#Genderism

[eldopism]

The funny thing with abusive misogynists is that however much they hate women who defy them, they always seem to find ways to absolutely loathe the obedient ones

[reyneofswords]

males with disorders of sex development whose condition does not give them a significant male sporting advantage shouldn't compete against women either btw. the category is women, not other.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Editor’s Note:

At Reality’s Last Stand, we are deeply committed to fostering free speech, scientific discourse, and intellectual courage—values that are increasingly under siege in today’s polarized climate. It is in this spirit that we are republishing Jerry Coyne’s essay, “Biology is Not Bigotry,” which was originally published on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s (FFRF) website before being abruptly unpublished.

Coyne, an emeritus professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, critically responded to an article by an FFRF intern that argued, “A woman is whoever she says she is.” Despite receiving approval for publication, Coyne’s scientifically grounded critique was unpublished after the FFRF deemed it inconsistent with their values and worried it may cause readers “distress.” Following this decision, both Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins also resigned from the FFRF’s Honorary Board in protest.

By republishing this essay (with the author’s permission), Reality’s Last Stand reaffirms our commitment to upholding rigorous science, free inquiry, and respectful dialogue. Coyne’s essay stands as a critical defense of biology against pseudoscience and as a reminder of the dangers posed by ideological gatekeeping in science and public discourse.

Colin Wright CEO and Editor-in-Chief, Reality’s Last Stand

--

From the Atheists for Liberty Editorial Board:

The following article by Jerry A. Coyne was originally published by the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Freethought Today. It has since been removed because “it does not reflect our values or principles.” Clearly FFRF’s idea of “Freethought” only includes thoughts aligned with their new Social Justice values. These new values are completely contrary to those which once made it a respectable, nonpartisan organization championing the strict separation of church and state.

After Jerry Coyne’s resignation from FFRF’s Honorary Board, he has kindly authorized us to republish his article in its original uncensored form. His resignation has since been followed by the resignations of Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, men responsible for making atheist organizations like FFRF thrive in the early decades of the 21st century.

As you read Coyne’s words, we at Atheists for Liberty hope you consider what the FFRF found so disagreeable they had to censor this article by a respected professor. Contrary to their stated reasons, FFRF’s actions prove, not that they abide by values and principles, but that they may have never had any in the first place.

--

By: Jerry Coyne

Published: Dec 31, 2024

In the Freethought Now article “What is a woman?” author Kat Grant struggles at length to define the word, rejecting one definition after another as flawed or incomplete. Grant finally settles on a definition based on self-identity: “A woman is whoever she says she is.” This of course is a tautology, and still leaves open the question of what a woman really is. And the remarkable redefinition of a term with a long biological history can be seen only as an attempt to force ideology onto nature. Because some nonbinary people—or men who identify as women (“transwomen”)—feel that their identity is not adequately recognized by biology, they choose to impose ideology onto biology and concoct a new definition of “woman.”

Further, there are plenty of problems with the claim that self-identification maps directly onto empirical reality. You are not always fat if you feel fat (the problem with anorexia), not a horse if you feel you’re a horse (a class of people called “therians” psychologically identify as animals), and do not become Asian simply become you feel Asian (the issue of “transracialism”). But sex, Grant tells us, is different: It is the one biological feature of humans that can be changed solely by psychology.

But why should sex be changeable while other physical traits cannot? Feelings don’t create reality. Instead, in biology “sex” is traditionally defined by the size and mobility of reproductive cells (“gametes”). Males have small, mobile gametes (sperm in animals and pollen in plants); females have large, immobile gametes (ova in plants and eggs in animals). In all animals and vascular plants there are exactly two sexes and no more. Though a fair number of plants and a few species of animals combine both functions in a single individual (“hermaphrodites”), these are not a third sex because they produce the typical two gametes.

It’s important to recognize that, although this gametic idea is called a “definition” of sex, it is really a generalization—and thus a concept—based on a vast number of observations of diverse organisms. We know that, except for a few algae and fungi, all multicellular organisms and vertebrates, including us, adhere to this generalization. It is, then, nearly universal.

Besides its universality, the gametic concept has utility, for it is the distinction between gamete types that explains evolutionary phenomena like sexual selection. Differential investment in reproduction accounts for the many differences, both physical and behavioral, between males and females. No other concept of sex has such universality and utility. Attempts to define sex by combining various traits associated with gamete type, like chromosomes, genitalia, hormones, body hair and so on, lead to messy and confusing multivariate models that lack both the universality and explanatory power of the gametic concept.

