As background: I wrote a very long article that Medium would have calculated and labeled as a "42-minute read." Anticipating that its length might turn off readers, I split it into two articles: a 35-minute and a 7-minute read, the latter being somewhat of an appendix or digression specifically to explain Dawkins' reference to Rachel Dolezal. If people already know who Rachel Dolezal is, they don't need the 7-minute article to understand the 35-minute article. I published the two articles simultaneously on April 27. Indeed, the shorter one—this one that you read and responded to—is more popular on Medium. Unfortunately, it tends to receive comments along the lines of "where is the rest of your thought process?" This happens even though the 35-minute article is prominently linked at the bottom of the 7-minute article.
So, when you tell me that I "haven't gone nearly far enough" and that I "need to do much better in elaborating and interrogating [my] arguments," I want to let you know that I have already written that other, longer article on the same topic, in case you did not see it. Also, I have published three nonfiction books, each of which addresses gender and race (Ten Past Noon, Painting Dragons, and Bad Fire). So, if by going farther and doing better, you mean that I should try writing something book-length, then, yes, I have done that three times. If anyone wants to know what is in those books, they may buy and read them.
I also write longer articles, which you are welcome to read here on Medium:
- my "40-minute read" on the anti-transgender discourse of Abigail Shrier
https://tuckerlieberman.medium.com/trans-kids-undermined-irreversible-damage-regnery-6b425e6c3fe7
- my "44-minute read" on the anti-transgender discourse of Andrew Sullivan
https://tuckerlieberman.medium.com/listen-to-trans-people-d33861f54552
I am hearing that you think I am suffering from "misconceptions," "laughable wiggle language," and a lack of "actual thought" as well as depth and honesty in my inquiry. I'm in my 40s, so I'm not a "millennial," nor do I have anything to prove to anyone about my intelligence. I would, however, like people to have access to articles whose arguments I worked hard to make. Here are the articles. I am showing them to you. If I had written them shorter, people would tell me that I must not have been capable of writing them longer. So I wrote them at their full length, and people don't read them and still tell me I'm not capable of writing them. They exist. All I can do is send the links. If you read them, I can answer specific questions about them. If you choose not to spend an hour reading them, neither do I have an hour to explain them to you.
Dawkins' tweeted question last spring was not a real question. It was an intentional, hostile distraction to distress transgender people and waste their time, as I argued in detail on the 35-minute article. If you need that link, it is here.
https://aninjusticemag.com/bad-faith-tweets-about-gender-identity-and-race-b38dcfe1a2e7
Part of what I was trying to communicate in the shorter article specifically about the "Rachel Dolezal theme" (i.e. this article that you commented on) is that I do not have to take the bait and respond to every antagonistic comment someone makes. If I do choose to respond in some way, at least I do not have to engage in the argument on their terms, especially if they've designed the discourse as a bad-faith booby trap, or if they haven't bothered to research their own question using books and articles that already exist. If someone like Dawkins (or, really, anyone) is sincere about wanting to learn something, they can go research their own question rather than tweeting it out in a way that bullies and encourages more bullying of marginalized people. Probably someone else has already explained the thing. The "curious" person can try harder to figure it out before they try to stoke a public "debate." If they claim to be asking a totally new question or to be reinventing a discourse, yet they don't bother to read what's already been written on the topic, their inquiry isn't serious, they're very likely hostile, and I don't have to fall into that pit of distraction by making, for example, a long list of ways in which gender is or isn't exactly like race. If someone asks me a question I find obnoxious, nonsensical, or invalid (for reasons), I am not required to spend 10 minutes, 10 hours, or the next 10 years of my life engaging their nonsense question on its own terms. Especially if their aim is to waste my time.
