In 2025, anti-transgender activists in academia and media participated in a conference called Censorship in the Sciences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Anti-trans presenters included J. Michael Bailey, Jerry Coyne, Meghan Daum, Diana Fleischman, Carole Hooven, Lee Jussim, Greg Lukianoff, Wilfred Reilly, Michael Shermer, and Jesse Singal.
Conference proceedings will be published in anti-trans publication The Journal of Controversial Ideas.
Background
The event was held January 10-12, 2025 at USC Dornsife.
Supporters and organizations
Major conference sponsors
- Heterodox Academy (HxA)
- American Academy of Sciences & Letters (AASL)
- The Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) at George Mason University
- University of Austin
- USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future
Donors
- USC Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR)
- Institute for Humane Studies
- Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)
- Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA)
- Benjamin W. Slivka
- Cornell Free Speech Alliance
- MIT Free Speech Alliance
- Joel Peterson
Organizers
Organizing committee
- Anna Krylov (USC)
- Arie Kapteyn (USC, CESR)
- Margaret Crable (USC Dornsife, Communication)
- Michele Warnock (USC, CESR)
- Lee Jussim (Rutgers)
- Ivan Marinovic (Stanford)
Advisory board
- Alexander Arnold (Heterodox Academy)
- Cory Clark (UPenn)
- Barry Honig (Columbia, AASL)
- Luana Maroja (Williams)
- Sean Stevens (FIRE)
- Abigail Thompson (UC Davis, AFA)
- Keith Whittington (Yale, AFA)
Explicitly anti-trans panels
Censorship Around Gender Research and Medicine
- Chair: Sally Satel
- Panelists: Carole Hooven, Diana Blum, Michael Bailey
How ‘Soft’ Censorship In Media And Academia Helped Make The U.S.A. A Youth-Gender-Medicine Outlier
- Speaker: Jesse Singal
- Chair: Cory Clark
Speakers and panelists
- Musa al-Gharbi
- Alex Arnold – Heterodox Academy
- Michael Bailey
- April Bleske-Rechek
- Diana Blum
- Michael Bowen
- Matthew Burgess
- Steven Ceci
- Tom Chang
- Cory Clark
- William Costello
- Jerry Coyne
- Meghan Daum
- Hugh Desmond
- Diana Fleischman
- Greg Forster – American Academy of Sciences and Letters
- Nate Honeycutt
- Barry Honig
- Carole Hooven
- John Ioannidis
- Hrishikesh Joshi
- Lee Jussim
- Azadeh Khatibi
- Steven Koonin
- Stavroula Kousta
- Lawrence Krauss
- Anna Krylov
- John Landrum
- Greg Lukianoff
- Jacob Mackey / Jake Mackey
- Bob Maranto
- Luana Maroja
- John Matsusaka
- Jacob Mchangama
- Marcia McNutt
- J.P. Messina
- Dean Moosavi
- Evan Morris
- Howard Muncy – Academic Freedom Alliance
- Natalya Murakhver
- Carl Neuss – Cornell Free Speech Alliance
- Ivan Oransky
- Jonathan Rauch
- Wilfred Reilly
- Ilya Reviakine
- Jennifer Richmond – Institute for Liberal Values
- Abhishek Saha
- Sally Satel
- Jukka Savolainen
- Julia Schaletzky
- Paul Schmidt
- Michael Shermer
- Jesse Singal
- Wayne Stargardt – MIT Free Speech Alliance
- Sean Stevens
- Misha Teplitskiy
- Abigail Thompson
- John Tomasi
- Scott Turner
- Mike Veber
- Bill Von Hippel
- Elizabeth Weiss
- John Wilson
- Nick Wolfinger
References
Kabbany, Jennifer (January 11, 2025). Censorship in the Sciences conference speakers call on peers to organize, defend free speech. The College Fix https://www.thecollegefix.com/censorship-in-the-sciences-conference-speakers-call-on-peers-to-organize-defend-free-speech/
Krylov, Anna (January 9, 2025). Schedule for Censorship in the Sciences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. (PDF) https://drive.google.com/file/d/19YCeirdwU-izcY86aaNQ_4hm8znTaMML/view [archive]
Kabbany, Jennifer (December 3, 2024). Scholars to host interdisciplinary ‘Censorship in the Sciences’ conference. The College Fix https://www.thecollegefix.com/scholars-to-host-interdisciplinary-censorship-in-the-sciences-conference/
Resources
USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research (dornsife.usc.edu/cesr)
- Censorship in the Sciences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
- dornsife.usc.edu/cesr/censorship-in-the-sciences-interdisciplinary-perspectives