The below is one of my work files assembled from internet accusations of “transphobia.” Notable:
- Harry Potter author Rowling is being condemned, even in the mainstream media, as bigoted (“transphobic”) for the equivalent of saying she believes in evolution. It is not bigotry to support known science. Sullivan’s example is “A natal man who is a transwoman, for example, cannot have a vagina exactly as a natal woman does.”
- The flaws of the discussion are the flaws of neo-Marxist left ideology. (“Ideology is the deformation of thought, language, and truth in the service of power.”) Ideology is a belief system. As such it is post-truth: “We cannot debate a subject because debating itself is a form of hate,” as Sullivan writes.
- The “transphobia” ideology requires the citizen of a free democracy to be, as Sullivan says, “unequivocally on the side of anything the trans activists want.” In contrast, democracy provides that citizens be able to change bad policies. In order to do this, free people must be able to discuss what the trans activists want, and to disagree based on evidence and reason, without foregone conclusions of bigotry.
- Sullivan bells the cat: “The mainstream media is, at this point, completely unreliable as a source of balance or information. They openly advocate the most extreme critical theory arguments about sex and gender as if they were uncontested facts and as if the debate can be explained entirely as a function of bigotry vs love.”
- “Check out this video from the Washington Post. It doesn’t even gesture at fairness: no presentation of counter-argument; instant attribution of bigotry for anyone deemed in disagreement.” (See previous post on The Newsroom)
- “That the author of the Harry Potter books, a bone fide liberal, a passionate feminist and a strong supporter of gay equality can be casually described, as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp did yesterday, as “one of the most visible anti-trans figures in our culture” … is, in fact, bonkers. Rowling has absolutely no issue with the existence, dignity and equality of transgender people.” - Again, Andrew Sullivan, one of the leading gay intellectuals of our society.
- My working assumption: Democracy, justice, science, and scholarly endeavor are liberal. Sullivan suggests that trans activist rhetoric outlines a decline in scholarly endeavor: “…if we cannot state an objective fact without being deemed a bigot, and if we cannot debate a subject because debating itself is a form of hate, then…
Then we have arrived at much of the academic world at present. The outlawing of objective facts is exactly why the woke are so partial to postmodernist jargon; and the outlawing of debate is precisely what they mean when using the term “hate speech”.
We can lay all this at the feet of the academics who, a generation ago, allowed the growth of whole departments based on and spewing out the New Obscurantism. Ideas have consequences, but bullshit does too.”
Andrew Sullivan on J. K. Rowling & Transphobia From Weekly Dish / substack July. 24 2020
04/13/22 (corrections 04/16): “Sullivan, who is of course gay, has an eloquent defense of Rowling, and here’s some of it:
[Rowling] became interested in the question after a consultant, Maya Forsteter, lost a contract in the UK for believing and saying that sex is a biological reality. When Forsteter took her case to an employment tribunal, the judge ruled against her, arguing that such a view was a form of bigotry, in so far as it seemed to deny the gender of trans people (which, of course, it doesn’t). Rowling was perturbed by this. And I can see why: in order either to defend or oppose transgender rights, you need to be able to discuss what being transgender means. That will necessarily require an understanding of the human mind and body, the architectonic role of biology in the creation of two sexes, and the nature of the small minority whose genital and biological sex differs from the sex of their brain.
This is not an easy question. It requires some thinking through. And in a liberal democracy, we should be able to debate the subject freely and openly. I’ve done my best to do that in this column, and have come to many of the conclusions Rowling has. She does not question the existence of trans people, or the imperative to respect their dignity and equality as fully-formed human beings. She believes they should be protected from discrimination in every field, and given the same opportunities as anyone else. She would address any trans person as the gender they present, as would I. Of course. That those of us who hold these views are now deemed bigots is, quite simply, preposterous.
Where Rowling and I draw the line is saying that a trans woman is in every single respect indistinguishable from a natal woman. We believe that a natal man who is a transwoman, for example, cannot have a vagina exactly as a natal woman does. That’s all. And that is objectively true. Note also that this has no impact whatever on how someone should be treated by society or under the law. A transwoman can and should be treated exactly as a woman, even if she isn’t in every single respect a woman.”
/******/
Sullivan: “…if we cannot state an objective fact without being deemed a bigot, and if we cannot debate a subject because debating itself is a form of hate, then…”
Then we have arrived at much of the academic world at present. The outlawing of objective facts is exactly why the woke are so partial to postmodernist jargon; and the outlawing of debate is precisely what they mean when using the term “hate speech”.
We can lay all this at the feet of the academics who, a generation ago, allowed the growth of whole departments based on and spewing out the New Obscurantism. Ideas have consequences, but bullshit does too.”
“My favorite part of the kerfuffle is parents who insist that their children no longer enjoy the Harry Potter books because Rowling believes that the biology of sexual dimorphism is a real thing.”
