This is the result of a dispute I’ve explained before (see here). Because the FFRF has caved into to gender extremism, an area having nothing to do with its mission, and because, when they let me post an article on their website about this, they changed their mind and simply removed my post, I have decided I can no longer remain a member of their board of honorary directors. So be it. Everything is explained in this email I sent FFRF co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker about an hour ago, to wit:
Dear Annie Laurie and Dan,
As you probably expected, I am going resign my position on the honorary board of the FFRF. I do this with great sadness, for you know that I have been a big supporter of your organization for years, and was honored to receive not only your Emperor Has No Clothes Award, but also that position on your honorary board.
But because you took down my article that critiqued Kat Grant’s piece, which amounts to quashing discussion of a perfectly discuss-able issue, and in fact had previously agreed that I could publish that piece—not a small amount of work—and then put it up after a bit of editing, well, that is a censorious behavior I cannot abide. I was simply promoting a biological rather than a psychological definition of sex, and I do not understand why you would consider that “distressing” and also an attempt to hurt LGBTQIA+ people, which I would never do.
As I said, I think these folks should have moral and legal rights identical to those of other groups, except in the rare cases in which LGBTQIA+ rights conflict with the rights of other groups, in which case some kind of adjudication is necessary. But your announcement about the “mistake” of publishing my piece also implies that what I wrote was transphobic.
Further, when I emailed Annie Laurie asking why my piece had disappeared (before the “official announcement” of revocation was issued), I didn’t even get the civility of a response. Is that the way you treat a member of the honorary board?
I always wanted to be on the board so I could help steer the FFRF: I didn’t think of it as a job without any remit. The only actions I’ve taken have been to write to both of you—sometimes in conjunction with Steve, Dan (Dennett), or Richard—warning of the dangers of mission creep, of violating your stated goals to adhere to “progressive” political or ideological positions. Mission creep was surely instantiated in your decision to cancel my piece when its discussion of biology and its relationship to sex in humans violated “progressive” gender ideology. This was in fact the third time that I and others have tried to warn the FFRF about the dangers of expanding its mission into political territory. But it is now clear that this is exactly what you intend to do. Our efforts have been fruitless, and if there are bad consequences I don’t want to be connected with them.
I will add one more thing. The gender ideology which caused you to take down my article is itself quasi-religious, having many aspects of religions and cults, including dogma, blasphemy, belief in what is palpably untrue (“a woman is whoever she says she is”), apostasy, and a tendency to ignore science when it contradicts a preferred ideology.
I will continue to struggle for the separation of church and state, and wish you well in that endeavor, which I know you will continue. But I cannot be part of an organization whose mission creep has led it to actually remove my words from the internet—words that I cannot see as harmful to any rational person. I am not out to hurt LGBTQIA+ people, and I hope you know that. But you have implied otherwise, and that is both shameful for you and hurtful for me.
Cordially
Jerry
Exactly the right thing to do, and perfectly stated. I commend your courage and integrity. I admire that you wrote civilly and without rancor or attacks.
Yikes!
Too be fair, I’d as well. Always will be the first to respect those who are trans but expect in return that they respect their biology as well.
I know psychology well enough to understand it.
I simply gave up respecting “those who are trans”. They are lying and commanding me to commit to that lie. Respect given to them will never be reciprocated.
I’m sorry, but it is bigoted to simply say, “I gave up respecting ‘those who are trans’.” They are human beings, for crying out loud, and not all of them engage in ideological proselytizing. And even when they do, they deserve whatever respect is afforded people because they are human, including fundamental rights.
They’re just making all the regular ones seem like the few who make a scene.
Judging the whole based on a few vocal and distinctive ones is pathetic.
Agree, Jerry Coyne–thanks for your comment vs. Zimriel.
Their actions betray a deep lack of respect for social norms and boundaries, and are thus deserving of derision and condemnation for engaging in opposite-sex impersonation.
No one is advocating taking away their “fundamental rights”
Please clarify. Are you saying that bullying is okay or shunning is okay? It looks like you’re saying that bullying is okay, and it never is. Sarcasm has blowback that a firm “No” does not have, and should probably be saved as a last resort.
