LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back

I could use a break from my current draft (which is already over the 3,000 word mark, alas), and this is certainly worthy of my time:

I propose that on Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024 (the first day that both the House and Senate are back in session), all of us who are invested in this issue and have a platform (whether it be a blog, newsletter, column, podcast, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) publish a piece with the shared title: “LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back.” Yes, I know, it’s a cheesy title, but it holds Democrats accountable to their own talking points and makes it clear that backsliding on LGBTQ+ rights is nonnegotiable for us.

Easy peas- wait, “Democrats?”

What you write or say or express in your op-ed or article or video or podcast etcetera is up to you. I encourage you to make it personal and feel free to tailor it to your audience. My only request (other than all of us using the same title) is that you implore people to contact their Congressperson and Senators (and perhaps even local politicians) and tell them that 1) you will not tolerate any backpedaling on LGBTQ+ rights whatsoever, and 2) if they fail to strongly stand up against these attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, then you will take your vote elsewhere next election.

Ah, this is somewhat US-centric. Unfortunately, I live in their hat and thus I doubt any Democratic politician would listen to me.

However, I do live in a province with a government that’s decided to demonize transgender people. Bill 29 is quite draconian: sports organizations are supposed to “establish, implement and maintain policies respecting fairness and safety,” which they must report to the government. They must also report any complaints about those policies, “requests for” or “the establishment of mixed-gender or mixed-sex leagues, classes or divisions,” and “other matters.” Anyone carrying out those orders is shielded from legal liability. What constitutes “fairness and safety?” That’s not up to the sporting organization, oh no; the government’s cabinet has full authority to prescribe “provisions or content that policies must include.” The language is very vague, with plenty of loopholes a bigot could exploit.

It has been widely condemned, a legal challenge has been launched, and even its mere proposal has made national sporting organizations rethink hosting events in our province. During its second reading, where it was supposed to be debated, both MLAs who rose to speak about the bill condemned it:

Hon. Hayter (NDP, Calgary-Edgemont): This bill is only going to discourage youth from participating. Bill 29 states that you want to have sports participation, but it really is just going to add more red tape for people to participate. Based on this government’s announcement, this bill is the first step forward barring trans women and girls from participating in women’s sports at all levels, starting at school level to being a professional athlete. …

Last year a nine-year-old girl – nine years old – participating in track and field in B.C. was harassed by people because she had short hair, so they made the assumption that she must be trans. A little girl. This government is giving a free pass to harassers in the name of protecting women in sport. This makes all women unsafe, especially Black, Indigenous, and other racialized women as well as women who are now going to be considered insufficiently feminine.

Hon. Elmeligi (NDP, Banff-Kananaskis): I want to zoom in on this idea about this unfair advantage, that somehow trans women have an unfair advantage over other athletes in sport. This idea is not supported by any science at all. … Really, this idea is based on the assumption that trans women have more testosterone, so let’s explore that a little bit. More testosterone leads to bigger muscles, faster times, tends to be associated with being stronger and faster, but that is so wrong, Mr. Chair. Again, we find a government basing policies on stereotypes, assumptions, transphobia, and just utter nonsense.

Here’s the reality check. In Judith Butler’s book Who’s Afraid of Gender? she really dives into this, and I highly recommend that all members in the House check out this book. Basically, the research shows that testosterone varies widely between and within genders. The research shows that there is considerable overlap in testosterone levels between genders: 16 and a half per cent of men have very low testosterone, 13 and a half per cent of women have higher than average testosterone, and there’s a lot overlap in those levels between genders.

It passed its second reading 43-31, with no amendments. More importantly, though, no one dared voice support of it. Even the bigots know that it’s indefensible! The silence is telling: the UCP know this isn’t going to earn them votes, if anything they’ll lose support should it become more widely known. If you’re an Albertan, now would be an excellent time to hammer that point home. Page 32 of the written record for that session lists every MLA who voted for or against Bill 29. The Alberta Government helpfully lists every current MLA. Get in touch with your MLA, and either thank them for voting against Bill 29 or politely ask them why they won’t defend their vote.

