The End Of Ambivalence
Oxford neuroethicist Brian David Earp has a piece up at Quillette making some good points -- and quoting the good points of another friend of mine, medical bioethicist Alice Dreger:

Alice Dreger, the historian of science, sex researcher, activist, and author of a much-discussed book of last year, has recently called attention to the loss of ambivalence as an acceptable attitude in contemporary politics and beyond. "Once upon a time," she writes, "we were allowed to feel ambivalent about people. We were allowed to say, 'I like what they did here, but that bit over there doesn't thrill me so much.' Those days are gone. Today the rule is that if someone -- a scientist, a writer, a broadcaster, a politician -- does one thing we don't like, they're dead to us."

I'm going to suggest that this development leads to another kind of loss: the loss of our ability to work together, or better, learn from each other, despite intense disagreement over certain issues. Whether it's because our opponent hails from a different political party, or voted differently on a key referendum, or thinks about economics or gun control or immigration or social values -- or whatever -- in a way we struggle to comprehend, our collective habit of shouting at each other with fingers stuffed in our ears has reached a breaking point.

Alice had an article yanked from a publication because somebody complained that she wasn't parroting the party line on transgenderism.

Trans people have gone after her in ugly ways for this.

And by the way, as Earp notes:

Dreger is widely regarded as being a supporter of trans rights, as well as rights for intersex people, for gender non-conformers generally, and for other marginalized groups...

However:

Dreger has written, in her recent book and elsewhere, about a condition called "autogynephilia." If you haven't heard of this condition, you are not alone; but it turns out to be really important. What it refers to is the tendency of certain individuals who were male-assigned at birth to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of themselves as a female.

Some of these individuals later transition into being women, which is why this is relevant.

The problem is, some people, including some members of the trans community, strongly disagree with Dreger's analysis of the scientific evidence on this condition.

Autogynephilia -- getting turned on by the thought or image of oneself as a woman -- doesn't fit with the socio-political goals of the trans movement. So, the idea must be disappeared, and anyone who dares so much as mention it -- like Alice Dreger -- gets met with ugliness and banning.

More from Earp on Dreger:

No one, however, who has charitably read even a small portion of Dreger's scholarship on these issues, could honestly mistake her for an enemy to trans people, an opponent of trans rights, or anything along those lines.

She may not be perfect, but she is on the same team.

To conclude otherwise -- as the editors of Everyday Feminism appear to have done -- is, in my view, to throw out the pro-trans baby with the autogynephilia bathwater ... when it isn't even obvious that the bathwater is dirty.

Feminism, gatekeeping, and freedom of speech

This raises a delicate question: Who gets to decide if you're the "right kind" of feminist (and so potentially qualified to write for a feminist website); similarly, who gets to decide if you're an ally on some issue or really just a bigot in disguise?

And here's the problem. The journal editors "were trying to shield their own readers from exposure to a particular article":

Not because the article itself was likely to upset them, but because it was written by an individual the editors had deemed to be ideologically tainted.

And here's the problem -- one I believe is at root of the silencing that's going on on college campuses across America and other places in the West:

The political theorist Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, herself a controversial figure in this debate, argues that there is "a creeping trend among social justice activists of an identitarian persuasion" towards what she calls ideological totalism.

This is "the attempt to determine not only what policies and actions are acceptable, but what thoughts and beliefs are, too." Anyone who does not sign on to the latest dogma, down to the last detail, no matter how passionately on board they are with the general program, is "seen as not only mistaken and misguided, but dangerous and threatening, and must therefore be silenced."

And here's what I call the Free Speech, Free Thought, Advancing Thinking Through Debate approach:

Even if you disagree with, say, Alice Dreger's stance on autogynephilia, you still might try to see if you -- or your readers -- could learn something from her work on sex education. Similarly, despite her harsh rhetoric and uncompromising beliefs about trans identity, you could try being open to the idea that Germaine Greer -- a pioneering figure in the fight against patriarchy -- might have something important to say about women and power in the 20th century.

Publishing an essay on your website doesn't mean that you endorse every other word the author has ever written. And letting someone speak at your university on subject X doesn't mean that you agree with their views on subject Y.

"I like what they did here," you might say, "but that bit over there doesn't thrill me so much."

I've had some worries about the science in the book I've been working feverishly on, and at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference I just got back from, they had a speaker that a few people groused about.

Well, this disagreement was actually a fantastic thing. I talked to a couple scientists after her talk, about her talk, and learned that the worrisome conflict I thought there was between two areas of science doesn't actually exist.

Without that talk taking place there, these questions would have been too complicated and out of nowhere to bring up.

And in general, I've found that disagreeing with someone's point of view helps me hone my own point of view and come up with better arguments for it.

This is why I am not only open to hearing people I disagree with, I sometimes go out of my way to do it.

Earp explains an approach -- explained by Alice in her post:

"I like what they did here," you might say, "but that bit over there doesn't thrill me so much."

Well, I don't agree with Erwin Chemerinsky about Citizens United, but the guy has argued before the Supreme Court and we are on the same page on civil liberties. I heard him speak at a friend's law firm, and I somehow managed to stay in my seat when he said stuff I disagreed with -- rather than rolling on the floor and foaming at the mouth.

It was a fascinating night and I'm better for having been there.