‘Chilling Message’: Professors Criticize Anthropology Associations for Canceling Talk on Sex and Gender

Anthropological collections on display in Pod 4 (designed to house oversized objects) at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Support Center (MSC), located in Suitland, Maryland. Anthropology collections staff present. Panoramic image #7 of 7 at 26mm focal length. The Smithsonian Institution's Museum Support Center, Maryland

A group of professors slammed the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) for canceling a talk on biological sex and gender to “placate those offended by the panelists’ views.”

“We are deeply concerned by the cancellation of a previously approved panel … over vague and subjective concerns that the panelists’ views on biological sex would cause ‘harm,’” said the Sept. 29 letter published by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Last month, the AAA and CASCA canceled a session titled “Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in Anthropology” scheduled for November. The panel focused on the importance of “sex” in the field of anthropology rather than “gender.”

It was set to discuss why “sex identification—whether an individual was male or female—using the skeleton is one of the most fundamental components in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology.”

In a Sept. 28 news release titled “No Place for Transphobia in Anthropology,” AAA claimed that the panel was rejected as it was “framed in ways that do harm to vulnerable members of our community.”

The organization accused panelists of seeking 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 FIRE letter slammed AAA and CASCA, saying that the cancellation sends a “chilling message” to social scientists that debates on issues related to gender and sex “is no longer free.”

The letter pointed out that the organizations’ argument of canceling the panel due to a lack of scientific rigor “rings hollow” given that both groups had earlier approved the panel. It suggested that the cancellation was intended to “placate those offended by the panelists’ views.”

Those who see the panelists’ views as harmful or wrong are free to do so, they said. “But their objections do not justify shutting down discussion.” In contrast, the move underscores “the need for open and robust dialogue that explores the merits of divergent perspective.”

“Canceling the panel represents a retreat from the AAA’s laudable mission of ‘advancing human understanding and applying this understanding to the world’s most pressing problems,’” the letter said.

“That mission requires unwavering dedication to free inquiry and open dialogue. It cannot coexist with inherently subjective standards of ‘harm’, ‘safety’, and ‘dignity’ which are inevitably used to suppress ideas that cause discomfort or conflict with certain political or ideological commitments.”

The letter said that the free exchange of ideas is the sole way “to produce and refine knowledge.” If only one side is allowed to speak, observers will “understandably lose trust in its claims and findings, knowing that dissenting voices have been silenced,” it warned.

Non-Binary Anthropology

On Sept. 29, the AAA further justified its decision to cancel the panel by posting a “letter of support” from three anthropologists who insisted that the human sex and gender categories are “not simple, not binary.”

“Looking beyond humans, we see three forms of the adult orangutan. Does this represent a sex binary? Significant percentages of many reptile species have intersex genitalia. Are we still trying to call sex a binary? The binary limits the kinds of questions we can ask and therefore limits the scope of our science,” they wrote.

In an Oct. 4 post on X, Jerry Coyne, an emeritus professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, criticized the arguments put forward by the three anthropologists.

“3 academics deny that human sex is binary, a denial that is purely ideological. Why is human sex NOT binary but sex in flies, lions, turtles, and sharks IS binary? Because biological truth is mistakenly thought to hurt transsexual and nonbinary folks,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, viewpoint diversity advocacy Heterodox Academy (HxA) announced last week that they will host a virtual version of the panel canceled by AAA and CASCA on Nov. 8. The virtual version will feature the panel talks as originally prepared and will be a two-hour event.

All five female professors who were originally scheduled to appear at the panel will be present in the virtual event.

John Tomasi, the president of Heterodox Academy, said that “de-platforming distinguished scholars for having ‘harmful’ ideas about their own fields of expertise is a political action, not one of an academic society.”

AAA and CASCA’s cancellation comes amid other similar cancellations.

In late September, the American Public Square (APS), which claims to use “civil discourse to bridge the partisan divide,” canceled a talk on “Exploring Gender and Identities” after two representatives for the transgender perspectives on the talk pulled out.

One of the members of the talk was Justice Horn, chair of the Kansas City LGBTQ Commission. In a Sept. 21 X post announcing his exit from the talk, Mr. Horn said that he received a call from a “trans kiddo” who “begged me to not be a part of this panel and to not give anti-Trans people a platform.”

Mr. Horn said he didn’t join the talk as he did not wish to give a “platform to people who are TERFs and traitors to our community.” TERF stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminists.