by Grania
When Jerry sent me an article from The College Fix to read, I shouldn’t have been surprised at the story but I was – enough to do a search to see if this wasn’t a parody site in the style of The Onion and that the story had been reported elsewhere.
The story isn’t in fact unusual, it is in fact exactly what is becoming relatively commonplace news from campuses. Zach Wood, a student at liberal arts Williams College, who organises talks for a student group called Uncomfortable Learning, where members challenge themselves to hear different points of view—including ones that they disagree with—has now become the target of bullying, abuse and accusations of “promoting ‘violent ideologies'”. The reason for this is one we’ve all heard before: he invited a speaker whose opinions other students dislike.
Even worse is that Williams College President Adam Falk himself decided to cancel the invitation that had been extended, claiming these were “extreme circumstances“.
The thing is, even Zach Wood disagrees with the views of the speaker, paleoconservative John Derbyshire. As reported in The College Fix, he says
[T]he point was to have him here so we could question him and support free speech and intellectual freedom….there were even students of color on campus who said we think this is an opportunity to challenge [Derbyshire’s] views, question what he thinks, assess how he would present his arguments.
This was a great opportunity for students to do the very things that universities and colleges are there for: providing an opportunity to challenge your ideas. Now, thanks to President Falk, that won’t happen. It’s one thing to hold a particular point of view. It’s quite another thing to decide that only your point of view may be heard.
The Washington Post has an interesting quote from Falk defending his choice to de-platform Derbyshire.
To create an environment in which students learn and are challenged by challenging ideas, he said, ‘requires something more nuanced than the free-speech absolutism needed to run a country or a town. There are some things that are destructive of our community, destructive of our ability to have those kinds of complicated, nuanced conversations.’
What Falk doesn’t say is why he thinks that the views of Derbyshire who was invited by a black student for the express purpose of challenging his ideologies would damage his college’s community; but that gutting the plans and purposes of a student group would not.
If I were Falk, I would also be considerably more concerned that his students are targeting a fellow student—not for his views, which they presumably agree with—but for daring to publicly meet with someone holding different ones. That, more than anything else, could really could be destructive to his community. And how safe can any student feel if the lesson they are learning is that only certain ideas may be discussed publicly, and all dissent is to be repressed?
That is not how you build a healthy society. It’s how you build a society that fragments into groups that practice exclusion, foster a lack of understanding of other perspectives, and worst of all, eliminate the ability to reach across social and ideological divides and reach some common understanding.
[JAC: I can’t help add this to Grania’s piece, because I see it so often: college disinvite, ban, or refuse to entertain speakers, all the while insisting that they’re in favor of free speech. And their empty paeans to free discourse is always followed by “but”. . . when they explain why in this case free speech isn’t useful. They are “free speech butters” in the same way that atheists who coddle faith are “atheist butters.” And what they mean is “We are in course in favor of free speech so long as it’s the kind of speech we like.”
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That too. 😉
No more moonkeh bidness🐒 This is a serious site and things are getting way too silly. Can’t have silly‼️🚯 ( no clue what this guy is NOT to do…)
Thou shalt not dribble. Duh.
I see you’ve been following US politics…
Are they afraid Derbyshire’s arguments are so strong they will sway unsuspecting students? Ungrounded fears I’d say.
Exactly. And if anyone’s mind was wandering down the racist track, being exposed to someone like that would likely provide a sharp tug on the mental reins.
Exactly. Other ways of reacting to arguments include being offended and hurt and permanently damaged apparently, or saying no, you’re wrong and here’s why…
Why is it in anyone’s playbook to be hurt by stupidity?
No, I think this “safe space” nonsense has gone so far that people seriously think these precious snowflakes need to be protected from even hearing ideas they don’t like.
Good luck in the real world kiddos.
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If Falk wishes “to create an environment in which students learn and are challenged by challenging ideas” then he should resign. His presidency is clearly destructive to the intellect of the community and its students. He clearly does not believe in creating an environment where “challenged by challenging ideas.” He is nothing more than an overpaid hypocrite.
His idea of a challenging idea is clearly that de-platforming challenging speakers is a good idea.
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I’ll say it again, my first philosophy professor, Mary Paroski (Mt. View Jr. College, Dallas), invited an active Klan member to address her classes…for the second time. Word got out, and it was so popular, it had to be moved to the school auditorium. Students of all colors, identities, beliefs, whatever, skipped class to attend.