And by “opposite-sex impersonation” are you talking about people lying by omission to have sex with someone who wouldn’t want to have sex with them otherwise, or to use an intimate space reserved for the opposite sex? Or are you talking about people who, so-called, “cross-dress” according to current fashions but otherwise use facilities and identify according to their actual sex?
Because malicious lying is to be condemned, sure, but dressing, grooming, and even adjusting one’s bodily presentation for comfort is a freedom we all should have. Outside of practical garb, it’s religions that have insisted that people all present a particular way to demonstrate fidelity to that religion.
Hmm, “gave up respecting” is ambiguous. If you meant you’d stopped catering to the whims of those who are demanding and unhinged, then I might agree with you. If you meant to dehumanize groups of people, I don’t.
I have a former friend who was a Lutheran minister but whose life unraveled when he transitioned in his late 50s. He works for Target now. I supported his transition and was there for him when he left his church, job, and wife and started taking hormones. I referred to him when we were talking as “her” out of care and concern for my friend. Our friendship ended when he demanded that I advocate for men in women’s sports and restrooms and blamed me for him getting UTI’s. There was no discussion. He turned on me, who’d lent him my ear for years. He lacked empathy for women, including me, having dismissed my 20 years of supporting his journey to experience himself as a woman. All it took was me saying I was uneasy with men in women’s private spaces.
However, I still sympathize with my former friend and do want him to be happy. I just no longer think I should be forced to refer to him as “her” and shouldn’t be forced to allow men in bathrooms in order maintain a friendship or be considered a good person.
“Respect” is a loaded word.
Respect is earned and can be lost. It can’t be demanded, except in gang hierarchies.
Your story illustrates the issue, Roz.
I’m starting to think that those think it’s fine for biological males to compete in women’s sports and attend women’s groups like La Leche League are misogynists plain and simple.
As I see it, the reason these men posing as women are so extremely hateful is that they absolutely know they are not, and can never be, women.
I agree, because, when they demand “respect”, they in reality mean submission – quite like the Islamists.
I guess I don’t know what it means to blanketly respect any group or specific attribute of individuals.
I don’t “respect” firemen. I don’t respect brown hair. I don’t respect an interest in philately or the ability to whistle in perfect pitch. (That’s a little bit of a lie on that last one. I’m a sucker for wonderful whistling.)
I have to admit that I don’t know what it actually means to have a “gender identity” at all. To whatever degree it exists, it’s rather like anuses — everybody’s got one.
No one is special for leaning into some feeling they have in their head.
Are you, by chance, an Andrew Bird fan? That man can whistle! 🙂
Do not even send me down a rabbit hole from which I’ll find it difficult to extricate myself from.
I myself cannot whistle at all. It’s a tragedy. I started trying when I was four. Fifty years later, I’m no better at it. sigh
“I have to admit that I don’t know what it actually means to have a “gender identity” at all. To whatever degree it exists,”…”everybody’s got one.”
That’s like saying everyone’s a little bit crazy, or everyone’s a little bit OCD. Especially saying that when you have no idea of what it’s like to be genuinely schizophrenic or obsessive compulsive.
Outside of certain circumstances such as the physical act of sex I don’t know what it means to have a gender identity either. But I’ve read posts from people who say they do, and even though I cannot identify with what they write, I can still see that they’re writing about something very important to themselves.
That somethong is very important to them has no bearing on whether or not that something is a “gender identity.”
The concept/purported being they refer to as “God” is very important to religious people. It’s not possible to know whether everyone who uses that word has the same idea about what God is.
@Lady Mondegreen
Sure, but what else would you call an affirmative identification with a sex or gender role? (e.g. “I feel like less of a man”, “I’m every woman”, “I want to be a man/woman” et cetera?)
Deities vary in their descriptions, yet we don’t have much trouble identifying theism (except maybe at the ‘spiritual’ or agnostic borders).
I’ve been a member for around twenty years and will be quitting today also.
