Richard Dawkins

[zanahoria]

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

He's not wrong

I used to think that he was a bit of an arrogant arse, but I’ve been watching clips of him debating theology and I think I was wrong.

Nonsense. That’s a great myth. These so-called suicidal people – they’re mentally screwed-up anyway.” That’s harsh. It won’t help the issue.

All suicide is a tragedy and it is never the right solution, but creating a culture where young people are actively told that suicide is the appropriate response to people not believing their fantasy, and being told this by people who are supposed to be supporting them is sickenning.

With any suicidal person, what is important is helping them to understand that their perceptions of how hopeless their situation is are irrational, that there is a value to their life and a point to living it. This is no less true of trans-identfying people who may need support to reframe their plight - which really isn't so bad. They have full freedom to live expressing themselves and their gender identity however they choose, they are protected from discrimination. They just don't have the right to control other people's thoughts or the power to change the material reality of their genetic sex, and therefore cannot identify into anything that is reserved for the opposite sex. That really isn't a doom so dreadful as to consider suicide. It is inflated far beyond reason by cynical campaigners who actively want there to be plenty of young confused people pushed into suicide as a way of gaining political pressure for their cause.

Suicide rates among gender confused people woukd be most effectively reduced with a more factual and realistic education on matters of sex and gender so that no young person is under any illusion that it is possible to choose your sex or opt out of material reality, alongside encouragement that they have full freedom to choose their gender expression and sexuality for themselves.

Well said.

Dawkins is arguing a strawman… & knows it because he's clearly not that stupid. He's just always been a bitter vengeful vindictive individual & is weaponising women's rights against transpeople as payback to the left for exposing his rampant misogyny.

Whats the strawman argument he's using exactly?

Excellent post.

I think strawman is their favourite word.

He may have worded it clumsily, but he has a point about suicide. There was a very robust study that showed once the co morbidities have been adjusted for, people who identify as trans are no more likely to be suicidal than anyone else.

It's a sad fact that the Tavistock found that a disproportionate number of the kids they saw had been bereaved, or were cared-for or they had a sex offender as a parent. There were lots of other factors that made them vulnerable to thinking trans ideology would solve their problems.

strawman seems to mean "we do have an intellectually and morally defensible position, but we're not going to tell you what it is"

Great post and it explains really clearly that the hard line TRA's are doing so much harm pushing the suicide narrative for their own ends.

If men stopped behaving so harshly towards women, then maybe women (and our allies) would stop using harsh words.

Sometimes the truth is harsh though.

from OP: "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?"

Threatening suicide if you don't get your way was considered emotional blackmail. Therapy was the solution.

But while I wasn't looking it turned into a brave part of Identity(tm). The solution is to grant every demand.

No word n how to handle the mess if we all demanded everything.

"Richard Dawkins is arguing a straw man" being a controversial take on this board in the year 2026 is so fucking funny.

Do you guys accept all misogynists and bigots here or is it really just the washed-up celebrities who spend time hating on the same things you do?

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

We know that the threat of suicide has been used by TRAs to force parents to go along with their child's transition (the 'better a live daughter than a dead son' - and vice versa - tactic).

We know that TRAs have purposely confused rates of suicidality and completed suicide to drive their narrative (Chase Strangio had to finally talk clearly about this in court).

These tactics need to be laid bare for all to see.

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.

When it comes to (identifying an individual's) biological sex, behaviour and identity are completely irrelevant.

Edit for clarity.

Identity is irrelevant to biology.

We've been to a few of his lectures and read some of his books. By and large we agree with what he has to say. I'm fine with how he's worded the quote in the OP.

Dawkins being a world renowned biologist clearly knows less about biology than people who think that what/who you 'associate' with or 'consider' yourself to be is what determines whether you are a woman or a man.

He obviously wasted his time getting degrees & that kind of thing, he could have saved himself a lot of bother and waited until the 2020s when the trans movement helpfully came up with the real definition of sex: whatever you say you are!

Poor chap. All those wasted years of research and study..

He is pretty good at science.
Bet he was in top set.

@Baileyonice can you try to make some points without just saying everyone who might disagree with you is stupid (or ‘washed up’). I have a lot of time for Richard Dawkins. What has he said or done that is misogynistic for a start?
What does ‘average sexed human behaviours are as real reproductive traits’ mean? You’ve got me baffled. I assume that means you just think I am stupid but I do have at least an undergraduate degree in biological sciences.

Also, @Baileyonice what does your comment 'Dawkins is arguing a strawman" mean or refer to?

@Yello24 I think it's the inability to write English as well as the non-arguments that are baffling.