Richard Dawkins

Biological sex isn't the silver bullet you think it is. Ultimately, proportionality/ rights balancing applies to the individual circumstances involved that are largely determined by the prevailing culture of the country involved.

You and TRAs are the ones not being proportional.
Your side unequivocally forced no debate, instant silencing for anyone questioning a TRA absolutism position.
That showed that your position was built on a foundation of sand.
Proportionality would have meant third spaces, an open category in sports alongside absolutely preserving the women's category, a total understanding that bodies born men cannot be near women in hypersensitive situations like toilets/changing rooms/refuges/prisons.
And zero push for the medicalization of adolescents, realizing that "first, do no harm" can never extend to irreversible changes in a group who can't readily comprehend lifelong change at that age.
Had there been any propensity to talk openly and acknowledge the extreme burden put upon women, outcomes on deep antipathy may have been different.
But, the last 10-15 years can't be erased.

Well we accept TRA here all the time unlike Reddit so yes we do accept misogynists and bigots - you're welcome

Dawkins being a world renowned biologist understands only too well average sexed human behaviours are as real reproductive traits that people may associate with being a defining part of their identity.

Of course being the arrogant misogynist he is he thinks women are too dumb to see thru his ruse. But all he needs is some of them to fall for it to prove his point.

I'm not being funny but with all due respect - I don't think you understand what the word "strawman" means.

can you try to make some points without just saying everyone who might disagree with you is stupid (or ‘washed up’).

I said no such thing.

What does ‘average sexed human behaviours are as real reproductive traits’ mean?

"The first notion Stewart-Williams dispels is the blank-slatist claim that there are no average differences between the sexes. In a useful appendix, he summarises research on the behaviours and personality traits that have shown large and repeated differences between males and females. Some of these are obvious but not often recognised as innate sex differences. One is the strong difference in sexual attraction: most—but not all—men seek women as sexual partners, and most women seek men.

Psychological research indicates that men and women also differ strongly in how they seek mates. On average, women prefer older partners with high status, while men are more drawn to youth and physical attractiveness. Men have a higher sex drive and are more willing to seek casual sex. And once in a relationship, men show far more sexual jealousy than women, being preoccupied with a partner’s sexual infidelity, while women’s jealousy is more emotional than sexual, focusing on a partner’s commitment to the relationship.
Another difference we know well: in every country surveyed, men commit vastly more crimes of violence than women, including roughly 90 percent of all homicides in America.

One of <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the largest and most repeatable differences between the sexes is <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/icd.2064?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the toy preferences of children. On average, young boys prefer male-typical toys like trucks, blocks, and toy soldiers, while young girls prefer dolls and kitchen equipment. This difference shows up very early in childhood and holds across societies worldwide.

The list goes on, but I’ll end by mentioning differences in preference that seem to translate into professional inequities. On average, women have more interest in people than things, which partly explains why occupations like computer science and engineering are dominated by men while the health and social sciences harbour far more women. Related to this are observations that men are better than women at “systematising”, defined as “understanding and reasoning about systems, including natural systems like atoms and galaxies, abstract systems like logic and maths, and human-made system like machines and computer programs”. Women, in contrast, are better at “empathising”: putting themselves in other people’s shoes and understanding their feelings and motivations.

You can see this last difference in <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2839314?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a compilation of sex differences among young American doctors in different branches of medicine. Fields involving less contact with patients regularly show higher proportions of men: anaesthesiology (62 percent), radiology (71 percent), neurological surgery (73 percent), and orthopaedic surgery (76 percent). Fields demanding more contact with patients, and presumably requiring more empathy, show a preponderance of women: hospice and palliative care (63 percent), dermatology (66 percent), and paediatrics (75 percent). Yet across all fields of medicine, the proportion of women among young doctors is precisely 50 percent, suggesting little bias against women entering medicine.
Stewart-Williams notes that such differences could reflect sociocultural pressures like socialisation or bias rather than innate preferences, but we have some data against purely social explanations. <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/psycnet.apa.org/record/1991-15054-001?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Two big <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4945059/?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">meta-analyses, for instance, show little evidence for the differential socialisation of boys and girls—and, anecdotally, we all know of despairing parents who tried to give their children gender-neutral upbringings, only to see them revert to behaviours characteristic of their sex.

In some areas there is also evidence against systemic bigotry. <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/15291006231163179?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A recent study of sex bias in STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—examined six metrics of professional success: grant funding, papers accepted, strength of letters of recommendation, hiring, teaching ratings, and salaries. The data showed parity between the sexes in the first three areas, a preference for hiring women, and an advantage for men in teaching ratings and salaries."

https://quillette.com/2026/07/30/sex-differences-above-the-neck-steve-stewart-williams/

What has he said or done that is misogynistic for a start?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/richard-dawkins-sexist-atheists-bad-name

can you try to make some points without just saying everyone who might disagree with you is stupid (or ‘washed up’).

I said no such thing.

What does ‘average sexed human behaviours are as real reproductive traits’ mean?