I’ve already done that process myself, and I can say it was well worth my time. My MLA has vocally supported transgender people, and they voted against Bill 29 on second reading. Now it’s your turn! I can guarantee it’ll be more satisfying than doom-scrolling US politics.

[HJH 2024-12-03] Whoops, I made the amateur mistake of assuming the second reading of this bill took place over one session. It actually was spread over three that occurred November 6th, 21st, and 26th. During the first session Hon. Schow (UCP, Cardston-Siksika) brought up the inherent strength advantages that men have over women (irrelevant, oversimplified) and that fairness demands transgender people be excluded (false). Hon. Armstrong-Homeniuk (UCP, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville) brought up the fairness of sport and the transformative power of sport (also covered by fairness). Hon. Petrovic (UCP, Livingstone-Macleod) again banged the fairness drum (it’s their best argument, which is damning). During the second session Hon. Johnson (UCP, Lacombe-Ponoka) recycled the “fairness” and “inherent strength” talking points from earlier.

One new argument comes from Hon. Petrovic’s name-drop of Reem Alsalem, who claims that nearly 890 medals were “unfairly” won by transgender athletes. Turns out it’s absolute batshit nonsense that hinges heavily on appeals to authority. Hon. Schmidt (NDP, Edmonton-Gold Bar) inadvertently spotted the game being played here:

With respect to science we heard the Member for Lacombe-Ponoka as well as the minister for sport refer to this report by the special rapporteur to the United Nations on women and gender-based violence. There is a quote in there, that the Member for Lacombe-Ponoka said, about the hundreds of medals that have been stripped from women competing in dozens of sports, and if you look at the footnote for that in the report, that claim is made by an organization called the Womens Liberation Front, which according to their website also unapologetically supports abortion on demand. So I look forward to the members opposite also endorsing the other work that the Womens Liberation Front is proposing.

Oh, so Alsalem sourced that figure from Women’s Liberation Front, that “gender critical” organization with strong ties to the US Christian nationalist movement. And as I touch on in that blog post, TERFs have been lobbying the UN for years to add the aura of authority to their arguments. If the evidence isn’t on your side, misinformation and authoritarianism are your only hope to getting your policies implemented.

Which, I suppose, explains why the cause is so attractive to our United Conservative Party.

Let’s Talk Websites

I wish I’d written a post-mortem of my last disastrous hike. Not because it’s an opportunity to humble-brag about a time I hiked 43 kilometres, nor because these stories lead to compelling narratives, but because it’s invaluable for figuring out both what went wrong and how to fix it. As a bonus, it’s an opportunity to educate someone about the finer details of hiking.

Hence when it was suggested I do a post about FreethoughtBlog’s latest outage, I jumped on it relatively quickly. Unlike my hiking disasters, though, a lot of this coming second-hand via PZ and some detective work on my side, so keep a bit of skepticism handy.

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A Transgender Athlete Reader

Remember this old thing?

Rationality Rules was so confident nobody would take him to task, his “improved” video contains the same arguments as his “flawed” one. And honestly, he was right; I’ve seen this scenario play out often enough within this community to know that we try to bury our skeletons, that we treat our minorities like shit, that we “skeptics” are just as prone to being blind followers as the religious/woo crowds we critique. And just like all those other times, I cope by writing words until I get sick of the topic. Sometimes, that takes a while.

In hindsight, “a while” turned out to be seven months and about seventeen blog posts. Why on Earth would I spend so much time and effort focused on one vlogger? I don’t think I ever explained why in those posts, so let’s fix that: the atheist/skeptic movement has a problem with transphobia. From watching my peers insinuate Ann Coulter was a man, to my participation in l’affair Benson, I gradually went from “something feels off about this” to “wow, some of my peers are transphobes.”