IMO, this is the correct response to this situation. I don’t suppose they will reply to this email either. What a profound shame.
Good response. Interesting that you have warned them before about expanding the mission. So your resigning is after multiple attempts to keep them on track. I think this is a problem with many modern organizations on the left. The mission always expands to include the popular issues of the day, even when they have little to do with the main mission of the organization. This is similar to what tore apart online atheism and led to Atheism+. Maybe FFRF will become Atheism+ 2.0.
Yes, it does seem to infect most progressive orgs, and they become militant in their demand for ideological purity, causing them to lose their original mission. This almost surely helped get Trump elected, as they alienate reasonable people.
Isn’t there an adage about never giving power to someone who would accept it?
Bravo. One can only hope this will have some positive effect on the FFRF.
Thanks Jerry, you absolutely did the right thing. What a shame that FFRF ends up in opposition to the science of gender, when it’s science that’s a main driver of skepticism about supernaturalism.
I think this is the right thing to do and I put a comment on their website page stating that I support you and your views and will no longer donate to FFR or attend their events.
Amy
I was on the verge of becoming a FFRF ‘life member.’ Until your news yesterday. Now I intend to be a non-member for life. And I applaud your action!
The mission creep is bizarre in that I would think that they especially have reason not to associate themselves too strongly to “progressive” dogma. Many of the people who seem to most benefit from the organization are those who come from Christian upbringings, which are right wing sociologically, by the numbers.
I hope Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker follow suit
As you see, Pinker already has.
This was a good response.
What a debacle. Thank you for your efforts and your voice. You did not deserve to be ignored by the Foundation, much less subject to treachery and dishonesty. FFRF have lost their way. So sad.
Very articulate response to this disappointing situation.
I applaud you for staying on in hopes of making a difference but with being censured, resigning is the right thing.
I had joined this organization because of your website some years ago, but stopped being a member last year when I became aware (through this website) of this skepticism of science.
It is the pursuit of this falsity of sex differences that is the same pursuit of religious falsity that bothers me.
I’m sorry for this debacle. Your resignation letter covers all of the bases succinctly. Others may follow your lead. This is sad for you and for the organization, and the fact that no one at FFRF even acknowledged your letters tells me that they are embarrassed at their own behavior and are living in fear of reprisals. It’s sad all the way around.
The irony is these types of dustups and harsh reactions to any questioning harms the trans cause. Some trans people have said this. They say that the extreme, shrill and “cancel culture” activists mostly hurt rather than help the cause.
Indeed! Each favored group/population picked up by the zealots suffers a backlash, imo. Extremism is destructive in all its expressions. “Reasonable people” (as Phil L in thread #5 above accurately describes us) are put off and, ultimately, angered. I’m also thinking of Leslie referring to these movements seeking protections/special allowances for particular cohorts as resulting in a zero sum game.
What is it that makes cowards of us all? It isn’t conscience, which you have embodied and which has made you brave.
Thank you for your voice.
I think by “conscience,” Shakespeare, (writing of course in Elizabethan English), meant something like “conscious reflection,” rather than the modern meaning of “superego.” And Hamlet was right that, if we overthink the potential consequences of bold, irreversible actions, we can get scared off. And in that sense you’re right: Jerry, unsurprisingly, didn’t get scared off: he did the righteous thing.
A sad decision.
Well – as I see it – the FFRF and PCC(E) are here to stay, so perhaps
there will be an answer – Let It Be
Just catching up on this Jerry, and I’m awfully sorry to see FFRF violate its own purpose of championing secular, rational thought over religious ideology to the extent of not even allowing discussion of a topical issue. You did what you could.
Now I’m wondering if FFRF will remove the mannequin of Charles Darwin that they have at Freethought Hall in Madison. Someone will discover his work on sexual selection and declare him an apostate.
https://ffrf.org/images/images/Freethought-Hall-Library.jpg
Quite!
A masterful letter.
+1
I’ve been a supporter of the FFRF for many years, and a Lifetime Member since 2017. I’ll be following you out the door.
A sad but justifiable choice. It’s FFRF’s loss; they brought this on themselves.