"The first notion Stewart-Williams dispels is the blank-slatist claim that there are no average differences between the sexes. In a useful appendix, he summarises research on the behaviours and personality traits that have shown large and repeated differences between males and females. Some of these are obvious but not often recognised as innate sex differences. One is the strong difference in sexual attraction: most—but not all—men seek women as sexual partners, and most women seek men.

Psychological research indicates that men and women also differ strongly in how they seek mates. On average, women prefer older partners with high status, while men are more drawn to youth and physical attractiveness. Men have a higher sex drive and are more willing to seek casual sex. And once in a relationship, men show far more sexual jealousy than women, being preoccupied with a partner’s sexual infidelity, while women’s jealousy is more emotional than sexual, focusing on a partner’s commitment to the relationship.
Another difference we know well: in every country surveyed, men commit vastly more crimes of violence than women, including roughly 90 percent of all homicides in America.

One of <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the largest and most repeatable differences between the sexes is <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/icd.2064?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the toy preferences of children. On average, young boys prefer male-typical toys like trucks, blocks, and toy soldiers, while young girls prefer dolls and kitchen equipment. This difference shows up very early in childhood and holds across societies worldwide.

The list goes on, but I’ll end by mentioning differences in preference that seem to translate into professional inequities. On average, women have more interest in people than things, which partly explains why occupations like computer science and engineering are dominated by men while the health and social sciences harbour far more women. Related to this are observations that men are better than women at “systematising”, defined as “understanding and reasoning about systems, including natural systems like atoms and galaxies, abstract systems like logic and maths, and human-made system like machines and computer programs”. Women, in contrast, are better at “empathising”: putting themselves in other people’s shoes and understanding their feelings and motivations.

You can see this last difference in <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2839314?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a compilation of sex differences among young American doctors in different branches of medicine. Fields involving less contact with patients regularly show higher proportions of men: anaesthesiology (62 percent), radiology (71 percent), neurological surgery (73 percent), and orthopaedic surgery (76 percent). Fields demanding more contact with patients, and presumably requiring more empathy, show a preponderance of women: hospice and palliative care (63 percent), dermatology (66 percent), and paediatrics (75 percent). Yet across all fields of medicine, the proportion of women among young doctors is precisely 50 percent, suggesting little bias against women entering medicine.
Stewart-Williams notes that such differences could reflect sociocultural pressures like socialisation or bias rather than innate preferences, but we have some data against purely social explanations. <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/psycnet.apa.org/record/1991-15054-001?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Two big <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4945059/?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">meta-analyses, for instance, show little evidence for the differential socialisation of boys and girls—and, anecdotally, we all know of despairing parents who tried to give their children gender-neutral upbringings, only to see them revert to behaviours characteristic of their sex.

In some areas there is also evidence against systemic bigotry. <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/cbCEc/journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/15291006231163179?ref=quillette.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A recent study of sex bias in STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—examined six metrics of professional success: grant funding, papers accepted, strength of letters of recommendation, hiring, teaching ratings, and salaries. The data showed parity between the sexes in the first three areas, a preference for hiring women, and an advantage for men in teaching ratings and salaries."

https://quillette.com/2026/07/30/sex-differences-above-the-neck-steve-stewart-williams/

What has he said or done that is misogynistic for a start?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/richard-dawkins-sexist-atheists-bad-name

I think strawman is their favourite word.

He is similarly despairing about the tenor of the debate around trans rights. “The idea seems to be that it doesn’t matter what’s objectively true, what matters is the way you feel. That’s ridiculous. Just because you feel you’re a woman – I guess you can have your delusion if you like, but if you’re 6ft 4in and you go to swimming competitions and walk away with all the medals, that’s just dishonest. That’s cheating.”
What he particularly hates is the way the trans debate is sometimes framed as something unworthy of debate at all. “I really despise the tactics of the trans people, the way they won’t actually argue the case but just cancel people. That’s contemptible,” he says. “It’s horrible that they can’t actually just have a civilised conversation… You can’t discuss it. You just get people cancelled, get publishers bullied into cancelling books, and women forced to change in front of fully intact males. They’re put in female prisons… It’s a scandal.”
What does he make of the claim that vulnerable trans people might be nudged towards taking their own lives if their rights are not extended or defended? “Nonsense. That’s a great myth. These so-called suicidal people – they’re mentally screwed-up anyway.”

https://archive.ph/BXlJr

It just makes me roll my eyes when older public intellectuals try to throw a fit in the weekend papers, acting like gender variance or non-traditional lives are some brand-new fad.

when so many societies have had genre-questioning groups and evolutionary gay uncle theory is well-established

I don't dispute that what is described he as "averaged sex behaviours" are real. Stereotypes arise in the first place because of an incorrect tendency that we culturally have to translate "there seems to be plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that a lot of people in category X have trait Y" into a rule of "everyone in category X has trait Y" which in some cases is irrationally extended to "anyone who seems to be in category X but doesn't have trait Y is either doing it wrong or isn't a proper member of category X" and this is why stereotypes are bad.

