Richard Dawkins has been in trouble with the gender zealots before, when, two years ago, he tweeted this:
In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as.
Discuss.
For this effrontery the American Humanist Association announced that they were withdrawing his 1996 Humanist of the Year award, for "demeaning marginalised groups".
Now, as we saw yesterday, he's been at it again, asserting that "there are two sexes and that's all there is to it." And again not everyone was happy.
It's so damn sad that Dawkins, who wrote some wonderful books explaining evolution, chose this particular hill to die on. https://t.co/2zt6gIu1bP
— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) March 21, 2023
Mehta is, apparently, a well-known figure in American atheist circles - though, clearly, not an expert in biology.
To recap, the ‘hill’ that Richard Dawkins is choosing to ‘die on’ here is scientific fact and the unhinged idea that we should be able to discuss things. Richard Dawkins is 100% correct in his statements. His reasonable utterances annoy people like Hemant because Hemant has been captured by a new religion. Dawkins is guilty of heresy because nothing but unquestioning affirmation of the ‘correct thoughts’ (decided by Hemant) is acceptable. Hemant has become the sort of irrational zealot he has spent much of his time pushing back against. He seems perfectly capable of noticing the anti-scientific claims and intolerance of conservative Christians, but doesn’t have the self-awareness to recognise it in himself.
The continued demonisation of anyone that dares to espouse gender critical views (or simply just ask questions) wouldn’t be so bad were this issue purely an academic one. But it isn’t. This ideology is responsible for great harm in the real world. Right here, right now. Past, present and future.
Be it the rights of women to single sex spaces, the medicalisation of children and irreversible surgery, the experiences of de-transitioners, the closure of scandalised gender clinics, the impact on women’s sports and the stifling of free expression. I could go on and on.
People like Mehta should start getting their excuses ready for their complicity in this harmful movement at a time when the issue was desperate for rational voices to speak up and defend reality.
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