Hey, Marisol, if your colleagues come after you for this, contact me directly. I spent a year, post Summer 2020, talking with grad students and colleagues about how to cope with or avoid cancellation attacks. Helped Dorian Abbott get the support he needed to fend off the first attack targeting him (the one at UChic, not the MIT one). Also, feel free to contact me just to shoot the breeze, too.
Thank you so much Lee, I might need your help. I have already received so many replies to my essay. Some of the replies I have received are from world-renown people, so I suppose it had a very high reach. I am expecting a huge backlash so your offer might come handy :)
How exactly does the University putting 11 genders on a form force you to affirm that gender is on a spectrum? You can just select the one you like and ignore the other 10. What exactly is the "lie" that you are forced to do?
As a quick aside, you seem to confound gender and sex. Sure, sex is biologically based, and mostly (but not completely) binary in mammals (intersex people exist, for instance), but gender is a social construct which, while related to sex, contains other dimension . This isn't hard stuff.
I hope you can get over the distress and offense that you have taken by reading those 9 genders that you personally don't think should have been on the form. I'll be over here smoking that Marisol pack.
It is common to be asked to "share your pronouns" at the start of meetings. People who do not accept gender ideology think a person cannot choose his sex/gender. To such people sharing pronouns is an affirmation of a false anthropology (a lie). Does that make sense?
About your aside, your understanding is now out of date. Within the current incarnation of gender ideology, gender has become reified, rendering gender and sex equivalent. So, for example, it would currently be considered incorrect to refer to a man who claims that he is a woman as a "male" within this ideological framework.
Other people sharing their pronouns violates your free speech? Even in your framework, in which you characterize the act of people sharing pronouns that offend you as a lie, is hearing a lie equivalent to lying?
Regarding my aside, sex and gender are indeed distinct concepts. They are not equivalent.
Thank you "happy wok" for your response. I am not able to fill that kind of form and never will because it is against my conscience. By me filling this, I am accepting that I am one of 11 plus options. I cannot lie, and some of the options are just imaginary categories that have no connection to biological reality. This goes against science, history, and my religious beliefs. I do not accept that gender is not the same as sex, this is not true. Nature, history, and logic clearly demonstrate that this is not true.
I'm confused. So, say you're a devout Catholic. A demographic form asks you to select your religion from a list of 10 options, e.g. Islam, Atheism, Agnosticism, Judaism, etc. Do you refuse to answer the questionnaire because it would be admitting that people who follow those religions--and even atheists--exist? In your mind, of course, Catholicism is the only true religion and it's a sin to pray to or believe in other gods.
Thank you for your reply, but your response is not logical. Mammals are sexually dimorphic. There are only two kinds of sex cells, sperm (small) or ova (large) in mammals. Sorry, but the argument that you are giving is nonsense and it has nothing to do with what I wrote. I still respect and enjoy discussing this with you. We can agree to disagree and be thankful this great country has freedom of speech, freedom of religion and a culture of free expression. Long live bill of rights and the constitution
Your question does not at all pertain to my point because religion is ideological, not biologically based, and I do not deny any of them exist. I cannot even understand how you are finding the connection. Mammals can either produce either of two sex cells, eggs or sperm. They are sexually dimorphic, and this is not ideologically, it is reality.
Biologically there is no evidence for religion -- e.g., atheism. So, change my hypothetical situation above to an atheist answering the questionnaire. Would be quite similar
Just because you say that I am wrong, it does not make me wrong. Gender ideology is an is an ideology, and it is not fact based. It is more like a religion to the people that embrace it.
Thanks, but the APA is not my conscience nor the test of reality and truth. I value and respect your opinion, but I cannot believe or affirm a lie. We can agree to disagree and enjoy the wonderful freedom of speech and religion granted to us by the constitution of these great United States of America
I do not value nor do I respect your opinion. Transphobes are trash. You are doing material harm to my trans homies and I cannot abide. I'm still over here smoking that Marisol pack. Freedom of speech does not absolve you from the consequences of said speech. I do not agree to disagree. You are wrong.
The comments have gotten into the weeds, in my view. The essence of the original post was dissatisfaction at coerced speech at universities, MSU in particular. A close parallel from US history is the case of Speiser v. Randall , in which the veteran Lawrence Speiser refused the oath, “I do not advocate the overthrow of the Government … by … unlawful means …” required of him to be eligible for a tax exemption. If a university or some other employer can compel me to sign something I agree with, then my doing so would imply that it can compel me also to sign something that I disagree with. Hence, I would advocate that we disagree with signing any *compelled* oath.
I don't think Quintanilla has made a compelling case (sorry, I cannot help make that pun). But I am certain that such compelled speech is common at universities. Sharing of pronouns, if mandatory or somehow expected at the beginning of meetings or on professional profiles, is misguided at best.
I'm posting again today to address some of the comments posted in the past week.
Although it should be largely irrelevant to the understanding of my writings, it may be helpful to some readers to learn some of where I am coming from. I have family, some of whom are transgender, some are multiracial, some are not heterosexual, some are disabled, some have suffered threats, some have suffered physical violence including being killed.