Yes, there is a tiny fraction of exceptions, including intersex individuals, who defy classification (estimates range between 1/5,600 and 1/20,000). These exceptions to the gametic view are surely interesting, but do not undermine the generality of the sex binary. Nowhere else in biology would deviations this rare undermine a fundamental concept. To illustrate, as many as 1 in 300 people are born with some form of polydactyly—without the normal number of ten fingers. Nevertheless, nobody talks about a “spectrum of digit number.” (It’s important to recognize that only a very few nonbinary and transgender people are “intersex,” for nearly all are biologically male or female.)

In biology, then, a woman can be simply defined in four words: “An adult human female.”

Dismissal of trait-based concepts of sex leads to serious errors and misconceptions. I mention only a few. The biological concept of a woman does not, as Grant argues, depend on whether she can actually produce eggs. Nobody is claiming that postmenopausal females, or those who are sterile or had hysterectomies, are not “women,” for they were born with the reproductive apparatus that evolved to produce eggs. As for chromosomes, having two X chromosomes gives you a very high probability of being a woman, but a rearrangement of genetic information can decouple chromosome constitution from the gametic apparatus.

But the biggest error Grant makes is the repeated conflation of sex, a biological feature, with gender, the sex role one assumes in society. To all intents and purposes, sex is binary, but gender is more spectrum-like, though it still has two camel’s-hump modes around “male” and “female.” While most people enact gender roles associated with their biological sex (those camel humps), an appreciable number of people mix both roles or even reject male and female roles altogether. Grant says that “I play with gender expression” in “ways that vary throughout the day.” Fine, but this does not mean that Grant changes sex from hour to hour.

Under the biological concept of sex, then, it is impossible for humans to change sex—to be truly “transsexual”—for mammals cannot change their means of producing gametes. A more appropriate term is “transgender,” or, for transwomen, “men who identify as women.”

But even here Grant misleads the reader. They argue, for example, that “Transgender people are no more likely to be sexual predators than other individuals.” Yet the facts support the opposite of this claim, at least for transgender women. A cross-comparison of statistics from the U.K. Ministry of Justice and the U.K. Census shows that while almost 20 percent of male prisoners and a maximum of 3 percent of female prisoners have committed sex offenses, at least 41 percent of trans-identifying prisoners were convicted of these crimes. Transgender, then, appear to be twice as likely as natal males and at least 14 times as likely as natal females to be sex offenders. While these data are imperfect because they’re based only on those who are caught, or on some who declare their female gender only after conviction, they suggest that transgender women are far more sexually predatory than biological women and somewhat more predatory than biological men. There are suggestions of similar trends in Scotland, New Zealand, and Australia.

Biological sex affects who and what we are. Let’s look at the contentious area of sports participation. Here’s a summary of the current regulatory situation (from a link that Grant gives):

For the Paris 2024 Olympics, the new guidelines require transgender women to have completed their transition before the age of 12 to be eligible to compete in the women’s category. This rule is intended to prevent any perceived unfair advantages that might arise from undergoing male puberty.

In addition, at least 10 Olympic sports have restricted the participation of transgender athletes. These include sports like athletics, cycling, swimming, rugby, rowing, and boxing.

Completing transition before 12 is virtually unknown (26 American states ban childhood transition), and the International Olympic Committee has now asked each sport to devise its own rules. Further, the presence of “regulation” does not make the problem go away, for many regulations are insufficient to protect female athletes from male athletic advantage. According to a United Nations report on violence against women, “By 30 March 2024, over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals [to transgender women] in 29 different sports.”

I close with two points. The first is to insist that it is not “transphobic” to accept the biological reality of binary sex and to reject concepts based on ideology. One should never have to choose between scientific reality and trans rights. Transgender people should surely enjoy all the moral and legal rights of everyone else. But moral and legal rights do not extend to areas in which the “indelible stamp” of sex results in compromising the legal and moral rights of others. Transgender women, for example, should not compete athletically against biological women; should not serve as rape counselors and workers in battered women’s shelters; or, if convicted of a crime, should not be placed in a women’s prison.

