Celebrated atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins stepped down from the board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) on Saturday after the atheist group made clear its allegiance to transgenderism over biological reality.
Dawkins resigned after the foundation censored an article from a fellow scientist who pointed out that sex is, in fact, immutable and biological, and rejected the pseudo-spiritual claim that one can choose their “gender,” The Telegraph reported.
Dawkins accused the organization of caving to the “hysterical squeals” of cancel culture after FFRF pulled the article and called its publishing of it a “mistake.” Dawkins resigned after two other scientists, Jerry Coyne and Steven Pinker, left the organization over the ordeal. The pair accused the foundation of pushing an ideology with the “dogma, blasphemy, and heretics” of a religion, according to the report.
The resignations can be traced back to a piece published to FFRF’s Freethought Now! website and written by Kat Grant called “What is a Woman?” The piece argues against the biological reality of womanhood and instead claims that “a woman is whoever she says she is.”
Coyne wrote an article last week in response to Grant’s article called “Biology is not Bigotry,” which details how the definition of a woman is “based on gamete type,” the report continues. Following backlash to Coyne’s rebuttal, the FFRF pulled his article and apologized for causing “distress” in platforming his view.
“Despite our best efforts to champion reason and equality, mistakes can happen, and this incident is a reminder of the importance of constant reflection and growth,” co-presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote.
“Publishing this post was an error of judgment, and we have decided to remove it as it does not reflect our values and principles. We regret any distress caused by this post and are committed to ensuring it doesn’t happen again,” they added.
After the article was removed, Coyne slammed the organization for promoting a “quasi-religious ideology.”
“That is a censorious behavior I cannot abide,” he wrote in an email, according to the publication. “I was simply promoting a biological rather than a psychological definition of sex, and I do not understand why you would consider that ‘distressing’ and also an attempt to hurt LGBTQIA+ people, which I would never do.”
“The gender ideology which caused you to take down my article is itself quasi-religious,” Coyne said, “having many aspects of religions and cults, including dogma, blasphemy, belief in what is palpably untrue (‘a woman is whoever she says she is’), apostasy, and a tendency to ignore science when it contradicts a preferred ideology.”
Pinker, a US-Canadian psychologist, announced along with his resignation that the FFRF is “no longer a defender of freedom from religion but the imposer of a new religion, complete with dogma, blasphemy, and heretics.”
Dawkins called the organization’s decision to publish Grant’s “silly and unscientific” article as a “minor error in judgment,” but bemoaned the group’s decision to remove Coyne’s rebuttal, calling it “an act of unseemly panic.’
“Moreover, to summarily take it down without even informing the author of your intention was an act of lamentable discourtesy to a member of your own advisory board. A board which I now leave with regret,” Dawkins said.
In a comment, FFRF president Gaylor said she is “grateful” for the time Dawkins and Pinker spent on the board, but said the “difference in opinion probably made such a parting inevitable,” according to the report.
Dawkins has previously spoken out against the proliferation of gender ideology in science, once slamming woke efforts to scrap “binary” terms like “female” in favor of “inclusive” terms like “egg-producing.” He has also lashed out at the woke “bullying” of women such as Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for her feminist critique of the transgender movement in the West. In 2021, the American Humanist Association (AHA) revoked an award it had given Dawkins 25 years before over his critical comments about transgenderism.
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