I want to comment as a learning opportunity and possibly to influence some readers and writers to try to uphold the ideals of "The Heterodox Way" as best they can. See https://heterodoxacademy.org/library/the-hxa-way/ . I know it is often hard to do so, but trying is important and getting better at it is too. My point is not to criticize persons, but to emphasize that a less adversarial approach, in my opinion, is more likely to be effective long term.
Here are four specific examples of comments that I feel are hurting not helping my family members in the long term. Hurting by emphasizing conflict rather than mutual understanding, respect, and eventually, love.
1) This isn't hard stuff.
2) I do not value nor do I respect your opinion....
3) Sorry, ❄.
4) I'll be over here smoking that Marisol pack.
Also, on the topic of sharing of pronouns, the following essay may be worth reading. The author writes, "I personally take any pronouns..." and that caught my attention because I know someone working in STEM who was threatened with a potential adverse employment action because (literally!) "someone had told someone who had told someone to tell the person's boss to tell the person (the person who had written a similar such statement on their profile at work) that it might offend someone. It is that level of abstraction and policing of potential offense, especially by well-meaning persons thinking that they are helping, that I feel is counter-productive and ultimately is hurting people like my family members. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/10/16/xiao-against-mandatory-preferred-gender-pronouns/
I am reminded of a family experience on my ninth birthday. We had met the tide for fishing at 2AM and were walking home by star light with our dark-adapted eyes. Walking over large boulders of a jetty, we crossed paths with someone coming the other direction who directed their flashlight in each of our faces and exclaimed, "Wow, I don't know how you can walk without a flashlight!" My whole family had to stop for a moment to allow our eyes to adapt again to the dark before we could proceed by the light of the stars again. My point is that sometimes, maybe even often, being too loud, or too strident, or too bright (with a flashlight) is not helpful.
I do not tolerate transphobes and I will continue speaking truth to power. I find your analytical approach to refuting Marisol's pap admirable, but her position does not deserve the level of respect with which you treat it. Denying the existence of trans people causes them material harm and I can in no way abide. I'm sorry those people blinded you with their flashlights; I will be as bright and strident of an anti-transphobe as I possibly can be. If that light paralyses a transphobe, so be it. That's a them problem. I do not care. Generally, tranphobes do indeed deserve compassion and patience, but at the level of "I'm going to write a blog about being offended by paperwork" they should really know better. Strange hill to die on, we seem to agree.
Emphasizing compassion and patience for persons, while criticizing their positions, if invalid, we do agree on those ideas.
I don't see her blog as arguing a trivial point about paperwork. A generous reading of this post might be to acknowledge the difficult position the author feels she is being put into by her employer. Being coerced to lie affects some persons much more than others. I encourage readers to care about that. Maybe the author can provide additional and better examples than the one in the original blog post.
For example, imagine if MSU required her to sign an affirmation like "Civility in the workplace is of the highest importance." She might value civility, but finds the affirmation process dangerously coercive, or she feels something(s) else is(are) of higher importance. Read the following real-life example of a professor resigning instead of signing a loyalty oath. "What dismays and disappoints Sallis most is the way state employees, as well as the rest of us, simply give in to this politically imposed demand." https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2015/09/28/montini-phoenix-college-arizona-state-legislature-loyalty-oath-james-sallis/72981924/
I encourage readers also to care about curing the paralysis you, happy wok, seem so eager to perpetuate. Apparently we disagree on tactics: I think you are hurting much more than you realize with your willful, strident insults, especially in this particular venue.
Peter, I greatly respect your patience and your commitment to generosity. I do not have such patience. I am curious as to who you think I am hurting. In an ideal world, I would reign in my insults and take a tack similar to yours. However, I don't have the luxury of patience or differentiation given the material harm that transphobes are presently inflicting on my trans homies. I also wish that I could interact with this thread with the same rigor with which you do, and also without psuedonym. However, one or more people involved in this post have direct power over me; a scary thought. I am not eager to cause anyone any discomfort, however, if my prioritization of trans peoples' lives over transphobes' anti-scientific, religiously-derived transphobia inflicts negative externalities to the transphobes in question, that's more than fine with me. Thank you for your thoughtful, good faith response. I do appreciate the effort you put in to your replies, the same for which cannot be said of the disingenuous author nor the host of this blog.
Curiosity becomes you: I think you are hurting everyone by encouraging paralysis. Stated another way, your tactics are helping perpetuate the status quo.
You want society to change, to approach a more ideal world, right? You seem to recognize that insults will not help, so stop expressing yourself in that manner. Reign in your impetuousness, and take time to convince people with logic, warmth, humor, or maybe love. The first paragraphs you originally wrote more than a week ago were fine - go read them again - stick to that approach.
The Woke’s performative pronoun ritual and universities’ official pronoun posts (like this one in the UC system: https://out.ucr.edu/pronouns-matter) alienate those who do not believe in Woke doctrine, chilling the speech of Woke dissidents. At universities, such Woke webpages should be taken down and DIE committees disassembled on the grounds that they suppress the speech of the non-Woke and violate many universities’ own pledges to remain politically neutral.
