I have two announcements this morning:
a.) First, next Monday, Mar 3 at 12:30 Chicago time (1:30 Eastern time), I am having a 1-1½-hour discussion with DIAGdemocrats (“DIAG” stands for Democrats with an Informed Approach to Gender. And their slogan is “Liberals guiding our party back to reason and reality.” It’s tailor made for me!) Their “who we are” description is here, and the mission statement here. But there’s a lot of other stuff, including critiques of existing claims and studies involving gender. You can even send emails to your representatives in Congress from the site.
DIAGdemocrats also has a YouTube channel of previous discussions here, an Instagram page here,. and a Facebook page here.
The topic of our discussion is in the headline below, which I believe will link to the discussion on Twitter when you click on it (it will also be archived). We’ll be talking about various things, including the KerFFRFle with the Freedom From Religion Foundation that led to the resignation of Richard Dawkins, Steve Pinker, and I. But the discussion is likely to be wide-ranging and there will be a Q&A at the end.
As you can tell from the group’s name and the website linked above, it is is dedicated to a rational, science-informed approach to gender issues.
b.) And I want to call attention to this upcoming book edited by Lawrence Krauss; it’ll be available starting July 29 (I believe there will be an audiobook later). Click on the screenshot to go to the Amazon site:
Here’s the Amazon blurb:
An unparalleled group of prominent scholars from wide-ranging disciplines detail ongoing efforts to impose ideological restrictions on science and scholarship throughout western society.
From assaults on merit-based hiring to the policing of language and replacing well-established, disciplinary scholarship by ideological mantras, current science and scholarship is under threat throughout western institutions. As this group of prominent scholars ranging across many different disciplines and political leanings detail, the very future of free inquiry and scientific progress is at risk. Many who have spoken up against this threat have lost their positions, and a climate of fear has arisen that strikes at the heart of modern education and research. Banding together to finally speak out, this brave and unprecedented group of scholars issues a clarion call for change.
I’ve put a list of the authors below. The contents include the second and unpublished part of Richard Dawkins’s essay on sex, a slightly revised version of my essay with Luana Maroja, “The Ideological Subversion of Biology,” plus a bunch of pieces appearing for the first time. There are six sections as well as an introduction and afterword by Krauss. Keep your eye open for further announcements here or a view of the contents that will likely appear on the Amazon site.
| Dorian Abbot
John Armstrong Peter Boghossian Maarten Boudry Alex Byrne Nicholas A. Christakis Roger Cohen Jerry Coyne Richard Dawkins Niall Ferguson Janice Fiamengo Solveig Lucia Gold Moti Gorin Karleen Gribble Carole Hooven Geoff Horsman Joshua T. Katz Sergiu Klainerman Lawrence M. Krauss Anna Krylov |
| Luana Maroja
Christian Ott Bruce Pardy Jordan Peterson Steven Pinker Richard Redding Arthur Rousseau |
| Gad Saad
Sally Satel Lauren Schwartz Alan Sokal Alessandro Strumia Judith Suissa Alice Sullivan Jay Tanzman Abigail Thompson Amy Wax Elizabeth Weiss Frances Widdowson |
The Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender literature does not give a definition of “gender”.
The answer is Judith Butler’s Gnostic and Hermetic cult religious belief of “gender performativity” :
Gender Trouble – Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
Judith Butler
Routledge
1990
Bodies That Matter – On The Discursive Limits of Sex
Ibid.
1993
Gender in Mystical and Occult Thought – Behmenism and its Development in England
B. J. Gibbons
Cambridge U. Press
1996
Addendum:
A related answer important to note – that seems independent of gnosticism – lies in “gender identity” :
Sex and Gender – On the Development of Masculinity and Femininity
Robert J. Stoller
The Hogarth Press
1968
Man & Woman, Boy & Girl
Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity
John Money
Anke A. Ehrhardt
1976, 1993
Jason Aronson Inc.
Northvale, New Jersey
London
Bother the upcoming discussion and Krauss’s book are promising developments!
This is exciting and timely news and I will buy this book and read it. Laurence Krause is an entertaining and cogent advocate for making science within reach of a broad spectrum of intellects and like you, Jerry, makes it palatable to those of us who love cross pollinating the humanities with current scientific thinking. As a visual artist, I am continually enriched and stimulated by your blog . Long live critical thinking and debate.
Thanks for both updates. I’m interested in reflections on two things (among many):
There’s as much evidence for the existence of gender identity as there is for heaven, hell, or the soul.
Every study that gender ideologues have referred me to assumes that GI exists. I know a begging the question fallacy when I see one. There’s no foundational research to establish what GI is or that it exists – no research that disproves the null hypothesis. Hence, my reason (and liberalism) guides me to withhold belief when there’s no sufficient evidence.