Dr. Paroski led a very careful, respectful dialogue with Dixie Leber (Rebel, backwards). There were moans and laughter during the discussion, and it got slightly raucous during the Q&A, but only in terms if mounting hilarity and general disbelief.
The black students, in particular, were having a good time asking pointed questions and laughing hysterically at her answers and watching her visibly squirm. Ms. Leber got increasingly distraught and uncomfortable and had to be coaxed to stay longer several times till she finally walked off.
The next day in class Dr. Paroski filled us in a little more about the whole thing, and revealed, with quite a bit of disappointment, that Dixie made it clear neither she nor any of her fellows would EVER come back to our little hotbed of free and open inquiry.
May we please please please have MORE PLATFORMING? MORE SPEAKERS. MORE PLATFORMS.
Time to start a counter-movement.
Excellent!
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Now that’s a challenging idea I can get behind.
Pretty rough part of Dallas as I recall. Oak Cliff if memory is correct. I worked around there.
Oh yeah. That’s where I’m from. Good Dallasites, back in the day, wouldn’t dream of “going across” the river. Lots of “white trash” and “people of color.” Also trailer parks, chop-shops, and, at one time, more churches per mile than any other city in the world (according to Ripley’s “Believe It or Not.”) Coincidence? Nah. Just poverty.
That’s kinda the point. What has changed? Back then we were hungry for that kind of exploration and confrontation. That was exactly WHY we were in college.
I have a nephew at Yale now, great kid, and he’s sympathetic to the identity politics and no-platforming stuff. The apple’s are falling farther from the old trees, now, I guess.
Or are they just a bunch of little nuts?
Sorry for the pun… can’t resist.
Perhaps the main point is that the univeristy, and public discourse in general, functions best as a crucible or anvil, not the barbed-wire playpen it is fast becoming.
Great story.
This is a fly speck by comparison…
As a writing instructor at a university in New England, I used to have my students read essays about evolution and write papers about them. I’ve used Pinker, Dennett, Gould, and of course Darwin and Wallace.
The religious students used the evaluations to retaliate against me. As an adjunct, my personnel review is based largely on student evaluations. I was accused of “shoving my views down student’s throats” and “making fun of religion.” The faculty member who wrote up my report expressed “concern” about this.
When you don’t have tenure, you don’t have a leg to stand on.
I no longer have students read Darwin anymore. It makes me sick to admit it, but I’m afraid to even bring it up in class anymore.
I remember a high school English class where we were asked to evaluate some religious literature, which we had to find ourselves e.g. via stuff shoved in the mailbox.
I was a Christian at the time, but didn’t have any problems pointing out things like the bias in the pamphlet I chose. A couple of very religious (Salvation Army) students failed the assignment and were very upset and protested. They’d put an enormous amount of work in, but what they’d done was write about how wonderful their religion was, not analyse the writing. Our teacher didn’t back down, though he did comment they actually got higher marks than their work deserved because they’d done so much.
It sounds like the real culprit here was the personnel review process, which amounts to not much more than a popularity contest. Bad for you, bad for the school, bad for the kids and parents. They are paying the school for an education and the school appears intent on ensuring that the people who get tenure are the fun babysitters.
Have you been talking to my colleagues??
I have had similar experiences in teaching, under a similar job circumstance. What helped me to keep it up was that my dept chair was made to know the situation. He was always very supportive, and that was the eval. that mattered in the end.
I think I do have their support–mostly. But the school is financially strapped: positions are being eliminated, courses chopped. The atmosphere is one of paranoia.
About four years ago, I had designed a Lit course that was my dream: A look at how Darwin’s and Wallace’s ideas completely overturned the traditional view of the universe, through the literature of the biblical era and that of the 19th century.
The whole suite of Lit. classes was axed by the university.
One sad thing is that in some circles this is the sort of course that is all the rage – with a topic like that you can bring in colleagues from history, philosophy, biology, etc. as well. Interdisciplinarity!
That’s disappointing. I presume Derbyshire accepted the invitation knowing he was going to face a tough crowd, so a unique chance to learn about this political viewpoint strait from the horse’s mouth was lost. Better to discover these guys at a school club than during an election.
Or worse, *after* having won an election.
I’m still having a hard time believing a Constitution Party racist got elected near where I live. Guys, no, guys, stahp. We’re not the South.
For goodness’ sake, it’s just a talk. If you really feel that hearing Derbeyshire’s words will prevent you from having nuanced conversations, don’t go to his talk.