Sex/pronouns have traditionally been defined biologically (not via feelings). If we scramble these definitions, then we cannot discuss anything with clarity, such as animal mating behaviors or traditional sex-based societal roles (ex. “Men could not vote until 1920” is a farcical statement).
I’m so sick of the Woke cult insisting that everyone join them in their illogical and ahistorical Wonderland, when many of us prefer Truth and Reality. And I am done listening to their hypocritical preaching; for a sect that’s supposedly so concerned with “harm” and feelings, the Woke show no qualms about harming those they cancel and even disregard the feelings of those they claim to champion (as a POC, I feel much more oppressed by the Woke pigeonholing me into an ethnic checkbox and telling me that I’m a victim and that the racism boogeyman is out to get me).
Wait, I’m sorry, did I say “Wonderland” before? I meant Orwell’s 1984.
Thank you for your opinion, Cha-Ing. The censorship and tyranny that has resulted from DEI, gender ideology, and other such things are a real danger to freedom of speech, religious freedom, and a culture of free expression and inquiry. It undermines the foundational principles of this nation.
When their only rebuttal to an argument is to suppress it, then you know their reasoning is fallacious.
Thus, to promote better reasoning, instead of DIE committees, we need free speech committees to enforce universities’ commitments to freedom of expression and political neutrality.
What a good idea, yes, I am in total support of free speech committees. I agree that by their attitude they are showing that they have no confidence in what they are teaching since they do not want to debate. Excellent points, brilliant ideas
Free speech committee sounds great! I can tell you all about how nematodes are actually prokaryotes and I don't care if you're the expert, it's my free speech right to let you know that nematodes are definitely prokaryotes. And you telling me that they are eukaryotes is actually a violation of MY first amendment rights because my religion clearly states that nematodes are prokaryotes.
As you know, but for the readers' benefit, you and I communicated by private emails the day your essay appeared, respectfully and thoughtfully, by both of our assessments, even though we disagree on some of this topic (by my own assessment). This private communication of academics has been going on for hundreds of years and continues on today and is a bedrock supporting the foundation of academia. I thought I would add a few comments here for public consumption.
If MSU requires a person to affirm that "gender is on a spectrum, not biologically based, and not-binary," as a precondition or requirement for that person to perform their work, then I agree that's wrong and should be challenged as such. On the other hand, if MSU only requires that a person check a box about own's gender, one of eleven choices that include "woman, man, ..., prefer not to specify, enter your own ____" then I don't think that in itself is demanding an affirmation and doesn't seem wrong to me. Allowing for a free-form response and the choice to not specify among multiple choices seems to me to be enabling freedom, not restricting it.
The Dawkins essay and the YouGov poll were interesting, and I thank you for linking to them. In footnote 1 of Dawkin's essay, he includes this wonderful sentence, "I am also only too aware of the elaborately planted minefield of constantly evolving neologisms and proliferating pronouns, through and around which academics in some humanities departments are obliged to tiptoe." I love that phrase "elaborately planted minefield" but would have not included the limitation of academics "in some humanities departments." The minefield seems to be in all of academia, although it makes sense to me that humanities departments would analyze these issues at greater length than STEM departments.
My impression is that your essay, as written, confuses or conflates sex and gender, and I figure I would give you the opportunity to clarify your thoughts on that here in the comments, if you wish to do so.
Oops! I wrote my comment based on the essay still open in my browser but not showing the 27 other comments. I am now seeing them and will read them. Probably you have already responded to my implicit or explicit suggestion to respond.
Thank you Peter, I really appreciate your thoughtful and intellectual comments. I treat gender and sex as the same thing, I would argue that even the new gender ideologists treat it as the same thing (they say "transwomen are women"). Sex and gender have been the same thing (synonyms) historically and biologically until very recently and now even the proponents of gender ideology treat it as the same thing, so I this should not be too controversial. I understand your point above but when I fill out those forms, they have a gender/sex question that includes 11 options. By filling it I am accepting their assumption that I am one of those 11+ options, therefore that sex is not binary. This is against my conscience and forcing me to lie. Mandatory DEI trainings also have questions that have to be answered in ways to affirm this ideology in order to pass the test. The questions cannot be skipped, and they cannot be answered according to one's beliefs, but the predetermined correct answer needs to be selected in order to move to the next question.
If we begin with a premise such as 'parallel lines never cross' and everyone considers that true, or a fact, or obvious, or whatever, then we can all live in Euclidean geometry comfortably. When someone asserts that 'parallel lines always cross,' it may open up the possibilities to many new ways of understanding. Similarly, if we consider a bit as a thing which is either a 0 or a 1, true or false, black or white, we can do a lot with that. But if we open the possibilities to fuzzy logic, or to qubits, we can open up the possibilities even more. For me, treating "sex = gender = 0 or 1" is similar to the analogies I just gave. Someone I know has one blue eye and one brown eye; I have always wondered if in a class on genetics he was being taught about recessive traits and eye color was given as an example, would he raise his hand and say to the teacher, "I think it's more complicated than we are being taught here..."?