From an evolutionary point of view, the background tendency to stereotype could be a survival trait. We know that as an averaged sex behaviour, males are more likely to be violent and dangerous than women. Therefore if we are approached by a stranger who is male, we will be more on our guard than if they are female. That's not wrong - though preemptively killing him to be on the safe side would be wrong. However that "average sexed behaviour" is a limited general indication - there are plenty of males who are not violent and dangerous but a male who isn't violent and dangerous is not in any sense less male, or doing maleness wrong, or indeed actually a woman born in the wrong body, and if he's a rational and non-narcissistic person he won't be offended that we are on our guard when he approaches. He cannot hope to have a certificate or badge that says "it's ok, I am one of the nice ones" and expect that to be believed, it doesn't work like that.

Yes there are other "average sexed behaviours" that are measurable in the population but a vast amount of that is due to social conditioning. Adults interact differently with male and female infants from birth, emphasising the expected traits for males with babies they believe to be male and emphasising the expected traits for females with babies they believe to be female - and this has been extensively observed in experiments where the adults are lied to about which sex the baby is, they will report that they baby loved the "male stereotype" toys more if they believe the baby to be male, even if it is actually female. This doesn't mean the tendencies don't exist at all, but when culture pushes and enforces the difference it creates a sense of alienation and failure among the people whose natural aptitudes and tastes don't fit with the stereotypes for their sex. The point is that this doesn't mean that they aren't a genuine or correct member of their sex, it just means the stereotypes aren't supposed to be actual rules or qualification criteria.

It just makes me roll my eyes when older public intellectuals try to throw a fit in the weekend papers, acting like gender variance or non-traditional lives are some brand-new fad.

when so many societies have had genre-questioning groups and evolutionary gay uncle theory is well-established

Please explain why it isn't then.

A strawman is when you argue against a position that isn't actually a position your opponents hold, and then pretend that it means you've proved them wrong. Like saying "the problem with atheism is that atheists don't believe in morality, and yet we can see morality in action everywhere in human society, so atheism must be wrong".

The quote led you to say Dawkins is arguing a strawman:

He is similarly despairing about the tenor of the debate around trans rights. “The idea seems to be that it doesn’t matter what’s objectively true, what matters is the way you feel. That’s ridiculous. Just because you feel you’re a woman – I guess you can have your delusion if you like, but if you’re 6ft 4in and you go to swimming competitions and walk away with all the medals, that’s just dishonest. That’s cheating.”
What he particularly hates is the way the trans debate is sometimes framed as something unworthy of debate at all. “I really despise the tactics of the trans people, the way they won’t actually argue the case but just cancel people. That’s contemptible,” he says. “It’s horrible that they can’t actually just have a civilised conversation… You can’t discuss it. You just get people cancelled, get publishers bullied into cancelling books, and women forced to change in front of fully intact males. They’re put in female prisons… It’s a scandal.”
What does he make of the claim that vulnerable trans people might be nudged towards taking their own lives if their rights are not extended or defended? “Nonsense. That’s a great myth. These so-called suicidal people – they’re mentally screwed-up anyway.”

suggests that according to some/most trans rights activists and proponents of gender ideology: (1) subjective feeling trumps objectively verifiable truth in determining gender, (2) cancelling trumps debate as a tactic for dealing with those who disagree ("NO DEBATE!"), and (3) supposedly higher suicide rates among trans people, as a reaction to perceived denial of rights, is a reason why we should grant those rights,

It wasn't clear which one or ones you are calling a strawman, but these are all things that are routinely argued by advocates of gender ideology ALL THE TIME. Of course there are variations between individuals, but I'd go as far to say these three are all standard, established positions of those arguing from that space.

You may disagree with Dawkins's position on any of them, but none of them are strawmen.

he's overlooking the very well researched phenomena of the avuncular carer hypothesis. which is a logical and rational grounding to a non-reproductive genesis theory for how kin selection can be a selective advantage

Typical behaviours aren't the same as expectations (stereotypes). Sex in essence is about distinguishing characteristics between the sexes that no doubt exists for typical behaviours on average as the link shows. All trans people are saying is they have more in common with the typical behaviours of one sex than the other not that all members of either sex behave the same way nor are they suggesting this should apply other people. That's why its called self identification.

They are simply stating facts about their own disposition & how it applies to averages not 'fantasy'. That people misunderstand what averages signify is irrelevant to whether they indeed qualify for a group that is classified on averages.

Yes there are other "average sexed behaviours" that are measurable in the population but a vast amount of that is due to social conditioning.

Genes, hormones & evolutionary pressures influencing sexed behaviour is scientifically uncontroversial as the link shows. That environmental influences exist as well doesn't change that.

This doesn't mean the tendencies don't exist at all, but when culture pushes and enforces the difference it creates a sense of alienation and failure among the people whose natural aptitudes and tastes don't fit with the stereotypes for their sex. The point is that this doesn't mean that they aren't a genuine or correct member of their sex, it just means the stereotypes aren't supposed to be actual rules or qualification criteria.

Gender & sex are two very different concepts & noone is suggesting gametal or chromosomal sex is changed.