First Race, Now Biological Sex Cancelled in Anthropology, By Brian Simpson
In the post-World War II period there was a successful drive by Leftists and communists of the Boas school to have the concept of race cancelled. The debates continued with IQ and sociology, but the Left basically won these on the university, since Leftists had taken over the Western universities and "knowledge" production. Then the agenda was extended to sexuality, first with homosexuality, which was normalised, and then the next horizon, the trans agenda and the deconstruction of biological sex itself.
Thus it is no surprise that, as detailed below, a panel presentation entitled "Let's Talk About Sex, Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology," was cancelled for the joint annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA). The reason was: "the ideas were advanced in such a way as to cause harm to members represented by the Trans and LGBTQI of the anthropological community as well as the community at large."
Hence, anthropology has abandoned the scientific concepts of biological sex, in favour of political ideology. More good reason for shutting down, and defunding the discipline, insofar as it parasites on public moneys.
"Two anthropology organizations co-hosting a conference this fall have removed from the program a panel presentation entitled "Let's Talk About Sex, Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology."
The panel had been slated for the joint annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA), to be held in Toronto in November.
In a letter informing the panelists of the decision, Ramona Pérez and Monica Heller, presidents of the AAA and CASCA, respectively, wrote that the executive boards of the two groups had reviewed the submission "at the request of numerous members" and decided to remove it from the conference program. They wrote:
This decision was based on extensive consultation and was reached in the spirit of respect for our values, the safety and dignity of our members, and the scientific integrity of the program(me). The reason the session deserved further scrutiny was that the ideas were advanced in such a way as to cause harm to members represented by the Trans and LGBTQI of the anthropological community as well as the community at large.
While there were those who disagree with this decision, we would hope they know their voice was heard and was very much a part of the conversation. It is our hope that we continue to work together so that we become stronger and more unified within each of our associations. Going forward, we will undertake a major review of the processes associated with vetting sessions at our annual meetings and will include our leadership in that discussion.
Pérez and Heller did not respond directly to our request for comment, but forwarded our message to an association spokesperson, who sent us a statement titled "No Place For Transphobia in Anthropology." The association writes, in part:
The function of the "gender critical" scholarship advocated in this session, like the function of the "race science" of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, is to advance a "scientific" reason to question the humanity of already marginalized groups of people, in this case, those who exist outside a strict and narrow sex / gender binary.
The AAA/CASCA decision was a "shock," according to an open letter written by Kathleen Lowrey, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta who organized the panel, and her co-panelists. In the letter, they said none of the panelists had heard from AAA or CASCA with any concerns about the panel until the letter notifying them of the decision to cancel the event.
They defended the content of the panel against what they said was the "false accusation" the ideas were harmful. The letter concluded:
Your suggestion that our panel would somehow compromise "…the scientific integrity of the programme" seems to us particularly egregious, as the decision to anathematize our panel looks very much like an anti-science response to a politicized lobbying campaign. Had our panel been allowed to go forward, we can assure you that lively contestation would have been welcomed by the panelists and may even have occurred between us, as our own political commitments are diverse. Instead, your letter expresses the alarming hope that the AAA and CASCA will become "more unified within each of our associations" to avoid future debates. Most disturbingly, following other organizations, such as the Society for American Archaeology, the AAA and CASCA have promised that "Going forward, we will undertake a major review of the processes associated with vetting sessions at our annual meetings and will include our leadership in that discussion." Anthropologists around the world will quite rightly find chilling this declaration of war on dissent and on scholarly controversy. It is a profound betrayal of the AAA's principle of "advancing human understanding and applying this understanding to the world's most pressing problems".
Lowrey's directory page at the University of Alberta states the institution "has reacted punitively to my outspoken criticisms of trans activism and gender ideology." In 2020, Lowrey was removed from an administrative role as associate chair of undergraduate programs for the department of anthropology, which she attributed to her views.
Lowrey told us that several of the panelists had "spent quite a lot of money on travel arrangements, as the panel was accepted in July, and we were all stunned to receive the letter "removing" us on Monday."
She said she was not aware of another instance when AAA or CASCA had removed a panel from the meeting.
Lowrey told us the implications of the cancellation were "quite unsettling":
The AAA is the largest professional association of anthropologists in the world, and the joint conference with CASCA (which happens every third year, I believe) is the Big Kahuna of anthropology conferences. I organized the panel in order to bring together two kinds of anthropologists concerned with the replacement of biological sex by "gender": one the one hand, scholars like Elizabeth Weiss and Carole Hooven who have an interest in human evolution (for which sexual reproduction is a relevant process!) and on the other, scholars like Silvia Carrasco, Michele Sirois, and Kathleen Richardson who have an interest in feminist issues (for which sex based oppression is a relevant process!). I have interests in both domains, and thought it would be great to bring together scholars concerned for very different reasons with sex as a category of anthropological analysis in order to see where our concerns overlap and where they diverge.
I truly do not understand why anyone who disagrees with any of this wouldn't simply turn up to the panel and engage us in discussion. That's what conferences are for. I would be sincerely interested to hear AAA and CASCA representatives elaborate on why they think talking about biological sex is threatening and harmful to trans identified people or to what they term the "LGBTQI" community.
The panel description contained this summary:
While it has become increasingly common in anthropology and public life to substitute 'sex' with 'gender', there are multiple domains of research in which biological sex remains irreplaceably relevant to anthropological analysis. Contesting the transition from sex to gender in anthropological scholarship deserves much more critical consideration than it has hitherto received in major diciplinary [sic] fora like AAA / CASCA. This diverse international panel brings together scholars from socio-cultural anthropology, archaeology, and biological anthropology who describe why in their work gender is not helpful and only sex will do. This is particularly the case when the work is concerned with equity and the deep analysis of power, and which has as an aim the achievement of genuine inclusivity. With research foci from hominin evolution to contemporary artificial intelligence, from the anthropology of education to the debates within contemporary feminism about surrogacy, panelists make the case that while not all anthropologists need to talk about sex, baby, some absolutely do.
Lowrey added:
The rise in anthropology of multiple schools of thought that cannot withstand any scrutiny, any challenge, or even sustained contentious inquiry, is a growing disaster for the entire discipline. I feel like I'm trying to shout that the bridge is out ahead and no one is listening. It's very frustrating."
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