Blog
Richard Dawkins had Kathleen Stock on his show
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
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
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.
10 problems with the ‘sex assigned at birth’ essay
They’re in what’s said — and not said. This isn’t a cost-benefit calculation. If we really looked at the term ‘sex assigned at birth,’ we might find that the benefits outweigh the costs.
When trans people are cut out of sports in Nassau County, New York
Republican organizes militia. Democratic Party chair retorts: ‘Does he think we’re going to be invaded by Suffolk County?’ Your neighbors are ‘trained’ to serve someone who marks everyone’s sex as a site of surveillance and regulation. This violence affects everyone.
Oh, it’s about sports, is it?
Nope, it’s not. It’s about constraining transgender lives. I don’t judge sports. I don’t pretend to. But I can detect when someone alleges injury and proposes a false remedy to delegitimize a group of people.
Three books that tell us to smash our categories
Recommended nonfiction by Miller, Fox, and Waters. Nonfiction recommendations: A 2020 book about David Starr Jordan, a 2023 book about William Beebe, and a 2024 book about Avery Brundage.
The indispensable history of ‘sex testing’ in sports
Waters keeps the book focused on the 1930s, with the history told in such a way that it’s crystal clear how it’s relevant today. The moral panic over trans people in sports continues not to be about sports.
As Berlin held the 1936 Olympics, these athletes changed their sex
Assigned female at birth, some went on to live as men. Eugenicists, sexists, racists, and fascists held power. Possibilities were disrupted when the Nazis rose. And the 1936 Olympics belonged to Hitler.