The Skeptic Community's Blind Spot for Gender Theory

[Mermoose]

One of the most disappointing aspects of the gender debate has been the response of the skeptic community. Apart from a few - Maria MacLachlan, Andy Lewis, Gia Milinovich - prominent skeptics have either been silent or supportive of gender theory. Which would be fine, if they could offer cogent arguments for it, but they can't. Robin Ince, who scoffs at people believing in homeopathy, disappears off Twitter when asked to explain his belief in gender essence.
I have a theory as to how this has happened.
I think I'm a skeptic but it's fairly common (and it's always annoyed me) to find skeptics not only debunking fallacies but sneering at those who believe them. One reason it annoys me is that I once believed in a lot of that stuff, and even though I've now changed my mind, I remember how it felt and why I believed in it. I don't think I was stupid, and likewise I don't think people who still believe in it are stupid. Also because I was wrong once, I know I will probably be wrong again, so I'm never 100% sure of my opinions.
Do a lot of skeptics - skeptics like Robin Ince, who can be quite condescending (albeit in a funny way) - believe that only stupid people get things wrong? That they, being clever, are sure to be right? Is that why they haven't put gender theory - something they want to believe in - to the same test they'd put some quack medicine?

“It was interesting to me that Brian Cox has not backed up Gia at all

He hasn’t said anything either way, has he? I wonder if they agreed that he wouldn't because school fees?

You’ll also find a lot of skeptics on less savoury - but necessary - places like KiwiFarms.

He hasn’t said anything either way, has he?

I think he made one nerdy joke about optical isomers and then shut up on the subject when the Twitter-verse came after him.

I think the big disappointment is Alice Roberts. The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being is a great introduction to evolutionary and developmental biology and the chapter on the ‘gonads, genitals and gestation’ is one I’ve drawn on regularly.

I literally have my copy beside me right now.

Alice Roberts really defended the ideology recently on twitter.

So disappointed to read that. I just had a look and found this thread that she's on.

twitter.com/theAliceRoberts/status/1130938224770211845

Brainwashed? Or just worried about her income from the BBC?

I suspect that many so-called 'great thinkers' are merely parrots who have outsourced their reasoning to others.

You can learn to recite pseudofacts and repeat complicated mantra, and pass convincingly to many as a critical thinker for quite some time.

But if you are unable to engage your own brain in the reasoning process, you are exposed as soon as the current dogma no longer stands up to rationality.

If you can't handle the most basic logic, or spot a circular argument, you are revealed as a competent parrot, rather than a critical thinker. Neither a sceptic not a philosopher. Just a person with a decent memory.

If all swans are birds, are all birds swans?

How do you prove?
How do you disprove?
First define the terms.
Then reason.

Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of sex, and logic, can reason this out quite easily.
It's impossible to identify as a thing if that thing has no definition nor characteristics to identify with. That should be the enormous red flag that stops every critical thinker in their tracks and gets them retracing their steps to see where their logic failed.

'A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman' is a circular argument, a logical fallacy, an abject failure of critical thinking in everyone who endorses such meaningless guff.

I don't understand the Alice Roberts thread at all. Isn't she a biologist? Surely she understands how it works?

I don't think people keep quiet because they support gender theory. I think they keep quiet because they don't want abuse.

If they really, really believed in gender theory, at least one of them would be able to make a rational argument explaining it.

It's just easier not to rock the boat.

I can actually understand why some public figures are keeping quiet. I’m disappointed, but I understand. What I can’t understand is the people speaking out in support.

only stupid people get things wrong? That they, being clever, are sure to be right?

Yes. See also: “only baddies get things wrong, I am on the side of the goodies, so I must be right”.

I remember a big spat on one big discussion forum in the skeptic community back years and years ago, about whether theists could consider themselves ‘free thinkers’ if they’d used some kind of logical argument to arrive at their position, even if some of their starting premises were wrong. There were decent arguments on both sides but also a very loud cohort saying: NO, this could NEVER happen, because no theist even believes they have a valid argument in the rational sense, it is ALL fear/emotion/stupidity.”

When you start thinking like that, of course you’re never going to question your own metaphysical worldview about things like gender identity. After all, you know you’d never argue out of emotion rather than logic, so you can’t possibly be promoting something that is effectively a religious belief. That’s just for stupid people!

Surely she understands how it works?

She seems to be trying her best to avoid engaging with the subject.

The problem is that a greater understanding of hormones, chromosomes etc. would not lead to 'nice, compassionate' answers because objectively pinning down what it means to be 'trans' is antithetical to self ID and the whole inclusive Stonewall umbrella.

I find my attitude to men, all men, has hardened since being exposed to this bullshit. 😥 I don't care how nice any trans person is, I view them as colonists now, a threat to women. Equally, where before it simply didn't matter to me whether someone is gay, so many gay men have revealed themselves to be hostile to women, don't give a shit about women including lesbians.

The other thing to throw into the mix is that many sceptics come from a philosophical background rooted in the Anglo-American analytic tradition (see recent thread on sexism in academic philosophy). Philosophy is typically the only department in your average UK arts faculty with more men than women at every level. It isn't a sexist activity per se, but it is a very male dominated activity, and in my experience, with male dominance comes entrenched sexism and a tolerance for misogyny.

So I suspect a lot of sceptics are happy to embrace "lady brains" and "lady souls" because it props up their pre-existing engrained prejudices about "women know your limits", "women shouldn't be doing ultra-rational, hard-core intellectual activities".

