Mick Hartley

Devastating takedown of the Yale Philosophy Department's self-beclowning over gender ideology. They appear absolutely befuddled with it. (Can't quite believe Tim WIlliamson signed the Amici Curiae – he must have read it very quickly) https://t.co/bwKwuB6jj6

— Kathleen Stock (@Docstockk) July 21, 2025

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Philosophical Malpractice, by Daniel Kodsi and John Maier. A taster:

Has the politics of the trans movement damaged academia? In conversation with academics, it is common to be told that the importance of trans issues has been blown out of proportion. That insouciant analysis is often badly undermined by the fact that the kind of academic who is inclined to provide it will then audibly struggle to give straight answers to basic questions, such as ”Are there any male women?”.

We can attest to the fact that not allowing such academics to hedge and prevaricate in such conversations can be somewhat amusing, as well as an interesting exercise in academic anthropology. Some of the most macho, straight-shooting, take-no-prisoners analytic philosophers out there are easily left tongue-tied if asked to venture an opinion as to whether there are any male women. Biologists who have just spent half an hour explaining their research on sex-differences in plants respond with blank stares.

Among those who can overcome the trauma of having the issue raised, one favored gambit is to act as if it is an unreasonable expectation for academics to know whether or not there are male women. Relatedly, the idea that the academy generally might be held to account in some way for the things that it says – or more likely, fails to say – about the various trans-related controversies that have taken up so much bandwidth in recent political debate is treated as unfair: a political distraction, or perhaps a trap designed to lure sophisticated thinkers onto an unseemly political battlefield. Isn’t it just irrelevant what academics think? is one way that these academics sometimes try to defer answering the question, in the spirit of reticence to which they have spontaneously converted. If that doesn’t work, they might point out how many more important issues there are besides “trans”, as if the sheer number of questions competing for their attention means they simply haven’t got around to deciding whether there are male women yet.