H.L. Mencken described puritanism as “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” These censors are idealogical puritans; they have a haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may get to say something they don’t agree with.
I think the administration is worried about parental displeasure.
Beware of reading Mencken or, for that matter, any of Mark Twain – especially his later works. But even Huckleberry Finn, of course, is annually on the “most frequently banned” list. Libraries are probably the least safe place on campus.
Merely talking about the various marriage arrangements (monogamy polygyny, polyandry) in an anthropology class cost me (no loss) a Women’s Study major who took an explanation to be advocacy.
Right. People are cautious with their children. That’s understandable.
In the early 1960’s, George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party, filled Memorial Auditorium at Stanford, and gave one of the most polished presentations I have ever heard. I don’t think he gained any converts, though, and if there were any protests against his appearance, they haven’t registered in my memory. Although Stanford seems to have survived that speech, I sort of doubt that a top Nazi would be invited to speak there these days.
Here, I would have to part company with Harry. Rockwell was beyond the pale, IMHO because he advocated genocide. Not only would I have revoked the invitation, I would have suspended the students who invited him from school for at least a week. Somebody who advocates mass murder has no place on a college campus, especially one like Stanford, rated one of the 10 best universities in the world on most surveys.
To elaborate, you have freedom of speech to say anything you want, absent libel or slander. You have no right to require anyone to provide you with a forum.
Clearly in your world people would not have the freedom to speak the words “Rockwell, come speak on campus”, because you just said you would suspend any student for saying that. Even though its neither libel nor slander.
Do you remember what year that was, Harry?
I think it was in my freshman year – 1960-1961. It might even have been part of the freshman year Western Civ course. It was about 55 years ago, so my memory may not be entirely accurate. But I do remember it made a strong impression on me – that a speaker can sound so convincing, even as they are spouting racist nonsense. This was only 15 years after the death of Hitler; I think one common reaction to Rockwell was “OK, now I understand a little better how intelligent Germans could have fallen for Hitler’s insane ideas.”
We just missed, Harry. I was there from ’64-’68 (and then back in the mid 70s).I vaguely remember hearing rumors of Rockwell’s talk.
As Chomsky noted, “Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin.”
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And I would not have allowed Dzhugashvili of Josef Goebbels (or the latter’s boss) to speak on a college campus either.
Just for clarification, here’s a link to some notes from Rightwingwatch on Mr. Derbyshire’s views.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/john-derbyshire
The problem on college campuses is that the Left has seized control of the overwhelming majority of the teaching slots in the humanities and the social sciences. The Left controls the culture, and the Left controls what social questions one is permitted to ask and examine.
Since the Left has successfully purged campuses of viewpoints on the Right, it has no option but to eat itself. This action is not directed at Derbyshire, who’s views are pretty marginal.
“No-Platforming” is intended to become institutionalized, and then become the means of setting up loyalty tests for liberals. If you support Derbyshire’s right to free speech, you are racist even if you agree with the SJW agenda in substance.
Once the ranks are purged of people willing to tolerate the expression of views, the final consolidation will take place. This final stage occurs when the control group issues outright bald-faced lies, which you will be required to evince belief in, or you will be labeled a racist or some other form of heresy.
Whether you look to the early days of the Soviet Union or the Spanish Civil War, a small disciplined, organized and highly ideological band will always triumph over a larger band of disorganized free-thinkers.
BTW, I am not singling out the Left here. If the far Right got control of the University, you would have the same battles but from the right.
I do find it amusing that people are more freaked out about young Earth Creationists than they are about the secular Maoists consolidating their power on campus. They won’t stop with the humanities and the social scientists you know. They will come after the natural scientists and the engineers, for not clapping long enough at diversity celebrations or other crimes against humanities.
They came for the reflexologists, but I wasn’t a reflexologist so I did nothing.
That’s a bit hyperbolic. There’s certainly a skew, but 16% of professors being conservative is a far cry from “successfully purged.” You’re implying both a level of intent unnecessary to explain the trend and a quantity of absence which is just factually untrue.