Just because someone's day job is arguing about things supposedly rationally doesn't mean they're not just as prone as the rest of us to confirmation bias, selectively using evidence, arguing from authority, deciding on the conclusion they "feel" is right then tailoring the rest of their argument to reach their confusion.

It strikes me as very familiar how this kind of ideological lock-step works. Not by logically arguing for gender identity, but by tying it to other ‘good’ beliefs and linking disagreement to ‘bad’ beliefs.

Fundamentalist communities: “well you COULD question young-earth creationism. But if you did, you’d be rejecting the Bible. And God. And you’d be one of the atheists, who are evil and don’t care about morality.”

Genderists: “well you COULD question gender identity. But if you did, you’d be rejecting LGBTQ+ equality. And saying you hate trans people. And you’d be one of the TERFs, who think wombs are more important than brains and want all trans people to die.”

So people believe in YEC even though it is obviously ridiculous because they’ve had it hammered home to them that you can’t just reject that without also rejecting everything and everyone else you care about.

@53rdWay Yes. See also: “only baddies get things wrong, I am on the side of the goodies, so I must be right”.
Yes, this! "Why do people disagree with me? Because they're Eeveelle!" is such a lazy, surefire route to never examining your own reasoning and motives.

@Thingybob Possibly the reason skeptics remain schtum is that they believe trans people are particularly emotionally fragile?
Yeah, I think this is probably what's going on with some people, and I can understand it. But I do think you have to weigh that up against the damage being done to women's rights and kids who are gay or otherwise are deeply uncomfortable with sex stereotypes. If you call yourself a skeptic, you certainly shouldn't be giving gender critical people grief.

I’d take the Anglo-American analytic tradition over Continental Pomo bullshit any day.

She seems to be trying her best to avoid engaging with the subject.

Her response to one person asking perfectly reasonable questions was to block them.

twitter.com/DelReneeXX/status/1131877903271190528

It’s baffling to me.

I watch/listen to a show called The Atheist Experience and for all the hosts’ apparent belief in science and evidence, they absolutely scrabble over themselves to agree that TWAW.

Another skeptic called Rationality Rules recently made a video about TW in sport and how it was unfair. He was HAMMERED by the ACA (Atheist Community of Austin) who produce the Atheist Experience. They actually expelled him I think.

So he caved and made a follow up “Why I was wrong” video.

And it isn’t just the Male AE hosts who have succumbed to the trans bullshit - Tracie Harris and Jen Peeples (a lesbian) have also swallowed it whole.

It actually leaves me open mouthed.

I’d take the Anglo-American analytic tradition over Continental Pomo bullshit any day.

I totally agree. I'm just saying that just because they bill themselves as the home of unemotional, cool calm rationality doesn't mean they actually are. They should be, by their own lights, but they aren't.

I think there are True Believers in the skeptic community like PZ Myers, who genuinely seem to think TWAW, but for the most part I think there’s a reluctance to engage.

And I don’t think it’s about sparing feelings either. We’ve never been shy of saying there’s no Heaven, even in the presence of grieving parents. We shouldn’t be afraid of saying Little Jimmy is a boy any more than we should be afraid of saying that one day he’ll just be worm food.

I don't think people keep quiet because they support gender theory. I think they keep quiet because they don't want abuse.

It's this. We all know that the TRAs have conducted a systematic campaign of labelling GC people as "haters" who want them "dead" etc.

That we are in a world where universities are banning even a discussion of women's rights issues is shocking.

I totally agree. I'm just saying that just because they bill themselves as the home of unemotional, cool calm rationality doesn't mean they actually are. They should be, by their own lights, but they aren't.

I think it’s like those ‘perception filters’ in Doctor Who or the Someone Else’s Problem (SEP) fields in The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. There are things so alien your mind just won’t focus on it.

The Somebody Else's Problem field... relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain. If Effrafax had painted the mountain pink and erected a cheap and simple Somebody Else’s Problem field on it, then people would have walked past the mountain, round it, even over it, and simply never have noticed that the thing was there.

I think that a lot of skeptics have never really dealt with the fact that people have false beliefs because those beliefs give them something. (It may be that what you get from a belief is, in the long run, unhealthy, but it still gives you something). The problem is not people's incapacity to work out what's true, it's their motivation to continue believing what's not true. If skeptics really kept that to the forefront of their minds, they'd be better able to identify when they're doing the same thing.

So glad to see this thread. I’ve followed skepticism for years and I discovered about a year ago that mainstream skepticism is total trans agenda....couldn’t believe it. There have been some bitter arguments.

I do not really know why. They should be all over the cod science and feelz are more important than reality like a rash.

I don’t want to go Godwin but academics seem to be in the position as under the doctrines of Aryan Science or Lysenkoism. Even if they don’t believe in it they have to tailor their research so it won’t be denounced by others who probably don’t believe in it either.

But this time there doesn’t seem to be anywhere for dissidents to flee to.

Rational thought has co-existed with sexism for a very, very long time. Marriage Bars at the BBC and the Civil Service lasted until the 1940's. (1970's for the Foreign Office). Only a few Oxbridge colleges admitted women till the 1970's. So much easier to talk about philosophy when you have somebody at home to deal with the children, and so much easier to get a job when you don't have to compete with half the population.

I think we are caught between an older generation who took their wives for granted and a younger generation who takes their rights for granted.