🧵“Philosopher [MIT prof Alex Byrne] Wraps Cooperation with Trump in Flag of Academic Freedom.”
That's the headline of UNC philosophy professor Justin Weinberg's June 26 post on his philosophy news site, Daily Nous (@DailyNousEditor). I'm posting comments here since Weinberg has chosen to not to open them on this particular post.

What's Byrne's sin? He served as one of nine co-authors on the recently released HHS report “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices.” (Available on the HHS website.)
Weinberg clearly disagrees with Byrne (who, for the record, did not vote for Trump) about whether serving as a co-author of the report was the right thing to do.
I happen to have intimate knowledge of Byrne’s motives—I'll refer to him as “Alex” from here on—because I’m married to him. We talked extensively about his decision, and I came to fully understand and respect the choice he made, even if I might have made a different one.
Alex believed that his participation would help to ensure that the report was of the highest possible quality, and that it would be a useful resource for parents in particular who are looking for clear information about the costs and benefits of medical treatment of their children's gender dysphoria.
Overall Alex believes that medical practices (especially those involving children) should be based on strong evidence, produced and discussed in an open environment free of harassment and threats of reputational damage.
Especially after working on the report, he is convinced that the evidence supporting medicalization of gender dysphoric kids (AKA "gender affirming care") is weak.
After Alex’s name was leaked as a co-author, Weinberg wrote (in his May 6 post) that it would be “appalling” for a philosopher to participate in such a project. Doing would mean that the philosopher had “decided to help Trump” with his “selfish and authoritarian ambitions,” “cruelty” regarding “immigrants, government employees, the disabled, and the domestic and global poor,” and “transgender women and men.” So perhaps authors should have been limited to extreme right wingers?
After Alex confirmed his participation in a June 26 OpEd in @WaPo OpEd,
wapo.st/44oV5Pg Weinberg responded with his thoughts in a post that same day.
dailynous.com/2025/06/26/phi…

Cordelia Fine and I disagree about the degree to which differences in sexual selection and testosterone contribute to behavioral sex differences humans. In this "spirited" exchange (link in comments), we probe the source of our divergent views. It's been a few years in the making, and I wasn't sure it would see the light of day. Thanks to Aeon (especially Sally Davies) and Cordelia for sticking with it! Cordelia pulled a quote from my recent @TEDTalks, writing: "Carole has denied that she thinks that testosterone ‘makes men what they are’. Yet in her recent TED talk, she stated that prenatal testosterone ‘made my son who he is today’." So I wanted to provide the full talk for context (I say this in the last few minutes, and yes, I was tearing up). ted.com/talks/carole_k…

🧵World Athletics (the international governing body for track & field competitions & world records) will now require genetic testing to verify female sex. The Guardian says doing this will also "bar athletes with a difference of sex development (DSD) – who are reported female at birth but undergo the physiological benefits of male puberty – from the female category."
This is a misleading comment, and it's brought to you by the erosion of clear & shared language. Unfortunately there's been full buy-in from progressive outlets like the Guardian. theguardian.com/sport/2025/mar… "Assigned female at birth," is often taken to mean, simply, "female." "Reported female" is better, but the casual reader likely doesn't make distinctions between "reported" and "assigned." But either way, are these DSD athletes male or female? Unclear in the article, but not in reality. That's because there's no mention of the fact that the athletes with DSDs who will be barred from the female category are male, with XY chromosomes and testosterone-producing testes. If they experience the "benefits of male puberty," testosterone is having a profound, positive impact on their athletic ability.
The Guardian article can easily give the impression that these athletes are females who happen to have high testosterone, and are being discriminated against for their natural variation. That's not true.
Here's more info (from a previous tweet) on that particular DSD and the relevance for sports: x.com/hoovlet/status…

🧵The Archives of Sexual Behavior recently published a special section on the difficulties scholars are facing in teaching, clinical practice & research in the area of sex & gender. Open access links to the 4 articles (including mine) are below. 1/ I described some of the trouble I’ve had at Harvard in response to speaking about the binary nature of sex, & I make some recommendations about how universities might better handle these kinds of situations in the future. We are telling our stories because #academicfreedom, 2/

"the idea of maternal instinct as something innate, automatic and distinctly female is a myth, one that has stuck despite the best efforts of feminists to debunk it from the moment it entered public discourse." nytimes.com/2022/08/26/opi… The reason that the idea of a "maternal instinct" has stuck is that it is true. The whole point of instincts is that they are "innate," meaning, the capacity is present from birth—natural or inborn. Ready to go given the "right" developmental stage, individual circumstances,

Long 🧵
In his article entitled “Biological Science Rejects the Sex Binary, and That’s Good for Humanity,” Princeton anthropologist Agustin Fuentes informs us that “Science points to a more accurate and hopeful way to understand the biology of sex…
sapiens.org/biology/biolog… that is more conducive to respect and flourishing.” What is this new take on the biology of sex that should replace the “sex binary,” and how will it promote respect and flourishing? Neither question is clearly answered in his essay. What is clear is that Fuentes thinks