Alex WellersteinVerified account

1/ There’s something VERY suspicious about the social media platforms & their new treatment of Trans issues. I now believe it’s being fashioned cynically as the preferred weapon with which to hunt those who will never give a single inch of scientific ground to political pressure.

2/ This banning of “deadnaming” is preposterous. We need to honor work attributed before transition! How does this differ from our need to discuss scientific papers published under a “maiden name”? Or contributions before a Muslim name is chosen (e.g. Cassius Clay, Cat Stevens).

3/ This makes being a historian impossible. Further treating Trans M/F *exactly* the same as born M/F would be medical malpractice. Etc. So what you’re really doing is saying that biology, history, science and medicine are only allowed to exist at the whim of political activists.

4/ This is like Caligula making his horse a senator. Any competent independent person knows that if they don’t treat the horse as a senator, they will be disappeared. So it’s done to select against strong independent clear headed thinkers by forcing them to identify themselves.

5/ Further almost all of us who fight this issue in the #IDW voluntarily use people’s preferred pronouns outside of politics because kindness & compassion matter. People who despise anti-science activist excesses generally are personally trans compassionate. This is a non issue.

6/ So if this is a non issue, then what is it? It appears to be a deliberate device for smoking out any person w/ high independence & moderate to high intelligence who refuses to knuckle under to authoritarians. The game is revealed: Trans is the shibboleth to smoke out holdouts.

End/ I propose a counter measure. Let me put forward the Galileo Principle: the use of science is an ABSOLUTE defense against bigotry & discrimination by political activists. Science simply trumps activism & ToS. Line in the sand. Full stop. If you agree use #GalileoPrinciple.

Just a note from an actual historian of science: there's an irony in appealing to Galileo here. The popular Galileo is not the actual historical Galileo — the latter is a more complicated figure.