If I were your mentor at MSU, I would encourage you to always check the 'prefer not to answer' response and get back to your lab work. I recently read a description of all this stuff as a sort of denial-of-service attack on academics who are vulnerable to it. That analogy rung true for me.
As to any mandatory trainings that require a particular "correct" response to pass, I think there are other university professors who have successfully challenged those; probably with FIRE's help. I know a person who once wrote a computer script that randomly clicked and typed in the boxes until it eventually finishes the test. It took many hours to write the script, debug it, and then many hours for it to randomly succeed in passing the test by randomly clicking on the screen. If you took that approach, at least you wouldn't be coerced into expressing something you didn't believe.
In the likely event that you wouldn't want to spend the time to write such a computer program, perhaps you could adopt an attitude that your responses are not meant as what you truly believe but what you believe the test makers consider the correct answers.
To this day I still remember a question on driver's written test that I took 40 years ago that was scored as incorrect, and I was adamant that the question was poorly written and my answer was not incorrect. As I have advanced in academia, it has become increasingly difficult for me to answer any multiple choice tests. Mandatory trainings drive me bonkers; I have to adopt a self-defensive attitude of "just answer what I think the test makers consider the correct response" and even then I feel violated. Watching this video has helped me about DEI trainings. https://banished.substack.com/p/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-on?s=r
Thank you, Peter, for your very thoughtful comment. I understand your angst with the mandatory DEI trainings as I experience this as well. I am not able, and I will not lie or go against my conscience in order to take a training or fill a form. My conscience does not allow this and there is no amount of persuasion that will get me there unless I come to the realization that I am wrong and that what I believe is not true. This goes beyond practicality or employment; this is requiring religious beliefs or faith statements in other to work or participate in anything. I say it is faith statements because it is based on ideology. This country has freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and I am not required to accept or affirm their false premises (and lie) in order to fill any form or participate in anything. I understand that some people do not care and just do it, but I cannot and will not. If we all surrender to tyranny, we will lose our liberties. I think you are super; your comments are extremely thoughtful and intelligent, and I understand your points, I just can't. I am doing my work and doing well, don't worry about that, and so far, my job in not in peril. I truly believe that this kind of tyranny (i.e. DEI statements, mandatory DEI trainings, mandatory affirmation of ideologies such as the gender ideology) are a danger to liberty in this country, they are a danger to academic progress, and a danger to our societal culture of free expression and innovation. The standard for thousands of years has been tyranny and the US was founded by people escaping oppression. By what I am reading in your comments, you have also experienced some of this "DEI" oppression. I love MSU, it has done so much for me. My department is wonderful, I love the people there. I just feel that this is something that needs to be dealt with. I did not experience this 3 years ago. It has gotten progressively worse in the last 3 years, and it needs to stop.
Your comment, "I love MSU, it has done so much for me. My department is wonderful, I love the people there." juxtaposed with your describing DEI statements, mandatory DEI trainings, (etc) as tyranny would/should/could give some people pause to reflect on how to reconcile those, especially if they were aware that there are many professors that share with you at least that same conflict between their love for their jobs and their feelings of a new tyranny.
Yes, this is just a new problem. It suddenly became in style to mandate DEI trainings and demand affirmation to all these ideologies. It is amazing. However, MSU and other land-grant institutions are incredible institutions that have done so much good for humanity. The new ideas are endangering this.
Thanks for speaking up! You've made an excellent point about race being far more of a spectrum than sex. In over 25 years of pediatrics, I've yet to see a newborn with truly ambiguous genitalia. Such a thing can happen, but is vanishingly rare.
For the curious, I'm well aware that gender can be called a social construct, but I'd prefer if forms use something like "gender identity" and also use sex. The numbers of "women" committing sex crimes in England and Wales have recently almost doubled - this appears to be due to the fact that police departments are recording the gender rather than the sex of perpetrators.
What an excellent response Julia, I agree that race is a spectrum for most people and that sex is binary. There are only egg and sperm sex cells in humans and any other mammal, therefore it is binary. I am so thankful for your excellent observations and comments as a pediatrician. Your police and crime comments in England are very enlightening. I do see that you are referring to sex and gender as two different things, I do not think that even the gender ideologues are using it in this way anymore, but I agree with many of your points.
Hey, Marisol, if your colleagues come after you for this, contact me directly. I spent a year, post Summer 2020, talking with grad students and colleagues about how to cope with or avoid cancellation attacks. Helped Dorian Abbott get the support he needed to fend off the first attack targeting him (the one at UChic, not the MIT one). Also, feel free to contact me just to shoot the breeze, too.
Thank you so much Lee, I might need your help. I have already received so many replies to my essay. Some of the replies I have received are from world-renown people, so I suppose it had a very high reach. I am expecting a huge backlash so your offer might come handy :)
How exactly does the University putting 11 genders on a form force you to affirm that gender is on a spectrum? You can just select the one you like and ignore the other 10. What exactly is the "lie" that you are forced to do?