The Religious Right insists that men cannot become women because “God made the sexes separate” and have then used religious freedom arguments to curb gender ideology in schools, sports, and medicine. The FFRF apparently takes this to mean that scientific and secular arguments which come to the same conclusions can therefore be considered a form of stealth Christian fundamentalism. Sad, but not justifiable.
Yes great point. The only other underlying reasons I can see for FFRF behaving this way are capture by young woke employees or a trans child among the leaders’ families (as suggested by other commenters).
Good letter Jerry. Sadly this whole debacle is playing into the hands of the religious right who will weaponise it in so many ways.
Kudos to you and Professor Pinker!
Sigh Well I wonder what honorary board member Ron Reagan might have to say about their present state.
You had to do it Jerry, and to make it public. Indeed, religion and quasi religious ideologies are promoters of evil, as we know
Unfortunately, FFRF will probably not make it public but will quietly remove Jerry and Stephen with no explanation. I don’t expect any response from the email i sent them either.
I believe your resignation is justified – although I’d argue that the FFRF has left you.
Perhaps it is yet another organisation that is being ‘marched though’ not to promote Marxism but Identity Politics?
I’ve noted other organisations where the careerist endeavours of senior staff overwhelm the importance of the original purpose of the organisation.
Sad times.
Critical Social Justice, like all the other Critical Theories, originated in Marxism (the Frankfurt School).
FFRF has lost its way. You did the right thing. I am sure that many members will follow your exit.
Would love to read the responses
Excellent response Jerry. I’m so sorry that this happened. I would have felt hurt by it if it had happened to me.
See, the sin Jerry Coyne committed was showing straightforwardly (with science and with zero shouting) that mammals come in two sexes. Ergo, since at least one thing atheists are likely to agree on is that human beings are part of the animal kingdom–not a special creation, human beings come in two sexes.
So if we only come in two sexes, that means whatever is happening in trans people is not rooted in the easy answer that they were born somewhere along a sex spectrum. They weren’t. Something else is going on. And when “something else is going on” human animals get curious. Curiosity leads to questions. And if it’s one thing that TRAs (and apparently FFRF) can’t stand, it’s questions.
This, to me, is the key point. Denial of the fact of two sexes is only preached (verb chosen intentionally) in humans; never in (other) animals. This type of human exceptionalism has a thoroughly religious basis. For example, Genesis 1.27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Note that none of the (other) animals are created in the image of God). Or Psalm 8.3-8.
Which is why I consider trans activism (not for basic human or civil rights, of course, but for denial of basic scientific truth and social engineering) as a form of crypto-religion (or maybe not so crypto, given the number of excommunications they’ve performed).
There are misguided claims of multiple sexes in other animals, including at least one mammal (Orangutans). But these are simply cases where there are different forms of males, each employing different mating strategies to procure mates.
Was it Fuentes that had pushed that nonsense? I don’t recall.
What is telling is that these are among the nuttiest claims made in this whole area, but do certain human-sex-is-a-spectrum biologists ever call this out? No they do not. Rule #2 or #3 is to never correct disciples on your side.
You’ve got it in one!!!!!
Some of them claim that intersex conditions are “sexes.” In order to do this, they have to ignore what sex is–a method of reproduction–and define it as a cluster of sex-related characteristics.
Here’s my letter to the editor, that I’m sure won’t be published anywhere. “This debacle over Professor Coyne is ridiculous and the ffrf handled it very poorly. To me, this has nothing to do with trans rights and everything to do with how cowardly this was handled. You’ll print crank mail but have to take down a piece about biology from a (now former) member of your board? This isn’t keeping with the spirit of freethought at all. My membership expires in August and I won’t be renewing because of this. It’s especially a shame because we need organizations like the ffrf (used to be) now, more than ever.”
Shame on them. Your letter is excellent, as was your piece that they censored.
Here’s some commentary from the other side. https://bsky.app/profile/friendlyatheist.com/post/3leccnioymc22
Hemant and his crew went off the rails a long time ago.
