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Comment by NoImmatureAdHom | Hacker News Reader

The first Harvard one that comes to mind is Carole Hooven, an enocrinologist who was pilloried for speaking obvious truths:

https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2024/02/15/carole-hooven-wh...

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I think a clearly ideological actor leaving by choice after being ostracized for representing blatantly false and unscientific ideological claims is good, actually, and that providing this as an example is shifting your goalposts. For context, Carole Hooven is a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing "think-tank," and an associate of notable transphobe Stephen Pinker. The personal costs of her self-created ostracization seem minimal (perhaps negative).

The statements that she made hinge on a supposed "strict sex binary," which relies upon forced ignorance and denial of the existence of intersex people. This is a weaponized claim used to gird the foundations of an ideology which has successfully sought to engage in human rights abuses, initially directed by this administration at denying children social acceptance and access to life-saving medical care as well as directly impugning the moral character of US military service members while attacking their access to life-saving medical care and discharging them from service. Simultaneously, Harvard has come under attack from the administration on a purely ideological and fascist basis. It seems like her critics were right to view her as a threat to science, human dignity, and the institution they mutually-represented.

Sex is binary - for all species that reproduce sexually, including humans - because there is no intermediate gamete between sperm and egg.

What you're referring to with "intersex" is actually a set of disorders of sex development which affect each sex differently. For example, consider 5-alpha reductase deficiency: a mutation in the gene that encodes the enzyme for converting testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, causing loss of enzymatic activity, may be present in anyone of either sex, but will only impair male sexual development.

None of this is controversial amongst biologists. It's fundamental to understanding sexual reproduction.

The dramatic moral harms of this Engineer's-Disease-based reasoning on public policy are already visible and are only expected to dramatically accelerate for the foreseeable future. There's no point in engaging an off-topic and inflammatory line of discourse that attempts to paper over this undeniable reality with smug appeals to authority.

>None of this is controversial among biologists

Nope, but it is among people who can't tolerate different kind of people.

Wanna guess which books the Nazi's burned first? Yep the ones about transgender research from the Institute for Sexual Research. I'm sure they acted in good faith like they usually did.

> None of this is controversial amongst biologists. It's fundamental to understanding sexual reproduction.

True, but nor is it generally controversial amongst the un-indoctronated that sexual reproduction and gender identity are NOT (as claimed a couple of posts above) orthogonal concepts. I don't know about you, but while my biology and mental identity happen to nicely match up, I consider myself to be more than my testicles and can accept that others don't share my cis status.

Hold on—we're being a bit taxonomically lazy here, aren't we? You're applying a species-level classification (based on gametes) too rigidly to individual-level variation. If you look at actual developmental outcomes, there's a non-trivial set of cases that don’t map neatly onto a system of just two categories (which is not a lot of categories). Calling all of those 'disorders' assumes the categories are already correct, rather than testing whether they fit what we actually observe.

Ps. The Overton window is such an interesting concept; Imagine arguing our case before the head Eunuch of the Ottoman Court in the 16th century or so.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

idk if there's much I can do here. Carole is a respected scientist. So is Steven. Carole is a fellow of this institute as a result of having to find new patrons because of her cancellation, not the other way around. Your understanding of the situation re sex and gender is completely incorrect.

>idk if there's much I can do here.

Good? You made a claim and had one point disproven because there's a difference between voluntarily leaving an institution and being kidnapped by the federal government.

No one really asked about your opinions otherwise. We're just establishing 2 very obvious lines in the sand.

You could attempt to provide citation for your initial claims. Carole Hooven does not meet the criteria, providing her is only suggestive of a disingenuous ideological motivation.

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