As a quick aside, you seem to confound gender and sex. Sure, sex is biologically based, and mostly (but not completely) binary in mammals (intersex people exist, for instance), but gender is a social construct which, while related to sex, contains other dimension . This isn't hard stuff.
I hope you can get over the distress and offense that you have taken by reading those 9 genders that you personally don't think should have been on the form. I'll be over here smoking that Marisol pack.
It is common to be asked to "share your pronouns" at the start of meetings. People who do not accept gender ideology think a person cannot choose his sex/gender. To such people sharing pronouns is an affirmation of a false anthropology (a lie). Does that make sense?
About your aside, your understanding is now out of date. Within the current incarnation of gender ideology, gender has become reified, rendering gender and sex equivalent. So, for example, it would currently be considered incorrect to refer to a man who claims that he is a woman as a "male" within this ideological framework.
Other people sharing their pronouns violates your free speech? Even in your framework, in which you characterize the act of people sharing pronouns that offend you as a lie, is hearing a lie equivalent to lying?
Regarding my aside, sex and gender are indeed distinct concepts. They are not equivalent.
Don't take my word for it, here is the NIH https://orwh.od.nih.gov/sex-gender
Exactly, your answer is excellent Dorian. Thank you so much
Thank you "happy wok" for your response. I am not able to fill that kind of form and never will because it is against my conscience. By me filling this, I am accepting that I am one of 11 plus options. I cannot lie, and some of the options are just imaginary categories that have no connection to biological reality. This goes against science, history, and my religious beliefs. I do not accept that gender is not the same as sex, this is not true. Nature, history, and logic clearly demonstrate that this is not true.
I'm confused. So, say you're a devout Catholic. A demographic form asks you to select your religion from a list of 10 options, e.g. Islam, Atheism, Agnosticism, Judaism, etc. Do you refuse to answer the questionnaire because it would be admitting that people who follow those religions--and even atheists--exist? In your mind, of course, Catholicism is the only true religion and it's a sin to pray to or believe in other gods.
Thank you for your reply, but your response is not logical. Mammals are sexually dimorphic. There are only two kinds of sex cells, sperm (small) or ova (large) in mammals. Sorry, but the argument that you are giving is nonsense and it has nothing to do with what I wrote. I still respect and enjoy discussing this with you. We can agree to disagree and be thankful this great country has freedom of speech, freedom of religion and a culture of free expression. Long live bill of rights and the constitution
You didn't answer my question. What would you mark on the form?
Your question does not at all pertain to my point because religion is ideological, not biologically based, and I do not deny any of them exist. I cannot even understand how you are finding the connection. Mammals can either produce either of two sex cells, eggs or sperm. They are sexually dimorphic, and this is not ideologically, it is reality.
Biologically there is no evidence for religion -- e.g., atheism. So, change my hypothetical situation above to an atheist answering the questionnaire. Would be quite similar
"I do not accept that gender is not the same as sex" that makes you wrong. Sorry, ❄.
Just because you say that I am wrong, it does not make me wrong. Gender ideology is an is an ideology, and it is not fact based. It is more like a religion to the people that embrace it.
What if the APA says that your wrong? https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexuality-definitions.pdf
I'll listen to the psychology experts regarding sex and gender. I'll keep you in mind if I have any pressing nematode questions, though.
I'm sure you and Professor Abbot know way more about sex and gender than these 18 experts. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673620315610
Thanks, but the APA is not my conscience nor the test of reality and truth. I value and respect your opinion, but I cannot believe or affirm a lie. We can agree to disagree and enjoy the wonderful freedom of speech and religion granted to us by the constitution of these great United States of America
I do not value nor do I respect your opinion. Transphobes are trash. You are doing material harm to my trans homies and I cannot abide. I'm still over here smoking that Marisol pack. Freedom of speech does not absolve you from the consequences of said speech. I do not agree to disagree. You are wrong.
yes
Thanks Razib!
The comments have gotten into the weeds, in my view. The essence of the original post was dissatisfaction at coerced speech at universities, MSU in particular. A close parallel from US history is the case of Speiser v. Randall , in which the veteran Lawrence Speiser refused the oath, “I do not advocate the overthrow of the Government … by … unlawful means …” required of him to be eligible for a tax exemption. If a university or some other employer can compel me to sign something I agree with, then my doing so would imply that it can compel me also to sign something that I disagree with. Hence, I would advocate that we disagree with signing any *compelled* oath.
I don't think Quintanilla has made a compelling case (sorry, I cannot help make that pun). But I am certain that such compelled speech is common at universities. Sharing of pronouns, if mandatory or somehow expected at the beginning of meetings or on professional profiles, is misguided at best.
I'm posting again today to address some of the comments posted in the past week.
Although it should be largely irrelevant to the understanding of my writings, it may be helpful to some readers to learn some of where I am coming from. I have family, some of whom are transgender, some are multiracial, some are not heterosexual, some are disabled, some have suffered threats, some have suffered physical violence including being killed.
