The Argument Coyne and Dawkins Won't Touch
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So it turns out I have more to say on the latest chapter of the conflict with Coyne/Dawkins/Pinker et al.
I’ve gone back and forth on how directly to address it over the past several months. On one hand I don’t think they’re actually engaging in a good faith “debate” like they claim to be, and therefore I don’t know how productive directly addressing their claims actually is. On the other hand, they have repeatedly cast me and my work as part of some kind of anti-science cult that has “hijacked” the Freedom From Religion Foundation and other secular organizations (with the exception of the one bearing Dawkins’ name of course.) They have repeatedly misrepresented my original “What is a Woman” essay as denying the “reality of biological sex” and ignored most of the core arguments.
Why?
Likely because what I actually wrote doesn’t lend itself to reactionary transphobia from even so called "secular" transphobes very well.
The original blog post was meant to be a short, introductory level critique of the debates I’ve seen over the past several years in legislatures across the country. A supporter of common sense trans rights will go to testify against this attack or that, and will inevitably be asked by a conservative legislator to “define a woman.” I followed the approach used in these policy discussions in order to point out that while you can attempt to use various sex characteristics to qualify someone as a woman, they will run up against two major complications. First, human biological sex is complex, and you will always find an exception to the rule, and second, it’s a wildly impractical approach to making policy because most people never get their chromosomal makeup tested, and the enforcement of a “biological sex” standard would be both beyond invasive and expensive. I also noted that defining “womanhood” on purely biological terms is troublingly reductive. I know very few women that would define, or want their status as women to be defined by their reproductive capacity. Believe it or not women are more than just egg carriers.
I never equated sex and gender, never said that sex categories don’t exist, and Coyne can try and claim that I did all he wants, but an honest reading of my work proves that. Could I have spent more time discussing the complications around things like sports participation? Yes. Should I have perhaps more deeply developed my distinctions between legal and biological sex (blog on that topic coming on Friday) instead of assuming that people would use basic context clues and my author bio to understand that I am not a scientist and was not making “hard science” claims? Almost certainly. But ultimately it was just a short blog meant to challenge that very basic idea that it is “easy” to create a universal definition of womanhood based on “biology” and that trans people are making things unnecessarily complicated. The closing statement that Coyne has latched onto, “a woman is whoever she says she is” was a rhetorical capstone designed to tie the blog up, not a complete policy recommendation, which was reflected by my discussion in the blog, as well as the rest of my body of work.
But what is infinitely fascinating to me is that for all that they claim that being trans is a form of a religion (it’s not, you can read more about that one here) not once have they addressed a pretty major part of what I wrote in the “What is a Woman” blog. You know, the point where I examine historical and cultural evidence to back the idea that our modern gender binary in the United States is a result of Christian colonialism? Yeah they act like that part of the piece is nowhere to be found. The entire middle third of the blog has gone completely ignored. I’ll copy that section here for y’all:
Much like how Plato’s definition of a man was inadequate (as was his amended definition, but I suppose we can let that slide), any attempt to define womanhood on biological terms is inadequate. This is reflected in the history of gender in and of itself. Many cultures have historically recognized gender diversity and complexity throughout history. Throughout North America, indigenous cultures have long recognized identities that have come to be categorized under the “Two Spirit” umbrella. In various Arab cultures, the term “mukhannath” is used to refer to transgender and nonbinary people, the term deriving from a class of third gender people in the pre-Islamic era, who were assigned male at birth, but lived as women and often held roles as musicians or other performing artists. In parts of Indonesia, groups recognize three sexes (male, female and intersex) and five genders, all based on the interrelationship of sex and gender identity.
In much of the modern United States, gender is viewed through the lens of the religious traditions that were brought by European colonizers. Missionaries often viewed gender systems outside of the strict sexual binary to be a mark of a “less civilized” nation, and imposed views of both gender and presentation (such as forcing boys in residential schools to cut their hair) onto the indigenous communities. Catholic explorer Jacques Marquette wrote in 1674:
I do not know by what superstition some Illiniwek, as well as some Sioux, take on women’s clothing while still young, and keep it all their lives: there is some mystery, as they never get married, and lower themselves by doing everything that women do … they are called to the council, where nothing may be decided without their advice; finally, their claim of living an extraordinary life lets them pass for manitous, that is to say great spirits, or important people. (Translation by Hamish Copley)
While American society has shed some of its Christian colonial heritage, fears around the morality of sex and gender remain ever present. Groups like Moms4Liberty have made major claims that transgender people are all sexual perverts that are grooming children. Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, also known as TERFs, claim that transgender women are rapists who are attempting to take away opportunities from “real” women. Others still claim transgender identity is anti-woman because in their view, it reduces womanhood down to dresses and makeup.