As I picked apart the arguments made by transphobes, I started to see patterns. Much like with religious and alt-Right extremists, there’s a lot of recycling going on. Constantly, apologists are forced to search for new coats of paint to cover up old bigoted arguments. I spotted a shift from bathroom rhetoric to sports rhetoric in early 2019 and figured that approach would have a decent lifespan. So when Rationality Rules stuck to his transphobic guns, I took it as my opportunity to defuse sports-related transphobic arguments in general. If I did a good enough job, most of these posts would still be applicable when the next big-name atheist or skeptic tried to invoke sports.

My last post was a test of that. It was a draft I’d been nursing for months back in 2019, but after a fair bit of research and some drastic revisions I’d gotten Rationality Rules out of my system via other posts. So I set it aside as a test. If I truly was right about this shift to sports among transphobes, it was only a matter of time until someone else in the skeptic/atheist community would make a similar argument and some minor edits would make it relevant again. The upshot is that a handful of my readers were puzzled by this post about Rationality Rules, while the vast majority of you instead saw this post about Shermer and Shrier.

The two arguments aren’t quite the same. Rationality Rules emphasizes that “male puberty” is his dividing line; transgender women who start hormone therapy early enough can compete as women, according to him, and he relies on that to argue he’s not transphobic at all. Shermer is nowhere near as sophisticated, arguing for a new transgender-specific sporting category instead. Shrier takes the same stance as Rationality Rules, but she doesn’t push back on Shermer’s opinions.

But not only are the differences small, I doubt many people had “women are inherently inferior to men in domain X” on their transphobe bingo card. And yet, the same assertion was made at two very different times by three very different people. I consider this test a roaring success.

One consequence is that most of my prior posts on Rationality Rules’ arguments against transgender athletes still hold quite a bit of value, and are worth boosting. First, though, I should share the three relevant posts that got me interested in sports-related apologia:

Trans Athletes, the Existence of Gender Identity, … / … and Ophelia Benson: The first post proposed two high-level arguments in favour of allowing transgender athletes to compete as the gender they identify with. The second is mostly about calling out Benson for blatant misgendering, but I also debunk some irrational arguments made against transgender athletes.

I Think I Get It: My research for the prior two posts led me to flag sport inclusion as the next big thing in transphobic rhetoric. The paragraph claiming “they think of them as the worst of men” was written with Benson in mind, but was eerily predictive of Shermer.

And finally, the relevant Rationality Rules posts:

EssenceOfThought on Trans Athletes: This is mostly focused on EssenceOfThought‘s critique of Rationality Rules, but I slip in some extras relating to hemoglobin and testosterone.

Rationality Rules is an Oblivious Transphobe: My first crack at covering the primary factors of athletic performance (spoiler alert: nobody knows what they are) and the variation present. I also debunk some myths about transgender health care, refute some attempts to shift the burden of proof or argue evidence need not be provided.

Texas Sharpshooter: My second crack at athletic performance and its variance, this time with better analysis.

Rationality Rules is “A Transphobic Hack“: This is mostly commentary specific to Rationality Rules, but I do link to another EssenceOfThought video.

Special Pleading: My second crack at the human rights argument, correcting a mistake I made in another post.

Rationality Rules is a “Lying” Transphobe: I signal boost Rhetoric&Discourse‘s video on transgender athletes.

“Rationality Rules STILL Doesn’t Understand Sports”: A signal boost of Xevaris‘ video on transgender athletes.

Lies of Omission: Why the principle of “fair play” demands that transgender athletes be allowed to compete as their affirmed gender.

Begging the Question: How the term “male puberty” is transphobic.

Rationality Rules Is Delusional: Rob Clark directs me to a study that deflates the muscle fibre argument.

Cherry Picking: If transgender women possess an obvious performance benefit, you’d expect professional and amateur sporting bodies to reach a consensus on that benefit existing and to write their policies accordingly. Instead, they’re all over the place.

Separate and Unequal: I signal boost ‘s comic on transgender athletes.

Rationality Rules DESTROYS Women’s Sport!!1!: I take a deep dive into a dataset on hormone levels in professional athletes, to see what would happen if we segregated sports by testosterone level. The title gives away the conclusion, alas.

