Meet your Heroes.

It's better to know and be honest about it.

That’s deliberate in the title.

The saying usually goes “never meet your heroes.” That is absolute horseshart.

I refuse to being blissfully unaware that I’m supporting a monster by wearing a specific piece of clothing: perhaps a scarf in particular colors. If Neil Gaiman is taking advantage of women who depend on him for their livelihoods, I want to know about it. It would hurt if something ever comes out that breaks my image of Terry Prachett as a perfect human being. I would cry myself to sleep: but I’d still want to know.

It is the moral imperative for us to know who we are supporting, emotionally, physically, and monetarily. If I fail to do that, I deserve reproach. If I fail to do it consistently, I deserve vilification. If I do it from a position that I can’t be wrong about my opinion and refuse to argue it, I don’t deserve you as an audience.

But I don’t think I’m wrong in saying:

Richard Dawkins is not a Transphobe, exactly.

I used to be a huge Richard Dawkins fan-girl. I still think he’s a genius. And I know that he’s not particularly popular with the crowd I hang out with. But I’m willing to confess that I’m not convinced he’s a Transphobe.

That’s not to say he’s an ally. He certainly isn’t, and he’s made that abundantly clear. I expected more from him as a sociobiologist. He has made statements and posts that have been used, demonstrably, to undermine Transgender Equality. But not by him.

Let’s talk about the Selfish Gene.

When I was in twelfth-grade, me and a classmate wrote a long research paper (15 pages or so is tough for a Minnesota High School student). I was nursing a broken heart so as all aggrieved autistic self-hating teenagers do, I channeled my feelings of unrequited love and forced my partner to research the biological root of the human emotion of love. Totally normal thing for a high-school student to do.

My partner wasn’t exactly thrilled with the topic, but he dove in anyway, and it was he who introduced me to the concept of Sociobiology and Ethology. I didn’t thank him properly for that, and if I could I wish I could apologize on behalf of the old identity that helped me survive to become the woman I am today. He was more than enough, and I didn’t give him the respect or agency he deserved. I’m sorry, Jacob.

And that’s how I discovered Richard Dawkins’s magnum opus, the Selfish Gene. This book was unbelievably influential in my moral, ethical, and intellectual development. I should probably read it again since I’m more than double the age I was when I first read it. For most people the lesson of the book is that humans aren’t in control of biological impulses like survival and reproduction, our genes are. For me, the lesson was that we couldn’t trust our instincts to be ethical.

Take the example of male lions. When a male lion claims a new female lioness he immediately devours her children. Lion step-fathers, like many human step-parents, prioritize their own genetic progeny over those of their predecessors. It is perfectly adaptive: their genetic offspring are getting more resources. Based on the same logic, Eugenics, Genocide and Racial Profiling can be adaptive. But.

Adaptiveness and Morality are not related to each other in any way.

Let me say that again because it’s important.

Just because a behavior increases the likelihood of your genes being selected doesn’t make that behavior righteous, excusable, or ethically just.

Transitioning can be a maladaptive trait. It can also be very much adaptive. Meerkats sacrificing themselves to warn their offspring and kin of danger is both. They sacrifice their future genetic potential to protect the genes of their blood in the here-and-now.

Lets talk about what Dawkins did.

This is what my hero and academic crush tweeted the following:

“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.” ← Richard Dawkins

It makes my skin crawl just to read it. It is fundamentally cruel and it gives ammunition to the people trying to commit genocide against us. It is unforgivable: but only because he makes a glaring mistake about his terms.

caption...

He, a person who SHOULD KNOW BETTER, intentionally or unintentionally conflates Sex and Gender. If he had said “Some [phenotypically male individuals] choose to identify as women, and some [phenotypically female individuals] choose to identify as men.” I wouldn’t be able to argue with what he is saying.

I was born with the wrong genitalia and gametes. It was an unfortunate birth-defect. I have always been a woman, even though I was told to be a boy and socialized that way. That does not change the biological reality that I was born with a penis. A misshapen one, but definitely a penis. I have a biological daughter who has female sex characteristics. These are not negotiable facts and are scientific truths to the extent we are currently able to empirically demonstrate. My time on HRT has made it pretty unlikely I will ever procreate again (maladaptive) but I’m alive and supporting my daughter and have more resources devoted to her (adaptive).

Fact 1: I’m a woman.

Fact 2: I was born phenotypically male

Fact 3: If my womanhood is denied because of my phenotype, that is not ok.

Fact 4: If you say that i am literally female, you are wrong.

Fact 5: If you deny that I am literally female, you may be vilified in some communities.

None of these facts are mutually exclusive. Until you mess up the terms female and woman: that’s where you are definitively wrong.

I don’t know why Dawkins misstated the facts. Some of the things he does and says make me wonder if he’s neurodivergent. Maybe he was trying to fit in the limits of twitter. Maybe he was more concerned with the other phrases.

I don’t believe this is enough to unequivocally declare that he is a Transphobe. I can also say with certainty that what he said was harmful, but that harm isn’t coming from him: it’s from people who actually are transphobes.

What he did wrong.

Dawkins is often considered a Sociobiologist, but that’s not actually true. He is an ethologist and an evolutionary biologist. He has made that distinction clearly elsewhere. He is not intellectually curious about gender. It is not his field. He is an expert on sex, but apparently unconcerned with gender.

The problem is, instead of correcting himself he got defensive. He made a clear and demonstrable mistake, but he refused to own that. He deserved vilification because he was definitively wrong, insensitive, and put actual in danger with his misrepresentation. If he did that intentionally and without remorse then he is a monster.

I just don’t see that in the evidence. If you can present quotes that show a consistent pattern of saying transgender women are men, I need to see it.

If all we can find is him saying Transgender women are phenotypical males then he is not wrong. And I can still forgive him for making a mistake and overreacting to it, but also respect him as a scientist and read his works with a bit of extra caution.

Conclusion

The fact that he has been labeled a transphobe and had awards and recognition taken back, is something that happened. From the standpoint of a scientist I can understand where he is coming from. I don’t think he is our enemy. Here’s another quote:

“Those who sincerely feel themselves born in the wrong body deserve sympathy and respect. . . . Many of us know people who choose to identify with the sex opposite to their biological reality. It is polite and friendly to call them by the name and pronouns that they prefer. They have a right to that respect and sympathy.” ← Richard Dawkins

I can’t say that even the gross part of that is untrue. I do not identify with the sex typically associated with my gender. I am a phenotypically male Woman. He never says that that is impossible. I don’t necessarily believe in his assertion that people identify with a sex, because everyone I know identifies with a gender, but I truly appreciate the rest of the sentiment. I am worthy of politeness, friendliness, sympathy, respect.

And if we’re taking him at his word, sympathy is an interesting choice of words. He says “Sympathy” instead of “Empathy.” Empathy is imagining what I feel, but sympathy denotes specifically a feeling that you share: you feel the same feelings as me, and that’s why you understand.

So, am I still a Dawkins fan-girl? No, probably not.

But does he deserve to be vilified as a transphobe?

As far as I can tell at this moment? No, probably not.