about

You’re not my type

holding hands

Trans man explains dating preferences to cis man. For gender and sexuality, self-ID is the tiebreaker. If the question is, How do I know if I’m a gay man?, the answer is never going to be, Ask Blake Smith.

Pirate secrets you can’t have at sea

sail, viewed from the deck of a ship, gazing up the mast

They worried their mates might steal a watch, not that their mates might be trans. Many people today act as if trans people were secret pirates. But even pirate captains didn’t care if other pirates were secretly trans men.

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 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.

Richard Dawkins had Helen Joyce on his show

quirky video still of Helen Joyce putting her hand up and looking astonished with the closed caption: that is to save a child's life so it has to be yeah it has to be death it has to

I like to stay informed about what they’re saying about trans people. Richard Dawkins didn’t have a trans person on his show. To cast skepticism on trans people, he hosted Helen Joyce. She’s not trans. That was a choice.