I want to comment as a learning opportunity and possibly to influence some readers and writers to try to uphold the ideals of "The Heterodox Way" as best they can. See https://heterodoxacademy.org/library/the-hxa-way/ . I know it is often hard to do so, but trying is important and getting better at it is too. My point is not to criticize persons, but to emphasize that a less adversarial approach, in my opinion, is more likely to be effective long term.
Here are four specific examples of comments that I feel are hurting not helping my family members in the long term. Hurting by emphasizing conflict rather than mutual understanding, respect, and eventually, love.
1) This isn't hard stuff.
2) I do not value nor do I respect your opinion....
3) Sorry, ❄.
4) I'll be over here smoking that Marisol pack.
Also, on the topic of sharing of pronouns, the following essay may be worth reading. The author writes, "I personally take any pronouns..." and that caught my attention because I know someone working in STEM who was threatened with a potential adverse employment action because (literally!) "someone had told someone who had told someone to tell the person's boss to tell the person (the person who had written a similar such statement on their profile at work) that it might offend someone. It is that level of abstraction and policing of potential offense, especially by well-meaning persons thinking that they are helping, that I feel is counter-productive and ultimately is hurting people like my family members. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/10/16/xiao-against-mandatory-preferred-gender-pronouns/
I am reminded of a family experience on my ninth birthday. We had met the tide for fishing at 2AM and were walking home by star light with our dark-adapted eyes. Walking over large boulders of a jetty, we crossed paths with someone coming the other direction who directed their flashlight in each of our faces and exclaimed, "Wow, I don't know how you can walk without a flashlight!" My whole family had to stop for a moment to allow our eyes to adapt again to the dark before we could proceed by the light of the stars again. My point is that sometimes, maybe even often, being too loud, or too strident, or too bright (with a flashlight) is not helpful.
I appreciate all your kind, thoughtful, and understanding replies Peter. Besides being an excellent astronomer, you are a kind person.
I do not tolerate transphobes and I will continue speaking truth to power. I find your analytical approach to refuting Marisol's pap admirable, but her position does not deserve the level of respect with which you treat it. Denying the existence of trans people causes them material harm and I can in no way abide. I'm sorry those people blinded you with their flashlights; I will be as bright and strident of an anti-transphobe as I possibly can be. If that light paralyses a transphobe, so be it. That's a them problem. I do not care. Generally, tranphobes do indeed deserve compassion and patience, but at the level of "I'm going to write a blog about being offended by paperwork" they should really know better. Strange hill to die on, we seem to agree.
Emphasizing compassion and patience for persons, while criticizing their positions, if invalid, we do agree on those ideas.
I don't see her blog as arguing a trivial point about paperwork. A generous reading of this post might be to acknowledge the difficult position the author feels she is being put into by her employer. Being coerced to lie affects some persons much more than others. I encourage readers to care about that. Maybe the author can provide additional and better examples than the one in the original blog post.
For example, imagine if MSU required her to sign an affirmation like "Civility in the workplace is of the highest importance." She might value civility, but finds the affirmation process dangerously coercive, or she feels something(s) else is(are) of higher importance. Read the following real-life example of a professor resigning instead of signing a loyalty oath. "What dismays and disappoints Sallis most is the way state employees, as well as the rest of us, simply give in to this politically imposed demand." https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2015/09/28/montini-phoenix-college-arizona-state-legislature-loyalty-oath-james-sallis/72981924/
I encourage readers also to care about curing the paralysis you, happy wok, seem so eager to perpetuate. Apparently we disagree on tactics: I think you are hurting much more than you realize with your willful, strident insults, especially in this particular venue.
Peter, I greatly respect your patience and your commitment to generosity. I do not have such patience. I am curious as to who you think I am hurting. In an ideal world, I would reign in my insults and take a tack similar to yours. However, I don't have the luxury of patience or differentiation given the material harm that transphobes are presently inflicting on my trans homies. I also wish that I could interact with this thread with the same rigor with which you do, and also without psuedonym. However, one or more people involved in this post have direct power over me; a scary thought. I am not eager to cause anyone any discomfort, however, if my prioritization of trans peoples' lives over transphobes' anti-scientific, religiously-derived transphobia inflicts negative externalities to the transphobes in question, that's more than fine with me. Thank you for your thoughtful, good faith response. I do appreciate the effort you put in to your replies, the same for which cannot be said of the disingenuous author nor the host of this blog.
Curiosity becomes you: I think you are hurting everyone by encouraging paralysis. Stated another way, your tactics are helping perpetuate the status quo.
You want society to change, to approach a more ideal world, right? You seem to recognize that insults will not help, so stop expressing yourself in that manner. Reign in your impetuousness, and take time to convince people with logic, warmth, humor, or maybe love. The first paragraphs you originally wrote more than a week ago were fine - go read them again - stick to that approach.
The Woke’s performative pronoun ritual and universities’ official pronoun posts (like this one in the UC system: https://out.ucr.edu/pronouns-matter) alienate those who do not believe in Woke doctrine, chilling the speech of Woke dissidents. At universities, such Woke webpages should be taken down and DIE committees disassembled on the grounds that they suppress the speech of the non-Woke and violate many universities’ own pledges to remain politically neutral.
