Trouble With Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions

This one bumped to the top of my TBR list of books that I don't actually want to read but must as a duty because the author is currently undergoing a cancellation.

But I got angry pretty quickly when I encountered this statement in the introduction:

"Gay rights infringe at best marginally on the rights of others. In 2012 a Christian baker in Colorado refused to design a wedding cake for Charlie and David - that this caused outrage and went to the US Supreme Court shows how far society has come."

First, there is no such thing as "gay rights", there can only be equal rights for everybody. Second, that the Colorado cake artist is still being hounded, a decade later, by various activist organizations is a proof that whatever these show more organizations are doing does, in fact, infringe in a major way on other people's lives and rights, specifically the cake artist's right against compelled speech. So yes, that this case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and this man continues to be hounded by these organizations, does indeed show how far society has come. But the implication in that sentence is that that is an example of how society has come to a better place; I'm quite confident that it is an example of getting to a bad place.

So far, for a professional philosopher, this man is making a poor job of it. show less

Overall, this book is solid, but it has some characteristics that are annoying, and some that are just plain poor thinking. The annoying includes the constant reference to trans individuals by their preferred gender; this becomes confusing trying to sort out who is who, who is trans, who is not, and so forth. It also grates in a book that demonstrates the poverty of the trans gender arguments. There is also way too much acceptance of the male brain/female brain claims, and the differences between the sexes, not just the physiological, which are real, measurable, and quantifiable, but the claimed sociological and psychological differences, which are at best not resting on solid evidence, but on ephemeral research findings that tend to show more disappear when one shines a bright light on them. These differences may be real, or may not. With the data we have, one should not be certain, and boy, is he certain. Perhaps the most annoying, though, is his early on criticism of 'radical' gender critical feminists, when all they are saying is basically the same things he says. This appears to be a requirement these days when publishing anything with the slightest hint of political or sociological; deny you are 'with them', then go on and make your arguments, perhaps misrepresenting 'their' argument to distance yourself from the 'radical' them. Overall, it's a worthwhile book, but there are quite a few cringeworthy moments. show less

Excellent book! Written for a popular audience but without sacrificing clarity and precision. THIS is how philosophers should write. (Not to mention research; Byrne has clearly done his homework.)
If you're looking to understand sex and gender apart from incendiary policy wars, this is the book.