Personally I don’t think any sinister plan or leftist conspiracy is needed to explain the trend. IMO a big part of the skew is due to self-selection. Conservative ideology values ‘the marketplace’ as a good litmus test of worth, and moreover conservatives tend to devalue teaching as a profession. So is it really any surprise that fewer conservatives choose to become professors, a teaching-type position that pays significantly less than the market average for a Ph.D? When you’ve got conservative leadership like Walker (and he’s just one example) calling professors lazy, demanding they teach more classes without a pay raise, and comparing teacher protests over wages to middle eastern terrorist groups, we don’t need any leftist conspiracy to explain why newly minted conservative Ph.D’s typically decide they want to work in other sectors. The reason fewer conservative Ph.D’s go into low-paying teaching positions (compared to liberals) is because fewer conservatives think a low paying teaching position is a good career choice. If you want to see more conservatives in the humanities and social science areas of academia, there’s an easy way to accomplish it: double professorial salaries.
If you check out Heterodox Academy’s website, founded by people like Haidt and Pinker, you will find that the percentage of conservatives in social sciences and the humanities is under 5%.
This means any research program that tilts at liberal shibboleths will be ignored or suppressed. You can look at McCauley’s work on stereotypes, which has been replicated by other social scientists, but gets no measure.
He concludes that most commonly-held stereotypes (with exception of stereotypes about political opponents) are generally accurate, and have greater accuracy than most published findings by social scientists. Wonder why no one wants to permit a platform for someone to talk about that little fact?
“Now, thanks to President Wood, that won’t happen.” It may be “President Falk”.
Oops, fixed. Thanks.
~Grania
Nothing new here. The original “shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater” exception to free speech was actually used to allow criminalization of opposition to the draft in WWI.
It should be pointed out that the modifier falsely should be placed before shouting fire.
While true, that doesn’t make the analogy any more defensible.
This isn’t even the latest. California State University – LA has just cancelled a talk entitled “When Diversity Becomes a Problem” by conservative writer Ben Shapiro. In true Orwellian fashion, the university president said:
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“After careful consideration, I have decided that it will be best for our campus community if we reschedule Ben Shapiro’s appearance for a later date, so that we can arrange for him to appear as part of a group of speakers with differing viewpoints on diversity,” Covino said in an email sent to YAF organizers Monday night, three days before Shapiro was slated to speak. “Such an event will better represent our university’s dedication to the free exchange of ideas and the value of considering multiple viewpoints.”
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No leftist speaker at this public university has required a forced balance of opinion. Unlike Williams, CSULA is a public university.
I’m a life-long liberal, but these idiots are making it tough.
I’d go to hear Derbyshire. An entertaining, if eccentric character.
As it happens, I’m a free-speech-butter myself. I acknowledge four clear types of cases, and there may be others, where I would happily limit the right to free speech: false advertising, libel, criminal incitement, and copyright infringement. I think all or most of us would allow at least one of these to be a legitimate exception.
I’m mentioning this because looking at what counts as a legitimate exception to the principle of freedom of speech gives us a clearer idea of what a legitimate exception isn’t. So if you ever catch me citing “fostering the wrong kind of community”, please stop me. That’s simply too vague and open-ended an exception. The limitations I acknowledge are ones I believe can be defended, explicitly defined and sorted out by a court of law, rather than by a self-appointed guardian of public morals saying, “Yeah, I reckon that’s problematic.”
I don’t think those make you a free speech butter. All of those things are illegal currently in US law and I don’t think 1st amendment defenders have much of a problem with that (I know I don’t). Though in practice it is difficult to stop false advertising and libel because those deal with intent (the person has to be intentionally saying things they believe to be false to qualify in either crime).
I’d say the key difference between butters and advocates is that the butters think some ideas or concepts are too dangerous to be spoken. But giving away other people’s trade secrets or intentionally lying about someone to cause them harm aren’t “ideas or concepts,” if you understand what I’m trying to say.
The US government isn’t allowed to practice prior restraint on mere speech… and I don’t really see the need for any other institutions to.
I’d be angry if someone like Derbyshire got invited to speak by my university itself; but that definitely doesn’t mean he should be prevented from speaking to a student group.
(And kudos to whoever came up with the idea for the student group and gets controversial speakers to meet a sceptical audience. I’d sure like to be part of it.)
The contrast between the delicate flowers at university campuses and the rough atmosphere at Trump campaign rallies has been hitting me often lately. The former almost seems to think that with the right campus speech codes the latter will go away, rather than grow stronger. I can’t help but picture the possibility of a very rude awakening in the future for some cocooned persons.
Inviting Derbyshire seems like baiting. And the predictable response, while providing free speech advocates the opportunity to make a point, also provides reactionary forces the opportunity to claim offense. Not convinced this was a good idea.
Why not bait? If the college wants to provide free speech, that’s meaningless unless they extend it to anyone, no matter their beliefs or actions.