Funny how this part of the blog has, not once, been mentioned, even though it was a significant part of it. It’s the same argument that has been at the core of my work from the beginning and my readers are likely intimately familiar with it at this point. Modern transphobia in the west, at least, is a cultural export of Imperial Christianity, and there is no secular justification for it. That’s a pretty vital context for the essay and my entire body of work, that has gone completely ignored by critics. Why is that? I have a few guesses.
First, addressing that argument would ultimately require them to at some point address the fact that almost all of the pseudo-science anti-trans research is funded and staffed by extremist Christian nationalist groups. In doing so they would end up discrediting themselves on the topic, because they would have to admit that either they were duped by people they have frequently claimed to be “less intelligent” by nature of their religiosity, or willfully ignoring their role in a Christo-fascist movement. Though given prior white Christian supremacists made by Dawkins in his claims that he is a so-called “cultural Christian” and his stereotypical upper class British take that anything else is “barbaric” I highly doubt that they’re that morally troubled by this fact. They just wouldn’t want it to be something they have to own up to in public.
Second, this argument requires them to at least contemplate an approach to the world that does not rely solely on what can be determined through scientific observation. Despite being big names in atheism, which is ultimately a philosophical movement, their work has generally stayed in their own lane of using hard science to explain the world, as an opposite to “religion.” A framework that examines the world through not just “hard science” (though I should note that there are hard science components to transness as well), but through other fields like history, sociology, anthropology, political science, and other social sciences would, at least in their eyes, harm their credibility. In becoming celebrities in this area they have internalized the idea that they are geniuses that should not be contradicted, and that their field is the only framework needed to explain society. This is readily apparent in their constant disdain for the humanities, which is (ironically as I’ve been publicly accused by them of this) the exact cultural attitude that is further fueling fascism in the United States.
Third, they don’t want to engage with this argument because they don’t have a good response, just as they don’t want to engage with the actual argument that biological sex is not a functional standard for policy making. They have to cut out parts of my arguments and misrepresent it in order to come out sounding reasonable, because they know that a good faith engagement would lead them to acknowledging that the anti-trans movement has absolutely no basis in reality. They’re absolutely profiting off of the notoriety that these takes are giving them, and don’t actually care about the consequences so long as their name stays in the news, their egos stay fed, and the money keeps rolling in, which is the reason they’re doing so. They won’t turn back now, as much as we would all like them to, because they can’t without having to experience some level of shame and embarrassment for the harm that they’ve perpetuated.
I knew that the “What is a Woman” essay was going to make some people angry. It was a bit intentional in that way. I know how to title something that will entice people to click it. I know FFRF’s audience. I know the cultural moment we exist in. Much of my work is meant to challenge cultural narratives that we tell ourselves about gender, law, religion, politics, sexuality, and all of the messy ways that those concepts intersect. Despite thinly veiled criticisms about my age (because a 28 year old grown adult clearly belongs at the kids table), I am actually an expert on these topics. I have two degrees, work professionally in these areas, and am increasingly recognized as a respected voice on this. I don’t always anticipate the precise outcome of my work – I never expected that essay to lead to conflict in a national news outlet months later – but I always know my intent, I know my research, and I know my message.
In the months since this began, I’ve gotten more than my fair share of hate, and plenty of death threats from fans of Coyne and Dawkins, which yes, have started back up since the WSJ op ed.
But I’ve gotten far more people reaching out to thank me for my work, people who have told me that they changed their position on transgender people and issues because of my work, and generally people being supportive, either through subscribing to the blog, sending financial support for my independent work, or just giving me a kind word of encouragement here and there. And that will always make this work worth it. This explosion was a long time coming, and my work simply gave Coyne/Dawkins/Pinker and co. an opening to finally blow things up. But as I mentioned in my Trans Day of Visibility essay yesterday, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to keep telling the truth about trans issues. I’m going to keep fighting on all sides. And I’m not going to stop until the work is done.
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Kat (they/them) is a queer lawyer, activist, and theorist focusing on the intersections of law, queerness, religion, and politics, with the occasional bit of theology, political theory, and legal theory thrown in for good measure. Originally from rural southern Indiana, Kat earned their B.A. in Political Science in 2019 before continuing on to earn their J.D. in 2022, both from Indiana University- Bloomington. A former Equal Justice Works Fellow for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Kat has spent their professional career fighting for the separation of church and state and LGBTQIA+ rights. Outside of work you can find them at a ballet or contemporary dance class, sipping on dirty shirleys at their local gay bar, or playing video games with their cat, Merlin.