Finally, speaking as a member of the FFRF’s honorary board, I worry that the organization’s incursion into gender activism takes it far outside its historically twofold mission: educating the public about nontheism and keeping religion out of government and social policies. Tendentious arguments about the definition of sex are not part of either mission. Although some aspects of gender activism have assumed the worst aspects of religion (dogma, heresy, excommunication, etc.), sex and gender have little to do with theism or the First Amendment. I sincerely hope that the FFRF does not insist on adopting a “progressive” political stance, rationalizing it as part of its battle against “Christian Nationalism.” As a liberal atheist, I am about as far from Christian nationalism as one can get!

Issues of sex and gender cannot and should not be forced into that Procrustean bed. Mission creep has begun to erode other once-respected organizations like the ACLU and SPLC, and I would be distressed if this happened to the FFRF.

--

For reference, here's a link to an archive of the FFRF posting of this article.

==

It's sad that FFRF have turned into an anti-science faith-based cult.

[she-is-ovarit]

Listen to sex workers, except for the ones who criticize prostitution and the sex trade and openly describe the trauma caused by their exploitation - they just weren't a right fit for the job.

Listen to the biologists, psychologists, and neurologists, except for the ones who publish credible studies against the idea of brain sex and remark that, actually, a person cannot change their sex - there still exists alternative facts.

Listen to gay and lesbian people, except for the ones who refuse to have sex with trans people, dislike being amorphously referred to as "queer" or find it retraumatizing, and argue that sexual orientation pertains to sex and not gender identity - they're just genital fetishists and sexual predators.

Listen to trans people and gender dysphoric people, except for the ones who don't believe that identifying as something really makes someone something, that sex can't be changed, and that pronoun use determines identity - they have internalized transphobia.

Listen to women, except for the ones who don't believe that "woman" is just a social category and that oppression and discrimination on the axis of biological sex exists - they're just terfs and similar to Nazis.

Listen to intersex people, except for the ones who prefer the term "person with a disorder of sex development", are bothered by dyadic trans people co-opting terminology such as AFAB/AMAB, and speak out against trans surgeries and HRT being done to kids - they're just extremists.

Listen to gender nonconforming people, except for the ones who maintain that their style, nonconforming mannerisms, and/or same-sex attraction does not mean they're not their sex. They're just eggs, they'll turn into trans people soon.

Listen to Latino people, except for the ones who speak out against "Latinx" being coined as a term and a reflection of Euro-American colonialism - they're just traditionalists.

Listen to black people, except for the ones who take issue with "blacklivesmatter" being consistently refocused to "black trans lives matter", consider the argument that female sex-segregated spaces are akin to Jim Crow Laws as racist, and point out that trans murder rates - in which most of these murdered people are people of color - are being used by mostly white trans-identifying male people in arguments for self-serving intentions. They're just transphobic.

Listen to Native people, except for the ones who indicate that "two spirit" doesn't mean what white trans people think it means and worry about Euro-American colonialism further appropriating their culture and language - they're just a minority and are behind the times.

Listen to Jewish people, except the ones who continuously stress that comparing the disagreement with gender ideology to Naziism and genocide is deeply disrespectful, often anti-semitic, and minimizes the experiences of victims of genocide and their families. They're probably not even Jewish.

Listen to Marxists and feminists, except for the ones who point out that female people are treated as a reproductive and sexual resource based upon sex. They're transphobic.

Listen to intersectional feminists, except for the ones who point out that intersectionality that isn't female-focused isn't feminism. They're just terfs.

Don't listen to desisters/detransitioners, except for the ones who maintain the narrative that receiving SRS or HRT did no harm to them or that they're desisting due to 'gender affirming care' working for them. The rest were just cis people in denial of their own gender identity.

[researchgate]

https://twitter.com/Ch0copancake/status/1726414383033573772

have some trans stupidity.

How do they even excuse this when it shows what we all say: they think a bad haircut and a shirt maketh a man. Like, this is ridiculous!

[lacangri21]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/12/29/india-rape-victim-dies-sexual-violence-proble/

OH LOOK. ONE OF THE REASONS RAPE IS SO COMMON IN INDIA IS BECAUSE OF LACK OF PUBLIC FEMALE SPACES, INCLUDING BATHROOMS. WHO KNEW?

[posting-stuffies]

Once my teacher said that in the past the side of the zipper changed according to whether the clothes were feminine or masculine (well, the source says USA, but that also impacted the industry where I live (global South).)