It is interesting that those who are the first to shout about “harm”, such as Hemant Mehta, are perfectly fine with violent threats, demands people kill themselves, and homophobic insults on their comment boards…
PZ Meyers and Hemant Mehta are fine with Nazis commenting on their boards, as long as they’re their kind of Nazis.
They have a Substack. There was an article about this. I left a comment was savagely attacked.
The Not So Friendly Atheist!
Someone should sue the “Friendly” Atheist for false advertising. He’s about as friendly as a rabid pitbull.
So it seems a lot of others are cancelling their FFRF memberships simply because they published Jerry’s column in the first place. FFRF is losing from both sides.
There’s just something about the combination of ignorance and arrogance that really gets my goat. Every time.
I studied zoology and then much later on, medicine. Few basic biological concepts are taught in medicine – rather, science is taught in detail if it directly enhances the study of medicine. Medicine is a training degree rather a science degree. Quite a few physicians don’t seem to have a fundamental grasp of this fact or of the limitations of their own knowledge. This person appears to be one of them.
Too true. It is not without reason that medicine, dentistry (mea culpa), engineering, et al, are fountains of pseudo-science. I didn’t really understand the training vs. education dichotomy until my interest in fluoride and amalgam quackery led me into the skeptical world of CSICOP, NCAHF, etc. in the late ’70s – early ’80s.
Intellectual compartmentalization is a plague. Reading the atheism or creationist threads on Dentaltown.com would make you cry.
Thanks for the link. It amazes me that bluesky has such a concentration of irrational liberals with regard to sex/gender.
Very well done, both your action and the way you communicated it.
Applause to you.
Amen, so to speak. My approach would be more like Dilbert’s Alice, not something I’m proud of but I yam what I yam.
Totally agree. The infusion of religious ideology into science has not worked out well for science. The best example is the popularization of the Big Bang Theory after its initiation in 1950 by Bishop Lamaitre when religion received a big push in preparation for the Cold War. At the Progressive Science Institute we have been challenging the resulting “Last Creation Myth” since 1980. Cosmologists still don’t seem to mind violating the First Law of Thermodynamics and promoting the absurd idea the universe exploded out of nothing. Search on “Infinite Universe Theory” (in quotes) to find out more.
Looks like I will have to give up membership in FFRF.
Excellent example of an articulate, unemotional, and civil resignation letter that nonetheless points out how indefensible are the actions of FFRF.
Very good letter, Jerry. I told you yesterday that I would write to them and I just sent something short and pointed. Best of luck to you and Steven Pinker. It will be interesting to hear what Richard Dawkins has to say.
It is sad that it has come to this, but it was the right choice. I think their logic for doubling down on this ideology is that they want to be popular with gen-Z atheists, who tend to be “progressive”, but this will probably hurt their cause in the long run.
Bravo, Jerry. Hopefully the FFRF will learn something that a lot of people in today’s society need to learn–actions have consequences.
Excellent response to a very sad situation. Hopefully the people at FFRF will find the space to reflect and learn.
Whew! Longtime FFRF member here and I fully agree with your original post and now your resignation.
Something seems to have taken over at FFRF. It reminds me of the old environmental group Earth First!, founded in 1980 by four guys fed up with the status quo of the mainstream environmental groups back then. Earth First! had a very clear and distinct mission statement at its founding; over time the group attracted more and more people who eventually crowded out the founders and began to imprint Earth First! with their own causes and ideologies. The founders eventually all resigned; I don’t know if Earth First! even exists anymore.
Same thing with most of the mainline churches in my ( Seattle ) area. Most of the clergy are either gay or trans and are gradually remaking these old time religions into LGBTQ worlds. This kind of rebranding has driven many otherwise liberal and tolerant longtime members to leave. I know of several personally.
Maybe these kinds of “mission creep” are inevitable in a rapidly evolving world? Dan Barker with his first book and then FFRF were very edgy at the time; going on forty years later now, the group has many more and different members and influences. Maybe it’s time to start anew, with a solid emphasis on the core concern: keeping religion out of politics, preserving our Constitution. Period.