*2. Trans doesn’t exist. The entire craze is a “culture-bound syndrome” (See YT interview by P Boghossian of Helen Joyce 7/3/2023)
Evidence for this is compelling, multidisciplinary, and has/will fill books. One argument I haven’t seen distinctly articulated, though Helen Joyce comes closest, is that the prevalence of people who claim to be trans** is high in high-exposure environments and low in low-exposure environments. This is true across small groups such as families, neighborhoods and schools, to large populations, like states and countries. More compelling of a causative relationship is that incidence increases and decreases in response to exposure. There’s even evidence from “detransitioners” that extinguishing exposure results in cessation of claims to be trans.
Point 2 is not intended to follow from point 1. They are two distinct conversation points.
** I use “people who claim to be trans” instead of “trans people” for the reason G Orwell so eloquently explained regarding the authoritarian enforcement of Newspeak in Nineteen eightyfour. Namely, the purpose of language control is to make it difficult or impossible for us to communicate and think logically and reasonably. I’m alert to it and try to avoid it. A person cannot change sex ergo there’s no such thing as a “trans person”.
+1
Gender is a vague and messy concept right now. There was a definition to it that one could accept, but various factions have sowed confusion upon it and so an attempt to define it only raises objections.
I don’t entirely agree with your #2. Yes, I believe there are many false claims about trans identities in that many young trans people later resolve to be merely gay. At other times young people have claimed to be in the trans spectrum in order to raise their cachet among progressive peers. I believe all these are true and this contributes, unfortunately, to beliefs that it is all a big put-on or mass hysteria. The far left progressives have made a total mess out of this one!
But once that is distilled away, there really are people who have trans gendered identities. They know they are trans, they stay trans, and they commit to being trans all their lives. I see no reason to not believe them as I would believe those who claim to be gay and commit to that lifestyle. Like homosexuals, there have been people living as transexuals for centuries, long before it was ever visible like it is now. We don’t know how a brain can sometimes come out that way, but we honestly don’t know why cis brains are they way they are either.
In other words, Mark, there are people with extremely sex-atypical personalities.
That’s fine, and they should be accepted in society. But there’s no need to deny their sex.
I’m curious what you think the term “trans” does to clarify anything here? I think it just confuses the matter.
Thx for your reply.
Re. gender, I did not comment on gender. I am clear what gender is, namely a collective noun for the two sexes. My first point (above) concerns gender identity. My point stands. If there is evidence that gender identity exists, I would like to know. So far, you might as well believe in fairies.
Re. your second paragraph, I don’t know where to begin. You don’t actually address my point #2. Like religion, you are free to believe and speak about what you want. Just don’t be surprised when others don’t believe your dogma due to the lack of evidence. Asserting that there really are “trans people” (for clarity, I think you mean “people who want to be called trans”) does not address point #2 (above). In fact, you have avoided the key topic, the growing evidence that the entire craze is a “culture-bound syndrome”. Further, using Newspeak terms like “cis” undermines our ability to speak and think clearly. For example, I suspect you would object if I tried to force you to refer to Xenu and thetans during our conversation. Surely we can agree that it is more productive when a conversation is based on common language?
It’s sort of ironic that Watkins & DiMarco (in that paper highlighted by our host earlier today) ignore all the variation Mark noted under the “trans” umbrella. They simply claim that “the gametic view…of sex has been used to argue that individual humans are “really” male or female [and] continues to perpetuate significant harms, especially for transgender and nonbinary persons.”
They argue that “the legitimate research purposes to which the biological concept of sex has been used should be weighed alongside the nefarious purposes to which the biological concept of sex has also been used.” That’s their project in that paper: to destroy the idea of biological sex because it has been used to call “transwomen” males.
But Mark’s point is a good counterargument: we should also weigh the legitimate concerns about a small number of true “trans” people (whatever that means) alongside the nefarious purposes to which genderism has also been used by many others to ruin female sport, abuse and rape females in women’s prisons, and medically mutilate gay autistic teenagers.
Sadly, the timing is not great: I suspect that by the end of July everyone who cares will be so appalled by whatever it is the Trump administration will have done to science that concerns about the effects of wokery and trans ideology will sound like voices from the distant past. This would have been a great book to see coming out last July.
Science is independent, or even orthogonal to, any administration or politics. Science is and on this 29july and all future july29’s will still be…now that’s assuming that trump doesn’t get us all incinerated before then.
It looks like an interesting book, but I kind of wish Lawrence Krauss wasn’t involved, in the light of the well-documented stories of his sleazy behaviour towards women, which he’s never admitted or apologised for.
Respectfully Andrew, I urge you to reexamine the actual evidence against Prof Krauss before you judge him. I quite like him, not a fanboy, but there was a LOT of innocent roadkill smashed under the #metoo express. Garrison Keillor for one.
I believe Kraus was part of that (yet another) socially contagious moral panic.
Which bedevil us since social media as it is the vector.
D.A.
NYC
An interesting range of authors – thanks!
I have not heard of most of them, but presumably they have a lot to teach. I should buy this book!
How do I register or link for Monday’s presentation? Thanks.
Jordan Peterson? A bit jarring, no?
It seems he can never define anything…