poem after being shamed by his editors at The Nation. Stephanie Burt and Carmen Giménez Smith had published Carlson-Wee’s poem, titled How-To, in July, but then had second thoughts, suddenly declaring it to be full of racist and ableist wrongthink. The poet, too, felt the need to beg for forgiveness, telling the world, “I am sorry for the pain I caused.” But this is just one piece of a larger trend. There is a concerted effort among many progressives to pre-empt artistic risk-taking. They want the artist to work on …

The Real Gender Trouble

Published by Spencer Case

A Review of When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T. Anderson, Encounter Books (February, 2018) 264 pages. In his new book, When Harry Became Sally, Ryan Anderson provides a sustained critique of the transgender rights movement. The book’s irreverent title is sure to turn heads; its contents will probably change some minds, too. Although Anderson is an outspoken social conservative, most of his arguments in this work could be advanced by someone who is politically left of center. Anderson is at pains to distinguish his criticism of transgender activists – by which he means people who promote a certain ideology, regardless of their sexual identities – from condemnation of transgender individuals as such. Surely he knows that such protestations will not insulate him from the charge of transphobic hatred. Here I analyze Anderson’s criticisms of the transgender movement and offer a few criticisms of my own, which I intend to be constructive in spirit. The Transgender Movement’s Philosophy Although they don’t usually acknowledge it, transgender activists make philosophical claims, which are …

Trans Activism’s Dangerous Myth of Parental Rejection

Published by Lisa Marchiano

When children and adolescents experience gender dysphoria, our aim should be to provide them with treatment of the highest standard of care. We should be attempting to provide assistance that will result in the best outcomes—in the short-term, as well as the long-term. Unfortunately, treatment of childhood dysphoria is an area not yet well understood. The extreme contentiousness around the topic means that research can be difficult to conduct and is often hampered by ideological agendas. (For example, see here.) Without a clear consensus among researchers about the best way to treat gender dysphoric children and teens, input from parents increases in importance when determining course of treatment, since it can be assumed that most parents know their children well and have their best interests at heart. However, narratives promoted by activists and the media currently undermine the crucial parental role in diagnosing dysphoria and helping to determine the most appropriate treatment. Amid glowing media discussions of brave trans kids and their heroic, supportive parents hangs an ominous specter of ignorant, bigoted parents who coldly …

An Interview With Lisa Littman, Who Coined the Term ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria’

Published by Jonathan Kay

In 2018, Lisa Littman, Assistant Professor of the Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health, published an article in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE entitled Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria in Adolescents and Young Adults: A Study of Parental Reports. The article drew attention to a phenomenon that had attracted widespread concern among parents, but which had not yet been studied systematically in the scientific literature. Following publication, Dr. Littman and her study became the subject of intense criticism from some activists, who accused the author of spreading misconceptions about transgender people and employing biased methods. In response to this criticism, PLOS ONE initiated a re-review of Dr. Littman’s paper. This week, following the recent conclusion of that review, a modified version of Dr. Littman’s paper was published by PLOS ONE. And both Dr. Littman and PLOS One have released statements. According to the Notice of Republication, “Other than the addition of a few missing values in Table 13, the Results section is unchanged in the updated version of the article. The Competing Interests statement …

Theorising Out Loud

Published by Charlotte Shelton

Of late, the Left has again become rather taken with the notion that marginalised groups suffer under unfettered speech. Ergo, it is argued, “Social Justice Warriors are the true defenders of free speech,” because selective censorship helps to compensate for power differentials and open public discourse to a diverse range of voices. Those concerned about the stifling of free expression are chastised for their ignorance of this insight into the workings of discourse. But this theory isn’t especially new, and it has a beleaguered history of which its proponents seem to be unaware. Recent progressive suspicion toward free speech has relied for much of its authority upon the writings of feminist philosopher Catharine Mackinnon, who waged a war on pornography during the 1980s along with Andrea Dworkin. Together, Mackinnon and Dworkin wrote and advocated for local Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinances, which redefined pornography as a violation of women’s civil rights, in part because they alleged that pornography raises rates of sexual violence. Mackinnon also argued that pornography more broadly reinforces societal misogyny thereby suppressing women’s …

The Transhumanism Revolution: Oppression Disguised as Liberation

Published by Libby Emmons

Transhumanism is an ideology which holds that humans must harness technological advancements to take an active, intelligent role in our own evolution and the evolution of our species. When we think about these developments as a society, we tend to consider them in relation to the improvement of the human race as a whole. However, we must begin to consider the profound implications for the sovereignty of the individual and the primordial question of what it means to be human. When the transhumanist movement began a few decades ago, its ideas had more in common with speculative science fiction than reality. But, inspired by Darwinian theory, the notion of human-directed, intelligent evolution has flourished alongside recent technological developments. The transhumanist perspective insists that humans have a distinctly separate mind and body, and that what happens to one need not affect the other. Understood in this way, apparently unrelated movements in biotech, tech, and social justice reveal themselves to be part of the same transhumanist project and aimed at the same objective: liberating the human being …