That takes care of most of Shermer and Shrier’s arguments relating to transgender athletes, and the remainder should be pretty easy. I find it rather sad that neither are as skilled at transphobic arguments as Rationality Rules was. Is the atheist/skeptic community getting worse on this subject?

A Good Start

It certainly didn’t seem like that at first blush, though.

Further, we wish to make it clear that Dr. Hall still remains an editor of SBM in good standing. She has worked tirelessly to promote SBM and its principles, contributing over 700 articles to SBM since 2008, all without any compensation or possibility of reward beyond public service. However, at SBM quality matters first, and so we have to remain open to correction when necessary.

Hold on. Harriet Hall has repeatedly shared medical misinformation and lied about the scientific evidence, on a website that claims to promote “the highest standards and traditions of science in health care,” and it hasn’t impacted your view of her at all? Both Steven Novella and David Gorski are not concerned that her flagrant disregard of the science here might spill over to other topics she’s discussed? You’re fine with being used to launder medical misinformation, so long as the actors “remain open to correction?” Yeeesh, I just lost a lot of respect for Science-Based Medicine.

Their response to Hall’s article is also hyper-focused on the scientific literature, with only a few exceptions. That can be quite dangerous, as Allison points out.

Frankly, for a trans person, there’s something surreal and erasing in seeing cis people feuding with cis people over whether we exist. I mean, I am grateful that there are cis people being allies for us … But the fact that people have to come up with logical arguments and “evidence” that our transness is “real,” thus keeping the question alive of whether we do, in fact, exist, keeps giving me the creepy feeling that maybe I’m just a figment of my own imagination. […]

I was just reading HJ Hornbeck’s post about trans athletes, which has all kinds of “scientific,” “objective” evidence that gender dysphoria, gender identity, etc. are real. The problem with going down that path is not only that it concedes the possibility that it could be “disproven,” but also that trans people who don’t fit into the definitions and criteria in those “proofs” are then implicitly left out of the category “real trans.”

When writing about issues at the core of someone’s identity, you need to prioritize humanism over evidence. Hence why I went out of my way to point out the scientific literature is not the final word, that it is not prescriptive. If you doubt me, consider one of the after-effects of ACT UP:

The upshot of all this: “What they were able to revolutionize was really the very way that drugs are identified and tested,” says France. This included scrapping the prevailing practice of testing drugs on a small number of people over a long period of time in favor of testing a huge sample of people over a much shorter period — significantly speeding up the time it took to conduct drug trials.

Similarly, ACT UP insisted that the researchers and pharmaceutical companies that were searching for a cure for AIDS also research treatments for the opportunistic infections that were killing off AIDS patients while they waited for a cure. In the process, says France, “ACT UP created a model for patient advocacy within the research system that never existed before.”

Today it seems natural that people suffering from a disease — whether that’s breast cancer or diabetes — should have a voice in how it is researched and treated. But France says this was decidedly not the norm before ACT UP.

By just reciting the scientific record as if it is a holy book, you roll back the clock to a time when scientists acted as gatekeepers rather than helpers. Instead, start from a patient-centred care perspective where patient rights are placed first. The quality of the science will improve, if anything, and you won’t condescend or impose on the people effected. Novella/Gorski do make some attempts at this, to be fair, but I thought they were easy to miss.

At the same time I was filing away that objection away, though, Novella and Gorski’s follow-up article was really starting to grow on me. It calmly and patiently shoots down a number of arguments made by Shrier and Hall, and the meat of the article doesn’t hold back. They earn their conclusion:

Abigail Shrier’s narrative and, unfortunately, Dr. Hall’s review grossly misrepresent the science and the standard of care, muddying the waters for any meaningful discussion of a science-based approach to transgender care. They mainly rely on anecdotes, outliers, political discussions, and cherry-picked science to make their case, but that case is not valid. […]

At this point there is copious evidence supporting the conclusion that the benefits of gender affirming interventions outweigh the risks; more extensive, high-quality research admittedly is needed. For now, a risk-benefit analysis should be done on an individual basis, as there are many factors to consider. There is enough evidence currently to make a reasonable assessment, and the evidence is also clear that denying gender-affirming care is likely the riskiest option.