I disagree. Given Mr. Wood’s background, social club leadership, and reported past discussions with controversial speakers, this appear to me to be a sincere invitation.
Derbyshire advocates (as I understand it) some form of scientific racism, which resembles the views of a certain James Watson, who notwithstanding his contributions to biology, has been cast into the ash bin of history for his heretical views:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/dna-james-watson-scientist-selling-nobel-prize-medal
Although I don’t buy scientific racism/HBD (in the sense that I think there is sufficient evidence in favor of it), I remain agnostic, and I am not aware of any evidence that definitively rules it out. Gould and Lewontin’s “refutations” are both flawed. Why should it matter if someone believes that there are hereditary differences that contribute to difference in intelligence between groups? Why is that a reasonable basis to shun someone?
If there was an irrational view, it is the claim that all social differences are “socially constructed” and have no basis in genetics or biology, which is the myth pushed by the Left. For example, men having dramatically greater upper body strength is “socially constructed”. Why isn’t this being condemned like astrology, creationism, etc., like the obvious nonsense that it is? Why are children being taught this nonsense in schools?
If you believe the Neo-Darwinian synthesis (which I don’t really, I think it is overly simplistic), then genes are the essential drivers of difference between organisms (ergo also the driver of differences between groups of organisms), and environmental effects should more or less wash out across generations if you rule out Lamarkian evolution. I don’t know how you can rule out genetics as at least partially the basis of persistent IQ differences between groups with different ancestors, however un-politically correct the consequences might be and however destructive it might be to liberal egalitarian ideology.
I guess what I mean to say is it true that Derbyshire and Watson are really out of the scientific mainstream, or the political mainstream? I know the mantra is that there is no well-defined boundaries between races, so race doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t genetic populations in relative isolation from one another sharing different ancestries. Look at the Tibetans and the way they can live in low oxygen environments. Tibetans metabolize oxygen differently from other groups of people, and this is based in their unique genetics. How do you rule out that other phenotypic differences are not at least partially genetic? [No one would consider you crazy if you explained behavioral differences in dogs in terms of genetic ancestry, I don’t think.]
I guess it would be helpful to me if someone could explain how you can believe in the Neo-Darwinist synthesis and rule out scientific racism/HBD without resorting to some semantic drivel (“fat people” don’t exist because there is no clearly defined threshold at which point a person is fat). On the other hand, if it really is an open scientific question, how can members of the scientific community support shunning scientists for politically incorrect views?
Yes, the politically correct people feel self-righteous in proclaiming that it’s all nurture, not nature.
What they fail to see is that that idea, were it true, would condemn huge percentages of the people they want to help to climb the socio-economic ladder to perpetual bottom rung status.
Anyone that’s known anyone who grew up in tough circumstances (especially a group of siblings all under nominally the same conditions) can see that people react very differently to their environments.
Of course, it’s neither all one nor all the other.
But anyone who’s watched kids grow up knows that a great deal of a child’s basic personality is there, right from the start. I’ve seen it, over and over again.
My kids were different in utero!
AIUI, the answer to your questions is:
1. Yes to both mainstreams
2. Its empirical evidence, not theory, that backs up the notion of a single group with no significant brain-based differences in ‘varieties.’ IOW while it sure was a possibility that scientists would discover significant gene-based developmental differences between human subgroups, that is not what we actually found. AIUI what we’ve discovered is the historical reverse of what racists think: there were several distinct subgroups of humans hundreds of thousands of years ago, but over say the last hundred thousand years they interbred or eliminated each other to such an extent that now there’s effectively only one, and we are all in it.
One of the reasons why the theory that intelligence was mostly due to genetic inheritance lost favor was because of the “contributions” of one man, Psychologist Sir Cyril Burt. Burt supposedly performed a study to determine what part inheritance might play in intelligence, using sets of identical twins. Almost all the papers written subsequent to Burt’s experiments which pushed the idea of intelligence being mostly inherited pointed to his seminal work on the subject until the 1960s. This included the controversial paper authored by U. C. Berkeley professor Arthur Jensen, published in the prestigious Harvard Educational Review, which was influential in propounding this theory.
Unfortunately for Jensen and the others, evidence was uncovered that the identical twins that Jensen reported on didn’t exist, e.g. that Burt had dry labbed his experiments. This is a hole that the proponents of this theory have been attempting to climb out of ever since.