Sex/pronouns have traditionally been defined biologically (not via feelings). If we scramble these definitions, then we cannot discuss anything with clarity, such as animal mating behaviors or traditional sex-based societal roles (ex. “Men could not vote until 1920” is a farcical statement).
I’m so sick of the Woke cult insisting that everyone join them in their illogical and ahistorical Wonderland, when many of us prefer Truth and Reality. And I am done listening to their hypocritical preaching; for a sect that’s supposedly so concerned with “harm” and feelings, the Woke show no qualms about harming those they cancel and even disregard the feelings of those they claim to champion (as a POC, I feel much more oppressed by the Woke pigeonholing me into an ethnic checkbox and telling me that I’m a victim and that the racism boogeyman is out to get me).
Wait, I’m sorry, did I say “Wonderland” before? I meant Orwell’s 1984.
Thank you for your opinion, Cha-Ing. The censorship and tyranny that has resulted from DEI, gender ideology, and other such things are a real danger to freedom of speech, religious freedom, and a culture of free expression and inquiry. It undermines the foundational principles of this nation.
You’re welcome!
When their only rebuttal to an argument is to suppress it, then you know their reasoning is fallacious.
Thus, to promote better reasoning, instead of DIE committees, we need free speech committees to enforce universities’ commitments to freedom of expression and political neutrality.
What a good idea, yes, I am in total support of free speech committees. I agree that by their attitude they are showing that they have no confidence in what they are teaching since they do not want to debate. Excellent points, brilliant ideas
Free speech committee sounds great! I can tell you all about how nematodes are actually prokaryotes and I don't care if you're the expert, it's my free speech right to let you know that nematodes are definitely prokaryotes. And you telling me that they are eukaryotes is actually a violation of MY first amendment rights because my religion clearly states that nematodes are prokaryotes.
Thank you for admitting that the gender ideology is scientific nonsense. I just don't want to be required to affirm it
In this analogy, the fact that I believe my religion over the experts is the absurdity. You walked face first into the point and still missed it.
Hi Marisol,
As you know, but for the readers' benefit, you and I communicated by private emails the day your essay appeared, respectfully and thoughtfully, by both of our assessments, even though we disagree on some of this topic (by my own assessment). This private communication of academics has been going on for hundreds of years and continues on today and is a bedrock supporting the foundation of academia. I thought I would add a few comments here for public consumption.
If MSU requires a person to affirm that "gender is on a spectrum, not biologically based, and not-binary," as a precondition or requirement for that person to perform their work, then I agree that's wrong and should be challenged as such. On the other hand, if MSU only requires that a person check a box about own's gender, one of eleven choices that include "woman, man, ..., prefer not to specify, enter your own ____" then I don't think that in itself is demanding an affirmation and doesn't seem wrong to me. Allowing for a free-form response and the choice to not specify among multiple choices seems to me to be enabling freedom, not restricting it.
The Dawkins essay and the YouGov poll were interesting, and I thank you for linking to them. In footnote 1 of Dawkin's essay, he includes this wonderful sentence, "I am also only too aware of the elaborately planted minefield of constantly evolving neologisms and proliferating pronouns, through and around which academics in some humanities departments are obliged to tiptoe." I love that phrase "elaborately planted minefield" but would have not included the limitation of academics "in some humanities departments." The minefield seems to be in all of academia, although it makes sense to me that humanities departments would analyze these issues at greater length than STEM departments.
My impression is that your essay, as written, confuses or conflates sex and gender, and I figure I would give you the opportunity to clarify your thoughts on that here in the comments, if you wish to do so.
Respectfully, Peter
Oops! I wrote my comment based on the essay still open in my browser but not showing the 27 other comments. I am now seeing them and will read them. Probably you have already responded to my implicit or explicit suggestion to respond.
Thank you Peter, I really appreciate your thoughtful and intellectual comments. I treat gender and sex as the same thing, I would argue that even the new gender ideologists treat it as the same thing (they say "transwomen are women"). Sex and gender have been the same thing (synonyms) historically and biologically until very recently and now even the proponents of gender ideology treat it as the same thing, so I this should not be too controversial. I understand your point above but when I fill out those forms, they have a gender/sex question that includes 11 options. By filling it I am accepting their assumption that I am one of those 11+ options, therefore that sex is not binary. This is against my conscience and forcing me to lie. Mandatory DEI trainings also have questions that have to be answered in ways to affirm this ideology in order to pass the test. The questions cannot be skipped, and they cannot be answered according to one's beliefs, but the predetermined correct answer needs to be selected in order to move to the next question.
