Trans scientists

[spannablue]

In another thread I said I'd met some trans scientists. People were very sceptical that such people exist, so here's a link to an article about Ben Barres
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08964-1

And one on Michelle Steele
lgbtstem.wordpress.com/2018/10/08/an-interview-with-michelle-steele/

I have also met a trans scientist (physicist). A senior academic now, who has actually held a female-only honorary chair position in the past. I don't think they admit to being 'T' in public.

People were very sceptical that such people exist

Really? Surely you'd have to be an idiot to imagine that transgender people can't be Scientists?

There's Rachel Padman, the physicist who was at the centre of Germaine Greer's criticism of Newnham College (then a women's only college) for appointing someone who had had the advantage of male privilege during their upbringing to one of the very few STEM positions in Cambridge only open to women.

Again, no one is saying that Trans people in any field of employment don't exist.

What woman are saying is that clothes don't make the man or woman, and that trans desires don't trump the needs or wants of any other group.

I also keep banging on about my experience of being married to a man who is "transitioning" that is wearing women's clothing NOT having surgery. But he's doing it because it is his sex fetish. He's a common or garden cross dresser. Very, very British.

Does anyone really want to make it harder to gain equality in the workplace, for his rights to feel sexy?

STEM is bloody hard enough for women to crack.

Of course it’s possible to be a scientist and trans, in the same way that it’s possible to be a scientist while professing a religious faith whose beliefs and practices contradict scientific thinking and the scientific method. Human beings seem to be able to (reasonably) comfortably entertain the cognitive dissonance this generates. I have no idea why this is so or whether it confers some sort of evolutionary advantage or not (I suspect it does).

Is this supposed to be a "gotcha"?

True fact, I also know a university lecturer (admittedly not STEM) who believes the earth is flat. Also a highly talented programmer who believes the bones of dinosaurs were put on the earth by the devil to trick us into not believing in the Bible.

Trust me, facts and evidence don't seem to impact at all on my husband's (current) beliefs (story?) and all that sex stuff is "uggghh, stop bringing that up, you are totally ruining my party with your memory".

Bunbury, 2012: Deceptive Framing of Opening Posts Typical of Community Disruptors is an interesting read.

I thought this was going to be a thread about people who identified as scientists 😀

I have no doubt that scientist will have and develop a range of hypotheses about sex. Science is all about going against and challenging existing knowledge.

If any scientists come up with evidence that challenges existing understanding, they will publish in peer reviewed journals. If the evidence is convincing, other scientists will be influenced and current understanding will move on.

Until then, those that don't find evidence can either amend or adapt their hypotheses.

'Twas ever this

Thanks Lang. We shouldn't engage, it's like teaching kids, you have to patiently answer many a silly question.

Bunbury, 2012: Deceptive Framing of Opening Posts Typical of Community Disruptors is an interesting read.

:-)

Can't believe I didn't notice this was spannablue and actually bothered to reply. Thanks Lang.

True fact, I also know a university lecturer (admittedly not STEM) who believes the earth is flat.

I knew a geology student who, despite professing to believe the Earth was only 7,000 years old, now has a successful career in the oil industry.

Some people can easily compartmentalise.

"People were quite sceptical..."

Is this like when Trump says "People are saying...?"

I was taught O level Biology by a nun, who at that time, was forbidden by the Church from believing in Darwin’s Theory.
She taught it anyway. (Oxford graduate who got religion and entered holy orders.)

Barres devoted much of his last decade to publicly describing the challenges he had faced as a woman in science, and offering ways to correct a system that he viewed as fundamentally biased against the advancement of women and minorities.

Sounds a nice guy, and previously a nice woman.

If the transgender male community stuck to talking about barriers they faced in wanting to do assumed 'feminine' things while being brought up male, I'd be happy to listen -- for a bit anyway, unless it's India Willoughby droning on about shaving legs.

Meh, I've been on threads where posters were sceptical about religious people being scientists. Some people have very weird notions about scientists.

In another thread I said I'd met some trans scientists. People were very sceptical that such people exist,

Your memory of that conversation is inaccurate, I'm afraid. What you actually said was:

Last week I was in a GRA strategy meeting and round the table there were:

3 straight AFAB women
3 AFAB lesbians
2 nonbinary AFAB people
2 trans women

...and we were all in our 30s, 40s and 50s. Scientists, historians, sociologists, journalists

The only scepticism (which was actually ironic, rather than genuine) voiced was around how scientists could be supportive of the pro-self ID movement, not whether trans scientists exist. This was on the grounds that the majority of scientists are oriented toward believing in scientific fact, and thus presumably less likely to believe an individual can change sex.

Deary deary me. A dissembling thread to goad people.

If you think your ideology is great and want to sell it to us, surely it can stand up by itself and not need to be continually surrounded in a fog of disinformation to be convincing.

The point is, it is possible to be a scientist and to accept that being trans is a valid thing.

Trans women are over represented in science based jobs, unlike women who are discriminated against and underrepresented, so I think feminists are very well aware trans women scientists exist.

Very few, if any, posters here deny trans is a thing so I don't understand the point you are trying to make.

People have, and can have, all kinds of identities. People can suffer from gender dysphoria. It is unusual for anyone to refute this.

I know an academic physicist with a position at a good university who believes that the world was created in six days, 4000 years ago.

Nowt so queer as folk.

Spanna maybe you would like to quote where anyone on Mumsnet said trans people can't be scientist s? Because I don't think that happened, however I'm happy to be proved wrong.

I am a scientist. I am sure trans exists. I believe some transpeople suffer discrimination and feel unable to live their lives freely, I think that Transwomen are not women. I don’t see any cognitively disconnect. So I am struggling with the point of the post.

I don't even know what you mean by 'being trans is a valid thing'.

Personally I don't doubt that gender dysphoria is ' a thing'. Its a real condition that causes real distress.

That doesn't mean I think that any male should be able to identify as a woman and be treated as literally female. These are two separate issues.

This is a very strange thread.
Obviously trans scientists exist, especially in computer science. The majority of the transwomen I have known have been employed in STEM and IT. It's practically a late transitioning transwoman stereotype so I find it really hard to believe anyone is denying they exist.