I could have used some more citations (shock surprise), but there’s enough there to establish that Novella/Gorski have done their homework. Also, did I mention this is only part one?

Part II of this series will include a far more detailed discussion of the key claims in Abigail Shrier’s book and where she goes wrong by an expert in the care of trans children and adolescents.

Giving a front-line expert a platform to share their insights will do wonders to counter the misinformation. Until that time, we still have a solid takedown of Shrier and Hall’s views on transgender people’s health. Despite my objections, it’s well worth a read.

Slavery in Canada

What’s a Canadian to do in honour of Juneteenth? In school I learned we were the end point of the underground railroad, which ferried slaves out of the USA in the decades before their Civil War. And, well, that was about it. Yay Canada! I guess we never engaged in slavery.

A moment’s thought suggests that is nonsense. Britain did indeed ban slavery before the USA, but even my decaying history knowledge tells me that happened in the 1800’s, about two hundred years after the Brits landed. The Atlantic parts of Canada were heavily engaged in shipping, so there’s a non-trivial chance slave ships landed there in passing at least. If only we had some historical documentation about the subject.

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Fundraiser: Stardew Valley

My thought process for choosing this game was pretty straightforward: fall is a time of harvest, some sort of game where I’m harvesting makes sense, so why not play Stardew Valley? I’ve fallen head over heels for sandbox games, yet never played Harvest Moon. And Stardew Valley is an indie game originally made by one person. It ticks every box.

Alas, it also ticks one more: colonialism. The game gives you a farm once owned by a grandparent, for free, and allows you to develop the place into whatever farm or mining business you want. The context and location sound very North American, which implies there were once First Nations people on that land (though apparently the game actually takes place in Russia?). In reality, if you’re stuck in a soul-sucking job there’s no shortage of options to wiggle out, like starting up an art collective or striking for improved work conditions; in game, though, your “choice” is either to remain in stasis or move into someone else’s place. The game never gives you that choice, though, the moment you gain control of your character is the moment after you’ve taken over this new space. To add insult to injury, you’re still not free of capitalism; oh no, you’ll spend a fair bit of time finding ways to earn cash to trade for goods and services, planting the seeds of your old society in this new space.

This doesn’t make the game any less fun, but it also lingers over it like a faint smell. On Saturday December 5th, at 10:00 AM MDT, I’ll be both enjoying and dissecting this game on my Twitch channel. If you like the concept, consider donating to our fundraiser. It’ll help pay off the legal fees we’re still paying thanks to Richard Carrier. Alternatively, toss some money at Skepticon to pay off their Carrier-related bills. No funds? Not a problem, though you might want to read this to get into the spirit of things.

Fundraiser: What’s So Scary about Climate Change?

There’s a sort of inevitability that’s common to all horror. When watching Jason or the xenomorph, you’re already certain people will die. The real question is who, when, and how. Sometimes its fairly obvious, for instance that lone person in the vent is a goner, in which case the focus is more on how everyone else copes with the loss. Other times, the death comes out of nowhere; Annie Phillips steps into a car on a sunny day and chats up the driver, only to have her throat graphically slit a few minutes later.

This is a lot like climate change. The basic physics has been known since the 1890’s, so there’s no debate over whether it’s happening (unless you’re the Mayor, of course). The focus is on who, when, and how. Desert regions will get hotter, but maybe plants will also get more poisonous? Tinkering with an entire planet will inevitably lead to unforeseen or odd circumstances, most of which will be unwelcome.

So Abe Drayton has joined with PZ Myers, Joshua Johnson, and a sacrificial lamb (me!) to discuss the spooky side of climate change. It’ll be premiering in 45 minutes over on my YouTube channel. It’s just one of many things we’re doing to help pay off our legal bills, so if you have some spare candy please consider donating it to us or Skepticon.