As a (very) junior academic who researches gender identity, I often find myself thinking about the art of presenting heresy in the temple. So far, at least, the trick would seem to be to speak freely, without respecting any of the taboos that have gathered around the subject of gender identity, and with absolute confidence that it's legitimate to ask questions and irresponsible not to.
Absolutely. I tread in a different minefield as a playwright in a theatre scene that has changed a lot in the last decades but the sentiment holds true. Have the courage of your convictions. Be bold. Bloody minded and contrary, if necessary. The world has never needed it more.
Good for you. That takes courage which is hard to come by sometimes. It's important that we recognize moments of courage in ourselves and others because they act as stepping stones for us to do the next courageous thing. Gender identity came up at work recently and I brought up misogyny, family dynamics, detransition, and that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is not a bible. It may not seem courageous to some but it was a big step for me Let's keep being courageous in any way we can!
Keep it up, Eliza! I've been an academic for 20+ years, and I know the terror of speaking freely. After a few years away from teaching, I came back to it full time this year, realizing it was going to be a more challenging context in which to be honest. But I have tried my best to be honest this year, and so far so good! We need your voice and all of our voices to keep free expression alive and to keep the world interesting.
I like the “let’s pretend we are all subject to similar and sometimes negotiable standards of logic and reason” strategy. I can imagine the confused expressions and entreaties for support from unreason piling up until laughter would be the only available response left.
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” 😉
But well said, lots of good points. Of particular note is your "submission to some higher faith". Reminds me of a favourite author of a favourite book – Norbert Wiener, "considered the originator of cybernetics, the science of communication as it relates to living things and machines", of "The Human Use of Human Beings" – who argued that:
"I have said that science is impossible without faith. By this I do not mean that the faith on which science depends is religious in nature or involves the acceptance of any of the dogmas of the ordinary religious creeds, yet without faith that nature is subject to law there can be no science. No amount of demonstration can ever prove that nature is subject to law. For all we know, the world from the next moment on might be something like the croquet game in Alice in W orulerland, where the balls are hedgehogs which walk off, the hoops are soldiers who march to other parts of the field, and the rules of the game are made from instant to instant by the arbitrary decree of the Queen. It is to a world like this that the scientist must conform in totalitarian countries, no matter whether they be those of the right or of the left. The Marxist Queen is very arbitrary indeed, and the fascist Queen is a good match for her.”
But the latter part about science having to conform to politically motivated dogma is part and parcel of my own article on Wikipedia’s Lysenkoism – in case you missed it ;-)
Sadly, or not, science is largely just a tool that's far too often misused by its share of grifters and charlatans, sorcerer's apprentices, and politically motivated hacks and dogmatists. And it is hardly a panacea, but it is also one that we kind of have to use with some tempered "faith", some tentativeness that its conclusions often, not always, bear some weight.
Somewhat apropos of which, I'm curious as to what your definitions are for sex, gender, and gender identity, particularly the latter as it seems the focus of your studies, and whether you have a post yet thereon. The whole set – sort of a trinity, so to speak 😉 – is something of a dog's breakfast, and there seems precious little science in the last two. But I also wonder whether you would subscribe to Wikipedia's definition for gender as the "range [a spectrum] of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them". Some potential application of science to gender, rather less so to gender identity.
Absolutely. I tread in a different minefield as a playwright in a theatre scene that has changed a lot in the last decades but the sentiment holds true. Have the courage of your convictions. Be bold. Bloody minded and contrary, if necessary. The world has never needed it more.
YES!
Good for you. That takes courage which is hard to come by sometimes. It's important that we recognize moments of courage in ourselves and others because they act as stepping stones for us to do the next courageous thing. Gender identity came up at work recently and I brought up misogyny, family dynamics, detransition, and that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is not a bible. It may not seem courageous to some but it was a big step for me Let's keep being courageous in any way we can!
Keep it up, Eliza! I've been an academic for 20+ years, and I know the terror of speaking freely. After a few years away from teaching, I came back to it full time this year, realizing it was going to be a more challenging context in which to be honest. But I have tried my best to be honest this year, and so far so good! We need your voice and all of our voices to keep free expression alive and to keep the world interesting.
As always, your insights delight and inform me. Wishing you well in front of the inquisitors. Your words matter.
Yes, it seems that the slightest hint of apology draws the most aggressive reaction, like sharks scenting blood in the water.
I like the “let’s pretend we are all subject to similar and sometimes negotiable standards of logic and reason” strategy. I can imagine the confused expressions and entreaties for support from unreason piling up until laughter would be the only available response left.
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” 😉
But well said, lots of good points. Of particular note is your "submission to some higher faith". Reminds me of a favourite author of a favourite book – Norbert Wiener, "considered the originator of cybernetics, the science of communication as it relates to living things and machines", of "The Human Use of Human Beings" – who argued that:
"I have said that science is impossible without faith. By this I do not mean that the faith on which science depends is religious in nature or involves the acceptance of any of the dogmas of the ordinary religious creeds, yet without faith that nature is subject to law there can be no science. No amount of demonstration can ever prove that nature is subject to law. For all we know, the world from the next moment on might be something like the croquet game in Alice in W orulerland, where the balls are hedgehogs which walk off, the hoops are soldiers who march to other parts of the field, and the rules of the game are made from instant to instant by the arbitrary decree of the Queen. It is to a world like this that the scientist must conform in totalitarian countries, no matter whether they be those of the right or of the left. The Marxist Queen is very arbitrary indeed, and the fascist Queen is a good match for her.”
http://asounder.org/resources/weiner_humanuse.pdf
But the latter part about science having to conform to politically motivated dogma is part and parcel of my own article on Wikipedia’s Lysenkoism – in case you missed it ;-)
https://medium.com/@steersmann/wikipedias-lysenkoism-410901a22da2
Sadly, or not, science is largely just a tool that's far too often misused by its share of grifters and charlatans, sorcerer's apprentices, and politically motivated hacks and dogmatists. And it is hardly a panacea, but it is also one that we kind of have to use with some tempered "faith", some tentativeness that its conclusions often, not always, bear some weight.
Somewhat apropos of which, I'm curious as to what your definitions are for sex, gender, and gender identity, particularly the latter as it seems the focus of your studies, and whether you have a post yet thereon. The whole set – sort of a trinity, so to speak 😉 – is something of a dog's breakfast, and there seems precious little science in the last two. But I also wonder whether you would subscribe to Wikipedia's definition for gender as the "range [a spectrum] of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them". Some potential application of science to gender, rather less so to gender identity.
*applauds*