Respectfully, Kirk Knighton
About churches being taken over, I have a friend who is very involved in his Unitarian Universalist church and he is deeply saddened about how it’s gone. He was on the advisory board, but that got infiltrated with Wokery by aggressive new members and he had to resign in protest. In rapid succession there was a campaign to reject some of their statement of principles, like having a questioning mind. They were also trying to racially segregate the flock (!) It’s been tearing the group apart.
“Wokery”.
You’re stealing a term from the US black rights movement first coined in the 1930s. Please don’t. I’m sure you can see the parallel to this very post.
Do you remember the “Women’s March”? It was founded by committed women who denounced misogyny, which received a huge boost after Trump’s election in 2016.
When Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez and Bob Bland took over the leadership shortly afterwards, the organization was quickly transformed into an association steeped in identity politics and not averse to anti-Semitism, which was also not too shy to seek cooperation with the Islamists of the “Nation of Islam”.
“The Emperor has no clothes!!”—that is, until one favors the Emperor or serves as his faithful courtesans and courtiers. Whether it be a man, a woman, or an ideology that reigns, the outcome is eventually the same: intellectual disgrace. But, hey, what small price for those career and social trinkets passed around by the Crown. “At least we never praised THEIR emperor!”
Cheers to Jerry for taking a different path.
Excellent response to FFRF.
On Free Thought Now I commented the following:
One of the main reasons I left Christianity was its anti-scientific attitudes and its attempts to control my thoughts, telling me what to believe or not believe, what I could read or couldn’t read. Unfortunately now FFR is doing the exact same thing, telling me I can’t read Jerry Coyne’s essay because it might “distress” me, telling me that I must fall in line and believe the trans ideology that “A woman is whoever she says she is”, and all this irrespective of what the science of biology has to say on the matter. I left religion because of this intellectual bullying, I am not about to submit to it from an organization that supposedly supports “Free Thought Now.” I no longer see your organization in a positive light, and would not recommend it to anyone seeking to leave religion.
Lowell – My sentiments were perfectly stated in your post. Would you object to my quoting it, with attribution to your authorship, in my email to FFRF telling them I am cancelling my membership? dj
David, feel free to quote it to FFRF. I never was a member but I felt my comment was needed to protest the retraction of Jerry’s article. Hopefully the leadership will actually take note when these sentiments are attached to a membership cancellation.
https://x.com/Evolutionistrue/status/1872669463008657868
https://x.com/Evolutionistrue/status/1873018487293301093
https://x.com/Evolutionistrue/status/1873388677898105326
https://x.com/Evolutionistrue/status/1873420794614935592
I’m really, really disappointed. 😢
Professor Jerry Coyne, thank you for your hard work as Honorary Board. 💐💐
https://x.com/SwipeWright/status/1797720131524497549
Dr. Colin Wright points out that “atheists are tolerant of trans ideology.” 😐😔
They really put you in a corner, and this was the only feasible escape route, and you escaped with civility and candor. Kudos.
I’ve been a member for many years. I “renew” every year, but this year I’ll recycle the solicitation. If they realign their course, I’ll renew my membership and support.
I’ll add these words by Bob Dylan that reminds me of your travails with these FFRF mishigas.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
what else can you show me?
Bravo!
It was appropriate for you and Steve to resign. FFRF demonstrated that your contributions aren’t valued. In fact, worse, they treated you as diabolical to their mission. I’m glad that Steve pointed out that what they did was slanderous to you.
What they did is deeply hurtful to you and their own efforts. I’m sad they caved like every other liberal organization I’ve respected. Another one bites the dust.
My generation, the same one as Razib’s (not surprised he chimed in), doesn’t really have the equivalent of you, Steve, Dawkins, etc. We aren’t as inspiring or elegant. I’m not sure what’s going to happen. But we need new organizations.
Very sorry you had to do this Jerry, but much respect for you and Steven Pinker on principles.
I shared a diplomatic note through FFRF’s contact page expressing my disappointment and urging them to reconsider. It won’t amount to anything, but perhaps worth others doing the same if they feel so moved.
Well done!
