1600 scientists sign letter condemning Trump's transphobic policy

Over 1600 scientists have signed a declaration against the Trump-administrations attempts at erasing transgender and intersex people.

The scientists, who include nine Nobel Prize winners, said that the leaked Department of Health and Human Services memo, revealed by The New York Times on October 21, was “fundamentally inconsistent not only with science, but also with ethical practices, human rights, and basic dignity.”

They write:

Millions of Americans identify as transgender or gender non-conforming, or have intersex bodies, and are at increased risk of physical and mental health disorders resulting from discrimination, fear for personal safety, and family and societal rejection. 

Multiple standards of health care for transgender and intersex people emphasize that recognizing an individual’s self-identified gender, not their external genitalia or chromosomes, is the best practice for providing evidence-based, effective, and lifesaving care.

Our best available evidence shows that affirmation of gender identity is paramount to the survival, health, and livelihood of transgender and intersex people.

Given its scientific and ethical failings, we call upon the administration to withdraw this proposed policy. 

Among the scientists signing the letter we find biologists, geneticists, psychologists, anthropologists, physicians, neuroscientists, social scientists, biochemists, mental health service providers, and more.

Read the full statement here.

The Trump Administration's Proposed "Redefinition" of Gender Is Scientifically Absurd

Scientific American is one of the most well known science publications in the world. When they include a post saying that the Trump administration’s  definition of gender is absurd, you know that it has nothing to do with science.

Kristina Olson and Sheri Berenbaum write:

According to a recent report in the New York Times, the Department of Health and Human Services is “considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth.” 

While the department’s memo purports to be “grounded in science,” the arguments and conclusions are not. Specifically, the memo argues that sex should be determined by—at different points in the purported memo—birth certificates, genitals and genetics. 

The problem with this argument is that none of these markers of sex is “definitive proof of a person’s sex” and in fact, nothing is. In reality, the course of becoming a “male” or “female” involves several steps, regulated by many genes and hormones.

Much of the time these processes all go in the same direction. But some of the time, they don’t. Seeing how that happens makes clear that the proposal, to define all people as male or female at birth, is scientifically dubious.

They give several examples of variations in sex and gender and transgender conditions, and conclude:

Whatever criterion we use—genitalia, chromosomes, hormone levels and even birth certificates—can produce conflicting categorizations with the other criteria. We are not policy makers, but we can say that any policy that divides the world into two sexes—male versus female—will not be “grounded in science.”

By the way, there is one American publication that has an even higher reputation than The Scientific American, and that is Nature. 

Their latest editorial is equally clear:

The proposal — on which HHS officials have refused to comment — is a terrible idea that should be killed off. It has no foundation in science and would undo decades of progress on understanding sex — a classification based on internal and external bodily characteristics — and gender, a social construct related to biological differences but also rooted in culture, societal norms and individual behaviour. Worse, it would undermine efforts to reduce discrimination against transgender people and those who do not fall into the binary categories of male or female.

More here!