Thank you for this information. I followed up and it turns out Burt was not the only person doing twin studies on IQ, and Jensen did not rely exclusively on Burt’s research.
Further, Jensen made the empirical case for a genetic differences between populations with different ancestry in a peer-reviewed research paper published 2005 in Psychology, Public Policy and the Law, affiliated with the American Psychological Association. As I said, I am agnostic and not qualified to assess his conclusions, but this is hardly marginal scientific work, it just steps on taboos.
I just don’t see the value in suppressing someone’s social scientific research programs because it is not politically correct. I’m sure Jensen had his political biases as much as Gould. I don’t see the value of shunning people for unconventionally scientific views, when there is plenty of peer reviewed work supporting them.
Jensen’s research program has not been demonstrated to be invalid, it has been declared taboo for nice people to pursue.
As far as the social cost, it may be worth noting that in 19th Century Vienna, Jews became prominent causing a backlash. Resentments and envy of Jews gave rise to conspiracy theories that Jews were prominent not due to merit or intelligence, but because the Jews were all in cahoots with each other. This became Anti-Semitism which had a long and distinguished career on the Left and Right through the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th Century.
IQ and the research program associated with IQ is important in defending the concept of a meritocracy, and putting to bed conspiracy theories that certain groups are disproportionately successful due to racial conspiracy theories, in the form of some undeserved ethnic privilege (be it Jewish or White or Asian). Suppressing IQ research undermines the meritocracy.
The second reason questions around the heritability of IQ are important is that the US spends enormous amounts of money on programs like Head Start and Special Education in the belief that certain unprivileged blank slates will flower into little geniuses. Obviously, to the extent that cognitive aptitude is inherited, it might be a better use of that money to direct it at the highest achievers, not the lowest. (I wonder what Singapore does with its education budget?] How many millions of dollars of tax payer money is it worth flushing down the toilet to make ourselves feel good and to protect the Land of Make Believe?
To me, racism isn’t about whether different groups of people have different abilities, it is about whether they have different value and rights. To compare with sexes: it is one think to ask whether women have the same spatial orientation ability as men, it is quite another thing to say that women, because of their inferior orientation (be this factual statement true or false) shouldn’t be allowed to drive. Unfortunately, comments about abilities of races almost invariably boil down to taking away rights of other people, so I think it is better not to raise such questions at all (and I think Gould thought the same).
How do you think, are Bulgarians intelligent? I guess, nobody ever gave a damn about that. Why are then so many white people interested in the intelligence of black people? Take Watson. As far as I know, nobody ever charged him with the duty to clear the mess of sub-Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, he was interested in the problem. And he made a statement implying that Africans, because of their inferior intelligence, cannot clear their mess by themselves and need non-blacks to rule them. I think this is very grave, and ostracizing him was fully deserved.
“…it is one think to ask whether women have the same spatial orientation ability as men, it is quite another thing to say that women, because of their inferior orientation (be this factual statement true or false) shouldn’t be allowed to drive…”
One should also remember that with nearly any trait one can think of, while the average level of ability may differ between the sexes, the variation within a sex usually greatly exceeds the difference between the sexes.
(Apologies to the trans-sex community for not acknowledging them in those statements.)
I say this as a woman whose spatial orientation ability far exceeds that of her otherwise quite bright husband. 😀
Ah, but what about the asexual and gender-fluid folks, apart from trans* folks? 😄 (Remember, my daughter is trans and I’m cool with that.)
But I don’t think you need an apology as you just said “sexes” without explicitly limiting the discussion to two … (except maybe you could have said “amongst” rather than “between”, but only my editors seem to deprecate using “between” when there are more than two things).
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Thanks for the wording tip, I’ll try to remember that!
“(Remember, my daughter is trans and I’m cool with that.)”
I have never forgotten that since I first saw you mention it here. I am so impressed with your acceptance. I’d like to think I’d have acted the same were one of my kids to so present. I’m entirely confident I’d have been cool with a gay child.
(Apparently, though, they’re both boring old heteros. 😀 And as a parent I do realize their path through life will be simpler because of that, fair or not.)
I suppose it helps that no one in our nuclear family is especially big into traditional sex roles. (For example, I hate being female.)
I surprise myself sometimes. But now it’s really odd to think of thinking of her as my “son”. And I find it easy to see “her” in photos when she was a young child.
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These little snowflakes have either forgotten or never heard about France (17)’92-’95.
Or of George Orwell.
They are desperately in need to hearing a lot of ideas that challenge their their tiny little world view.