D.A.
NYC
Good move Jerry I very much doubt you could live in that space. It is an affront to science, reason and discourse. That your move be a sad one all the same, this is no time I feel for being accommodating and pandering to an ideology.
The truth won’t out itself it has to be laid out and explained, you’ve done that in the best possible way.
A sordid story. I wonder if anyone is the better for all this.
I am, that is for sure!
😄
Those of us who value critical thinking are.
So are we who care about the rights of human females.
Perfect action and text!
q is a political ideology and identity. it is not like the other letters.
Truly abysmal behaviour on FFRF’s part. I commend you on your decision; I think it was very level-headed and, if I may say so, your letter to them beautifully framed the crux of the matter, especially where you mention the sectarian, cultish nature of the gender identity ideology they have embraced.
Best wishes.
Agreed, but you have said it so much better than I could. Well done, Jerry!
Well said, and quite sad, Jerry. I was wondering how/whether you could stay on the honorary board.
A very classy response to an organization that is clearly not “friendly” to anyone not a true believer. Which doesn’t make for a very good “atheist,” either.
Well done for standing up Jerry! Thankfully a lot of the comments on FRF’s statement are highly critical of them.
It’s just a shame they probably see it as a win that your, Steven Pinker, and Richard Dawkins have resigned your positions. Hopefully the subscription and donation hit does more damage and corrects their course.
It blows my mind that they can’t see the similarities between their current take and religion.
Thanks for continuing this fight. You are right.
Thank you for standing for something as opposed to those who go with those who do not.
My only criticism of this otherwise exacting piece is that it falls into the trap of discussing trans-only issues in terms of “LGBTQIA+” or similar.
LGB is orthogonal to Transgenderism, at best. LGB is precisely about sexual orientation: a thing many transactivists and “queer” advocates deny even exists. Thus, at worst, transactivism is fundamentally antithetical, and even outright hostile, to core LGB interests.
Please don’t fall into the trap of this forced teaming. The interests of LGB people, and most particularly the L, are continually eroded and even attacked by transactivism. When referring to purely trans issues, best to just use the T.
I just used the FFRFs (sorry, apostrophe key broken) own terminology. I recognize the differences between the letters but did not want to get into the weeds in my response.
I’m trying to find the clapping emoji for your comment, but there isn’t one.
“have tried to warn the FFRF about the dangers of expanding its mission into political territory.”
Other than its current political mission, I assume. Politics is the dealings of groups of people and their identified beliefs. FFRF is a group of people, ergo it’s necessarily political.
It is always delightful to see people who don’t understand the biology of sex and gender revealing their orthodoxies. You are an fool if you think that the biology of sex is simple, and you are twice a fool if you think that the neurobiology of gender is simple. Biological sex is not a binary. There are nondisjunction events, chimaerisms, and miles of genetic code that cannot be simplified (in many cases) to “male and “female.” Psychology and its tie to the brain are even less simple. Jerry, you have chosen to go along with your beliefs in this matter. That’s fine for you, but stay out of other people’s lives. That’s exactly what I tell the churches.
Sorry, but you have no idea what you are talking about. I never said the biology of sex was simple nor the neurobiology of gender. But yes, biological sex is binary, and I gave evidence, which you did not bother to address much less contest. All you are saying here is that you are rude and ignorant.
If by staying out of other people’s lives you mean I cannot address issues of social import, you are doubly ignorant. I have every right to express my views on biology. As far as I see, you post has no argument except that “some things are complicated.“ Sorry pal, but that is not a counter to my assertions.
“Nondisjunctive events, chimaerisms, and miles of genetic code…”, etc., are not sexes. Aneuploidies are not sexes. Disorders of sexual development are not sexes.
There are only two sexes.
It seems there is a growing split in the atheist community. I’m always down for a front row seat. Grab the popcorn everybody. In the meantime, check out the FirebrandForGood video on the issue. BEST DAMN ATHEIST VIDEO ON THE SUBJECT. The comment section is on fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= FC4ZiXukGoA
I intentionally left a space in the url after the v= so just put it back together.