“The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no in the endeavor of science. We do not know in advance who will discover fundamental insights.”
That’s a great saying, and most of the time people in science take great stock in it. But, skepticism and science are needed especially at times when social cost is at risk. We all know that skeptics are easy to find when the subject is crypto-zoology, ufology, religion and miracles, flat earth, and the ideas that are dear to someone we don’t respect or love. But when it comes to knowing someone who believes an idea truly extraordinary about themselves, and not wanting to hurt that person, to be kind? Skeptics may back off and accept what that person says about themselves.
I sometimes do it, so I am not placing myself above anyone else. It’s difficult to tell someone that you don’t believe them, and of course, if they really believe that they were born in the wrong body for their gender identity. And yes, I am still trying to get a straight answer from those who accept such a thing, what the gender identity is caused by. What is it’s source, if not the brain of the individual that it’s hitchhiking through social adjustments?
I was scrolling through a YouTube Short list this morning and up popped Neil DeGrasse Tyson talking about spectrums of gender “as they have revealed themselves recently,” and it was obvious that he either accepts the idea that there are many genders that attach themselves to people, or he doesn’t want to raise the question of how they exist. I think, but I don’t know, that he is suppressing his own desire to inquire.
And it’s maddening to me for several reasons, but I am not focusing my anger at NDT. The anger is focused on a world that will not even listen to those who bring up:
The cost to women of recognizing Gender Identity as a passcode into their private spaces away from men. There are many areas where they need to not have us gazing at them, listening to them, pretending that we are them, or violating them. Men need to recognize this, but instead, most of us are ignoring them (at best) or calling them bigoted and transphobic for even raising objections.
The cost to children of being pigeonholed as trans for having an interest that is thought to be in the wheelhouse of the other sex. Trans kids are being groomed by their parents who want to be recognized for having a special flower child, and love to be told how wonderful they are for raising them up as trans. When indigo children became passe, they needed a new thing. But, also kids are being drugged and cut up to serve the needs of the trans industry.
The cost to gays and lesbians for being told that their sexual expression is a genital preference and should be unlearned to accept trans members of the sex they are not attracted to. It’s homophobic and it’s shaming, just at a time when gays and lesbians are being accepted as being able to marry their own sex.
So many kind skeptics are accepting this extra-ordinary turn of events that actively harms the status of women, children, and LGB, but we really need to have their services now. It’s needed desperately, and for those like Neil DT, or PZ Myers, or Steven Novella, or David Gorsky, to shrug their shoulders and say “yep, that’s the way it is,” is a dereliction of duty on the part of scientific skeptics.
If skeptics abrogate when the costs are so high, what is their value to society? Yes, it is fun to listen to them and feel superior to the stupid people who chase after Bigfoot and chupacabras. But that’s the easy stuff.
We need our skeptics to stand up and do the hard work that may cost them socially. I know of skeptics who have done so, and paid some social costs for it. One of those, who I am happy to call a friend, is Ophelia Benson. She faced a barrage of attacks from other “skeptics,” because she didn’t self-suppress and continued, actually she continues, to ask questions and answer back to the idea that we should just let people claim that the trans movement is supported by science. We know good and well that it isn’t.
There is no science that can explain what a gender identity actually is, because it’s not real.
excellent essay Mike. It is truly sad that much of the, yes, skepticism, about Magic Gender comes from the far right. As trans captures more and silences skepticism, I fear the movement could saddle us with right wing governments.