The College Fix wrote about the Carol Hooven/Laura Simone Lewis clash on Twitter a couple of weeks ago:
“I am appalled and frustrated by the transphobic and harmful remarks made by a member of my dept,” wrote Laura Simone Lewis following the appearance by Human Evolutionary Biology colleague Carole Hooven on “Fox & Friends.”
Lewis continued: “Let’s be clear: if you respect diverse gender identities & aim to use correct pronouns, then you would know that people with diverse genders/sexes can be pregnant incl Trans [sic] men, intersex people & gender nonconforming people. That isn’t too hard for medical students to understand.”
Yes let’s be clear. People with “diverse sexes” can’t be pregnant. Only one of the two sexes can be pregnant. That’s how you be clear. You don’t be clear by trying to get a man pregnant.
‘You know, we can treat people with respect and respect their gender identities and use their preferred pronouns,’ [Hooven] said on Wednesday.
‘So understanding the facts about biology doesn’t prevent us from treating people with respect.’
I have to say though – it’s not really treating people with respect. It’s more the opposite. It’s treating people as too fragile (or stupid or self-indulgent or something) to be able to face reality, so you decide to humor their delusions so that they don’t fall apart in front of you. Does that sound like respect to you?
Or you might be treating them with fear as opposed to respect. You might humor their delusions because if you don’t they will get you fired or otherwise punished, so you do what they bullied you into doing. That too is not respect. It’s respect in the Vito Corleone sense maybe, but who wants that?
Would it be respect for academics to refer to their students as kittens or bears or space aliens because the students are so addicted to fantasy that they can’t stand being human? Hardly.
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14 responses to “We can treat people with respect”
Definitely vintage OB. Bottled and cellared.
This question was recently asked in a national poll of college students. The top answer (62%) was “Yes, because animal cruelty is wrong, and they come in peace.”
Ask me when my mother-in-law goes back home.
So let’s be clear, because I’m confused. How many diverse gender identities can I have? Can I have all of them at once, or do they have to be one at a time? Do I have to schedule a time for each one, or can I experience them randomly? What if I’m one gender, dressed, named, and pronouned for that gender, and suddenly another gender comes upon me and it’s time to change? Do I have to carry around all the gear for every diverse gender? Or is it all right if I am dressed, named, and pronouned in a different gender until I get home to change? Would that be literal violence against myself? If so, how many times do I have to commit suicide to be really dead (or special, which ever one I am being)?
You can divest yourself from all gender, or you can have diverse genders, so perhaps you can list them all from divest to diverse in order.
(I’ll see myself out, really, no need to push.)
‘What if I’m one gender, dressed, named, and pronouned for that gender, and suddenly another gender comes upon me and it’s time to change? Do I have to carry around all the gear for every diverse gender? Or is it all right if I am dressed, named, and pronouned in a different gender until I get home to change?’
A while back someone on Spinster posted a Tiktok of a woman describing her experience of this very scenario, and how utterly distressing it is for her. Truly the most pitiable of beings, to have to experience this trauma on a regular basis.
This reminds me of a piece of Simon Blackburn Ophelia discussed once. It was about respect creep, where religious people started by demanding respect in a minimal sense, but later the demand for respect changes into a full sense of respect.
Shouldn’t that be “Carol Hooven/Laura Simone Lewis clash” in the link?
And remember, lesbian sex can lead to pregnancy if one of the lesbians has a penis:
https://twitter.com/JewelEldora/status/1425895135670308866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1425895135670308866%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwhyevolutionistrue.com%2F2021%2F08%2F14%2Fsaturday-hili-dialogue-347%2F
Michael @# 9:
I would say that is stretching it a tad. (Take that any way you like. ;-)
Kristjan @ 8 – argh, yes, brain fart; thank you.
Hooven was interviewed recently on the Blocked & Reported podcast, and she was extraordinarily gracious. She (and the hosts, Herzog and Singal) declined to say Simone Lewis’s name, on the grounds of protecting her from … well, the consequences of her actions, is how I would put it.
Hooven even kept asking — and I think she was being sincere, though I recognize that sometimes this is used as a tactic — whether the hosts thought she did anything wrong in replying to Simone Lewis’s tweet, and confessing that she felt sort of guilty about that.
I thought it was outrageous. Some pompous grad student refers to an actual member of the faculty as a “colleague,” and makes career-threatening accusations against her, and when Hooven responds about as politely as possible, S-L cries about being harassed. I have no patience for this argument that it’s “bullying” for someone to respond to a metaphorical punch in the face — you don’t want to be punched by someone more powerful or popular than you, don’t take a fucking swing at them. You go after someone’s career like that, expect that you’re going to get your share of hard criticism.
Nor do I have any use for arguments about 20-somethings being “just kids.” It’s patronizing and often hypocritical given how often the same 20-somethings are held up as having moral clarity that their elders lack.
Excellent, I need to listen to that.
https://barpodcast.fireside.fm/76
Listened to the first half. It’s a terrific interview, and very funny in places. Second half on the schedule for tomorrow.