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Yet another pro-discrimination argument

Pencil erasers, not used

Always follow the typos. They reveal what editors aren’t researching. Why does a national newspaper pay a columnist for a 2,800-word anti-transgender opinion essay? More mysteriously: If there’s a typo, what does it imply?

‘And you know what that means’

Closeup of a Nandu ostrich head

Is it a dogwhistle? I don’t know what it means. Transphobic essays are fiction. Not the harmless entertainment kind, either. These are lies about brutalizing the elderly and medically intervening on kids.

A bigoted premise sparks an ideology

One hand holds an open matchbox, the other holds a struck match. The matchbox brand label is "transfóboros."

For some, transphobia and homophobia are first principles. Transphobia is an ideology for many, a lens through which they see the world. There are other ways to think without first striking the match of transphobia.

15 transphobias in ‘Trans Totalitarianism’

carved spooky jack-o-lantern with fog coming out its eyes and mouth

Rod Dreher’s August 2022 article in The American Conservative. Low on facts, high on transphobia. Here’s how we recognize that the perspective is transphobic. And here are 15 specific pieces of nonsense.

Richard Dawkins is stuck with a transphobic podcast

bored princess girl in pink headband resting chin in hand

Indulge transphobia long enough, and it becomes part of who you are. People standing up to announce themselves as transphobes, even when their viewpoint wasn’t asked for, is one social consequence of transphobia.

New ‘New Atheist’ cry: There is no trans

empty, hatched eggshell lying in the grass

Yes, Dawkins did fall down the transphobia rabbit hole. QED. The New Atheists used to insist there is no god. Now Dawkins mainly insists there is no trans. People asked me to prove he was transphobic. Here it is.

Richard Dawkins had Kathleen Stock on his show

split-screen style video still of Kathleen Stock and Richard Dawkins in their May 2024 interview on YouTube

No, this anti-trans position isn’t ‘moderate.’ It’s hypocritical, unfair, and insincere. Both of them are openly making it up. Never mind whether it’s kind, which Stock says she doesn’t care about. It isn’t moderate. Nor fair. It’s insincere.

Richard Dawkins had Lawrence Krauss on his show

video still of the Poetry of Reality, with closed caption: 'Why is a white woman in America vilified and damned'

We are not ever going to hear a dialectic. Dawkins’s repetition of his transphobic claim has not advanced a useful dialectic. He hasn’t invited a podcast guest who might challenge it.

Richard Dawkins had Peter Boghossian on his show

Peter Boghossian telling Richard Dawkins: 'lets say that we get 10 skeletons right here' (video still with closed caption)

They’re both involved with the University of Austin. Boghossian treats the word “trans” as a synonym for “fake.” In his view, there are no trans lives, thus no shred of evidence about trans lives.