“I just saw this tweet by Sullivan vis a vis Rowling and her thinking of trans controversy:
[https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1287015159907655681]”
Sullivan: “We’re used to public apologies by now, but this one is a little different. It comes from a magazine for schoolchildren in England, called “The Day”. It reads:
“We accept that our article implied that … J K Rowling … had attacked and harmed trans people. The article was critical of JK Rowling personally and suggested that our readers should boycott her work and shame her into changing her behaviour … We did not intend to suggest that JK Rowling was transphobic or that she should be boycotted.”
“I have to say it’s good to see this apology in print. It remains simply amazing to me that the author of the Harry Potter books, a bone fide liberal, a passionate feminist and a strong supporter of gay equality can be casually described, as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp did yesterday, as “one of the most visible anti-trans figures in our culture.” It is, in fact, bonkers. Rowling has absolutely no issue with the existence, dignity and equality of transgender people. Her now infamous letter is elegant, calm, reasonable and open-hearted. Among other things, Rowling wrote: “I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection.””
[https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/andrew-sullivan-when-the-ideologues-come-for-the-kids.html]
Sullivan: “She does not question the existence of trans people, or the imperative to respect their dignity and equality as fully-formed human beings. She believes they should be protected from discrimination in every field, and given the same opportunities as anyone else. She would address any trans person as the gender they present, as would I. Of course. That those of us who hold these views are now deemed bigots is, quite simply, preposterous.
Where Rowling and I draw the line is saying that a trans woman is in every single respect indistinguishable from a natal woman. We believe that a natal man who is a transwoman, for example, cannot have a vagina exactly as a natal woman does. That’s all. And that is objectively true. Note also that this has no impact whatever on how someone should be treated by society or under the law. A transwoman can and should be treated exactly as a woman, even if she isn’t in every single respect a woman.”
Sullivan: “But if we cannot state an objective fact without being deemed a bigot, and if we cannot debate a subject because debating itself is a form of hate, we have all but abandoned any pretense of liberal democracy. And if a woman as sophisticated and eloquent and humane as J K Rowling is now deemed a foul bigot for having a different opinion, then the word bigotry has ceased to have any meaning at all.”
/******/
[https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/a-truce-proposal-in-the-trans-wars-c49] Not paywalled
“The mainstream media is, at this point, completely unreliable as a source of balance or information. They openly advocate the most extreme critical theory arguments about sex and gender as if they were uncontested facts and as if the debate can be explained entirely as a function of bigotry vs love.”
“If we were going to construct a test-case for how dysfunctional our politics have become, it would be hard to beat the transgender issue. It profoundly affects a relatively minuscule number of people in the grand scheme of things, and yet galvanizes countless more for culture war purposes. It has become a litmus test for social justice campaigners, who regard anyone proposing even the slightest qualifications on the question as indistinguishable from a Klan member. It has seized the attention of some of the most extreme elements among radical feminists, who in turn regard any smidgen of a compromise on the rights of women as a grotesque enforcement of patriarchy.
Worse, it has now excited the Christianist right, who see the recognition of trans rights as an effort to destroy the sexual binary that is at the core of almost all orthodox faith. And it has become a Twitter phenomenon, where all reasonable arguments go to die. If you are an opinion writer, you really do have to be a masochist to even want to dabble in the debate. And the mainstream media is, at this point, completely unreliable as a source of balance or information. They openly advocate the most extreme critical theory arguments about sex and gender as if they were uncontested facts and as if the debate can be explained entirely as a function of bigotry vs love. (A recent exception to this, though tilted clearly from the start in one direction, is this explainer from the NYT last night.)
Big global stories — for example, a high court case in Britain that found that minors under 16 are not developmentally capable of making the decision to take puberty blockers — are routinely ignored. Check out this video from the Washington Post. It doesn’t even gesture at fairness: no presentation of counter-argument; instant attribution of bigotry for anyone deemed in disagreement.
And the issue has recently become, even more emotively, about children — how they are treated, how the medical world deals with them, amid complicated arguments about specific treatments, their long-term effects, and genuine scientific disputes. And all of this is taking place with far too few reliable, controlled studies on transgender individuals, as children and adults, or on medical interventions. A lot of the time, we’re flying blind.
I’ve been trying to think these things through for the past few years. I used to think trans rights were a no-brainer. Of course I supported them. And I still do. I believe trans people when they tell the stories of their lives; I empathize because I’m human, and the pain and struggle of so many trans people is so real; and perhaps also because being gay helps you see how a subjective feeling can be so deep as to be an integral part (but never the whole) of your identity.
Equally, however, I have some reservations. I trust biology on the core binary sexual reproductive strategy of our species, without which we would not exist, and which does not cease to exist because of a few variations on the theme (I’m one of those variations myself). I do not believe that a trans woman or a trans man is in every way indistinguishable from a woman or a man. If there were no differences, trans women and trans men would not exist as a separate category. I do not buy the idea that biological sex is socially constructed, or a function of “white supremacist” thought, for Pete’s sake. I further believe that no-one should be excluded from this or any debate; and that “lived experience” cannot replace “objective reality”, …”
“The woke establishment — all major corporations, the federal government, the universities, all cultural institutions, the mainstream media and now the medical authorities — are unequivocally on the side of anything the trans activists want.”