If we begin with a premise such as 'parallel lines never cross' and everyone considers that true, or a fact, or obvious, or whatever, then we can all live in Euclidean geometry comfortably. When someone asserts that 'parallel lines always cross,' it may open up the possibilities to many new ways of understanding. Similarly, if we consider a bit as a thing which is either a 0 or a 1, true or false, black or white, we can do a lot with that. But if we open the possibilities to fuzzy logic, or to qubits, we can open up the possibilities even more. For me, treating "sex = gender = 0 or 1" is similar to the analogies I just gave. Someone I know has one blue eye and one brown eye; I have always wondered if in a class on genetics he was being taught about recessive traits and eye color was given as an example, would he raise his hand and say to the teacher, "I think it's more complicated than we are being taught here..."?
If I were your mentor at MSU, I would encourage you to always check the 'prefer not to answer' response and get back to your lab work. I recently read a description of all this stuff as a sort of denial-of-service attack on academics who are vulnerable to it. That analogy rung true for me.
As to any mandatory trainings that require a particular "correct" response to pass, I think there are other university professors who have successfully challenged those; probably with FIRE's help. I know a person who once wrote a computer script that randomly clicked and typed in the boxes until it eventually finishes the test. It took many hours to write the script, debug it, and then many hours for it to randomly succeed in passing the test by randomly clicking on the screen. If you took that approach, at least you wouldn't be coerced into expressing something you didn't believe.
In the likely event that you wouldn't want to spend the time to write such a computer program, perhaps you could adopt an attitude that your responses are not meant as what you truly believe but what you believe the test makers consider the correct answers.
To this day I still remember a question on driver's written test that I took 40 years ago that was scored as incorrect, and I was adamant that the question was poorly written and my answer was not incorrect. As I have advanced in academia, it has become increasingly difficult for me to answer any multiple choice tests. Mandatory trainings drive me bonkers; I have to adopt a self-defensive attitude of "just answer what I think the test makers consider the correct response" and even then I feel violated. Watching this video has helped me about DEI trainings. https://banished.substack.com/p/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-on?s=r
FIRE on this topic.
https://www.thefire.org/issues/fire-statement-on-the-use-of-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-criteria-in-faculty-hiring-and-evaluation/
https://www.thefire.org/issues/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-statements-faq/
NYT on this topic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/opinion/workplace-diversity-dei-initiative.html?showTranscript=1
Excellent information, I am very familiar with FIRE and I love them. I had not seen the NYT's article. Thanks a million, you are super.
Thank you, Peter, for your very thoughtful comment. I understand your angst with the mandatory DEI trainings as I experience this as well. I am not able, and I will not lie or go against my conscience in order to take a training or fill a form. My conscience does not allow this and there is no amount of persuasion that will get me there unless I come to the realization that I am wrong and that what I believe is not true. This goes beyond practicality or employment; this is requiring religious beliefs or faith statements in other to work or participate in anything. I say it is faith statements because it is based on ideology. This country has freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and I am not required to accept or affirm their false premises (and lie) in order to fill any form or participate in anything. I understand that some people do not care and just do it, but I cannot and will not. If we all surrender to tyranny, we will lose our liberties. I think you are super; your comments are extremely thoughtful and intelligent, and I understand your points, I just can't. I am doing my work and doing well, don't worry about that, and so far, my job in not in peril. I truly believe that this kind of tyranny (i.e. DEI statements, mandatory DEI trainings, mandatory affirmation of ideologies such as the gender ideology) are a danger to liberty in this country, they are a danger to academic progress, and a danger to our societal culture of free expression and innovation. The standard for thousands of years has been tyranny and the US was founded by people escaping oppression. By what I am reading in your comments, you have also experienced some of this "DEI" oppression. I love MSU, it has done so much for me. My department is wonderful, I love the people there. I just feel that this is something that needs to be dealt with. I did not experience this 3 years ago. It has gotten progressively worse in the last 3 years, and it needs to stop.
Your comment, "I love MSU, it has done so much for me. My department is wonderful, I love the people there." juxtaposed with your describing DEI statements, mandatory DEI trainings, (etc) as tyranny would/should/could give some people pause to reflect on how to reconcile those, especially if they were aware that there are many professors that share with you at least that same conflict between their love for their jobs and their feelings of a new tyranny.
Yes, this is just a new problem. It suddenly became in style to mandate DEI trainings and demand affirmation to all these ideologies. It is amazing. However, MSU and other land-grant institutions are incredible institutions that have done so much good for humanity. The new ideas are endangering this.
Thanks for speaking up! You've made an excellent point about race being far more of a spectrum than sex. In over 25 years of pediatrics, I've yet to see a newborn with truly ambiguous genitalia. Such a thing can happen, but is vanishingly rare.
For the curious, I'm well aware that gender can be called a social construct, but I'd prefer if forms use something like "gender identity" and also use sex. The numbers of "women" committing sex crimes in England and Wales have recently almost doubled - this appears to be due to the fact that police departments are recording the gender rather than the sex of perpetrators.
What an excellent response Julia, I agree that race is a spectrum for most people and that sex is binary. There are only egg and sperm sex cells in humans and any other mammal, therefore it is binary. I am so thankful for your excellent observations and comments as a pediatrician. Your police and crime comments in England are very enlightening. I do see that you are referring to sex and gender as two different things, I do not think that even the gender ideologues are using it in this way anymore, but I agree with many of your points.