Atheist Icon Richard Dawkins: Race on a ‘Spectrum’ – But Sex is ‘Pretty Damn Binary’

Author Richard Dawkins (Image Source: Wiki Commons) 

Leftist icon and atheist ecclesiastes thought-leader Richard Dawkins may have rattled the ideological cage of the progressive church week, though narrowly avoiding a wave of outrage which could have sent the woke movement into a terminal talespin. 

For decades, Dawkins has served as the intellectual vanguard for transhumanism, anti-religious, and anti-traditional culture wars, but his recent comment on the touchy subjects of race and gender may have unnerved a few fawning members of his loyal congregation, in much the same vein as JK Rowling and other high-profile pundits falling foul of culture clerics.

In an essay entitled, “Race Is a Spectrum. Sex Is Pretty Damn Binary,” Dawkins appears to have taken a swipe at one of the central tenets of wokism, namely that gender is a fluid social construct and that racial identity should exist on an ‘us and them’ polar axis. On the surface, both of these points could be viewed as undermining the fundamentalist postmodern doctrine of the Left’s new secular religion of identity politics.

One would expect that Dawkins’ comments would illicit immediate calls by the woke sanhedrin and its media arm for him to be ‘canceled,’ but he seems to have escaped the social justice gallows by way of nuance.

Paul Dacca of The Blaze explains…

Invoking Rachel Dolezal — who lived as a black woman and even ran a local NAACP until she was outed as white a few years back — Dawkins argues that because people of different races have been procreating forever, there is a spectrum of skin colors, which legitimately opens the door for many people to identify as whatever race they see fit.

But when it comes to sex, apart from a minute number of anomalies, it’s very much binary. We’re either male or female:

Race is very much a spectrum. Most African-Americans are mixed race, so there really is a spectrum. Somebody who looks white may even call themselves black, may have a very slight [African inheritance]. People who have one great-grandparent who is Native American may call themselves Native American. Sex on the other hand is pretty damn binary. So on the face of it, it would seem easier for someone to identify as whatever race they choose. If you have one black parent and one white parent, you might think you could choose what to identify as.

While Dawkins appears to be no fan of those who wake up one day and decide to be male when they’re clearly female, and vice versa — particularly when their subsequent actions harm others — he does have sympathy for those with gender dysphoria and who go full-on with their transition.

“If I chose to identify as a hippopotamus, you would rightly say I was being ridiculous. The claim is too facetiously at variance with reality. … Not at all ridiculous, however, was James Morris’s choice to identify as a woman and his grueling and costly transition to Jan Morris,” he writes. “Her explanation, in Conundrum, of how she always felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body is eloquent and moving. It rings agonizingly true and earns our deep sympathy. We rightly address her with feminine pronouns, and treat her as a woman in social interactions. We should do the same with others in her situation, honest and decent people who have wrestled all their lives with the distressing condition known as gender dysphoria.”

He adds, “I doubt that Jan Morris would have had much time for a man who simply flings on a frock and announces, ‘I am now a woman.’ For Dr. Morris, it was a ten-year odyssey. Prolonged hormone treatment, drastic surgery, readjustment of social conventions and personal relationships — those who take this plunge earn our deep respect for that very reason.”

Curiously Dawkins says in no uncertain terms that biological sex can be changed. “Changing sex is a big deal,” he writes — yet without accounting for the fact that while a person can go through surgeries and hormone therapy, that person’s DNA can’t change…

Continue this story at The Blaze

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