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

Despite promoting itself as a strictly sociopolitical philosophy asserting equality of the sexes, the ideology is actually rooted in eugenics and technocracy. We explain.

Read More: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/technology/postgenderism-pathway-to-the-transhumanist-technocracy

#TheFreeThoughtProject #TFTP

[quotesfromall]

This is the new frontier of fetishistic desire around transition — mixed up with genuine emotion, hatred of being a woman, desire to be a dominant man, sexualizing the pain, fear and confusion around a desire to stop transition. In some ways, this is the natural path of sexually confused teens and young adults growing up in a porn culture, consuming violent sexual messages since childhood. It is a queer kink subculture ripe for grooming, abuse, and sexual harm. If history is an indicator, the presence of this subculture on Tumblr is an indication of its eventual spread.

Kitty Robinson, What is Detransition Kink

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: The Heretical Liberal

Published: Jun 18, 2024

Lots of responses to this post I made the other day laying out the case for why trans activism is homophobic, most of them supportive. For the few that weren't, here's a thread where I brought the receipts. If my earlier post was opening arguments, consider this the full case: 🧵

First up, the charities, such as Stonewall and GLAAD. These are the groups that were originally set up as gay rights advocates, but were retooled around 2015 into trans rights advocates, and - since trans activism seeks to erase homosexuality - promptly began to do exactly that

With the anti-gay activists now in charge and setting the tone, media now takes the reins and begins subtly erasing the very notion of same-sex attraction, suggesting that lesbians who don't want to date ppl with penises, and gay men not interested in vaginas are hateful bigots

And more of the same nonsense:

With the activists dictating, and the media following their lead, the homophobia inevitably trickles down. This manifests in different forms, but one of them is the psychological torture of homosexuals, some of whom have come to believe their innate orientation means they're bigots

But mostly the biggest effect is in the trans community itself, who have increasingly internalized the idea that same-sex attraction doesn't exist, and thus, any ppl who claim to be exclusively same-sex attracted are actually just transphobic bigots who can be abused at will

The rest is just gonna be a firehose of hate, as I try to dispel the idea that this homophobia is "just a few bad apples" instead of the truth: it's a core component underpinning the entire ideology transgenderism, as are the violent threats that often accompany it:

I could go on and on, but I think the point here is made. Homophobia doesn't just exist in the trans community, it's RIFE in it. It's a feature, not a bug, the erasure of sex (and by extension, homosexuals) is a core goal of trans activism. Hopefully this has opened some eyes /end

--

Threadreader:

==

Firstly, if you're shocked by this, then you haven't been paying attention.

This is what it looks like when the mentally ill use academic gobbledygook to pathologize the normal and normalize the pathological.

You're not crazy: same sex attraction and opposite sex attraction are real things and completely normal. You may have either or both (bisexual). Their stupid buzzwords don't - and can't - change that. Nor turn it into a "genital preference."

If you take away nothing else, know that an accusation of being "transphobic" is a predator trying to emotionally manipulate and blackmail you into allowing access by the predator beyond your boundaries. Whether that be sexual boundaries, to simply how you address others, and anything and everything in between.

You never have to justify your boundaries. Someone who tries to make you, or who tells you that you need to "rethink" your boundaries, or particularly who acts morally superior about their purported higher evolved absence of boundaries is a full-blown predator. No, I'm not being hyperbolic. When I say "predator," I mean they're a predator. You're talking to someone who is dangerous and not to be trusted, because they see your boundaries as something to be overcome, circumvented or "fixed." They do not respect you and they feel entitled to what they want from you. They are dangerous. They are a predator. By definition.

In the very definition of an abusive relationship, these virulently anti-gay fanatics also won't let LGB operate without them. Because they'll lose their human shields and their stolen valor they've misappropriated from the gay rights movements. Which is the point in the movie where the abuser shouts, "without me, you're nothing! I won't let you leave! If I can't have you, no one will!" And then something horrible happens.

[reyneofswords]

“fem gay transmasc” “butch transfem” ok so straight and gc then. cool.

[limetarte]

The pain of specifically saying your 2nd person pronouns and nobody ever uses them… they misgender you instead… 😢😫😡

[arco-pluris]

[milkshake2008]

interviewing the gung ho guns

[lacangri21]

The sun will rise tomorrow and men still will not be women. -Sall Grover