A Response to Richard Dawkins Transphobic Tweet

**** For Immediate Release ****

April 12, 2021 — Toledo, Ohio:

We are extreme­ly dis­ap­point­ed in the recent trans­pho­bic Tweet by Richard Dawkins who is a well known sci­en­tist and spokesper­son for those of us in the freethought com­mu­ni­ty.

Mr. Dawkins wrong­ly equat­ed a white woman who com­mit­ted fraud by claim­ing to be black with trans­gen­der peo­ple as if they are lying about who they are and should expe­ri­ence back­lash.

Mr. Dawkins also wrong­ly attempt­ed to make his views on trans­gen­der peo­ple as some­thing that can be debat­ed like a ques­tion about cul­ture or fla­vor of ice cream.

Mr. Dawkins demeaned and dehu­man­ized an entire sub­set of peo­ple and this is not the first time he has expressed a con­trary view about whole groups of peo­ple based on noth­ing but his own bias­es.

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie can’t stand by with­out respond­ing. Richard Dawkins does­n’t speak for SHoWLE or any of our mem­bers.

Going for­ward SHoWLE will not pro­mote or sup­port any project or event that involves Mr. Dawkins. We will ask the Center for Inquiry to remove him from their board of direc­tors and spin off the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science housed at CFI. We would like CFI to make a strong state­ment against Dawkins remarks.

Richard Dawkins has ben­e­fit­ed from his fame and sta­tus in our com­mu­ni­ty and the things he says can effect oth­er peo­ple for good and bad. Degrading any humans is total­ly against our Humanist val­ues and we feel Richard Dawkins needs to apol­o­gize and step away from the pub­lic eye com­plete­ly.

For ref­er­ence: Richard Dawkins is Still Denying the Basic Humanity of Trans People

---

About Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie

The mis­sion of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is to pro­vide a sup­port­ive local com­mu­ni­ty for human­ists and oth­er non­the­ists, while pro­mot­ing an eth­i­cal, rea­son­able, and sec­u­lar approach to life through edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, out­reach, activism, and social events.

We envi­sion a Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan where sec­u­lar peo­ple are respect­ed and inte­grat­ed in broad­er soci­ety, live val­ues of rea­son and com­pas­sion, and enjoy a friend­ly human­ist com­mu­ni­ty.

Media Contacts

Douglas Berger — President
567–215-2694

#

Copy of press­re­lease