Peter Singer vs. transgender people

Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher and anti-transgender activist. Singer founded the anti-trans publication The Journal of Controversial Ideas.

The central theme in Singer’s work is the reduction of suffering. In the consequentialist position of Singer, ethical actions maximize overall pleasure and reduce overall pain.

Singer is best known for foundational thinking in the animal rights movement. Singer is also known for promoting euthanasia and infancticide for humans with traits that might cause suffering. Singer is also a foundational thinker in the “parental rights” and “effective altrusim” movements, both of which have significant anti-trans factions.

Background

Peter Albert David Singer was born on July 6, 1946 in Melbourne, Australia. Singer’s parents left Austria in 1938 after it was annexed by Nazi Germany and had a prosperous import business. Singer attended Preshil and later Scotch College before attending University of Melbourne, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1967 and a master’s degree in 1969. Singer then attended University of Oxford, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1971.

Singer became interested in animal rights after hearing arguments from vegetarian classmate Richard Keshen. Singer’s 1975 book Animal Liberation is the foundational text in the animal rights movement and a refutation of “speciesism” that prioritizes humans above all other living things.

Singer taught at University of Melbourne from 1977 to 1999, then joined the faculty at Princeton before retiring in 2023. In 2011, Singer took an appointment at New College of the Humanities (now Northeastern University – London).

Disability and euthanasia

In 2003, disability rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson wrote about confronting Singer regarding Singer’s view that parents should be able to euthanize their disabled children. It was an important challenge to Singer’s views outlined in the 1979 book Practical Ethics.

Journal of Controversial Ideas

In 2012, Francesca Minerva received harsh criticism and threats after publishing an article on the ethics of child euthanasia. Minerva then wrote a 2014 article titled “Why Publishing Pseudonymously Can Protect Academic Freedom.” Singer joined Minerva and Jeff McMahan in developing the project, which they announced in late 2018. Singer incorporated the nonprofit Foundation for Freedom of Thought and Discussion Inc. in 2019. The first issue of The Journal of Controversial Ideas was published on April 23, 2021.

In an interview with Tyler Cowen, Singer explained why JCI gets so many anti-trans submissions:

Cowen: If you look only at submissions and not acceptances, what’s the most common topic you see crossing the desk of the journal?

Singer: At the moment, I would say it’s transgender issues.

Cowen: Because there are so few outlets where you can say your mind, or —

Singer: There’s a lot of hostility about it.

So there are two things about a journal. One is, as I say, that we are prepared to publish controversial ideas that other places are not prepared to publish. The other is, we’re prepared to publish under a pseudonym if the authors don’t wish to be identified with the article. Roughly, I’d say about a third of the articles in each issue, authors prefer to publish under a pseudonym.

In the area of transgender studies, that’s because many academics have been severely abused and harassed and their lives made quite difficult if they have published things that were seen as transphobic, although I think that term is used far too broadly. We could simply say they were not accepting the idea that a person’s identification as a gender is necessarily the last word as to what their gender is.

2021 New Yorker profile

Daniel A. Gross interviewed Singer on the launch of The Journal of Controversial Ideas and touched on anti-trans activism:

Gross: An example comes to mind. Someone might argue for a transphobic law that restricts the freedoms of a trans person, and that person can say, when they’re criticized, that their freedom of speech is being curtailed. That’s maybe part of the story. But if their advocacy is harming trans people, I would think that harm should be the center of the conversation.

Singer: In the actual debate, it’s not only harm to trans people—gender-critical feminists argue that women are harmed by not having a space that is only for biological females. If people are not allowed to say that, or are cancelled for saying it, how are you going to get to the truth of the matter? Even the label of “transphobia” is already, I think, prejudicial.

Gross: But I didn’t say anything about not allowing a person to speak—merely vehemently criticizing them. And the response to that vehement criticism is often the objection, “My freedom of speech is being curtailed.” I assume that the actual, lived harm that trans people experience might count more than the harm inflicted to a person whose freedom of speech is restricted.

Singer: Why should you have to assume that? Shouldn’t that be something that people try and produce evidence about? And that’s only half the question, right? What you’ve got to weigh is the restrictions on trans people against the restrictions on biological females.

I wish it weren’t a free-speech debate—I wish it were only a debate about the substance of the claims. But people who try to raise questions from a gender-critical feminist perspective, about the substance of the claims, have difficulty in presenting their views.

References

Weinberg, Justin (April 28, 2021). Peter Singer On His New Yorker Interview. Daily Nous https://dailynous.com/2021/04/28/peter-singer-on-his-new-yorker-interview/

Gross, Daniel A. (April 25, 2021). Peter Singer Is Committed to Controversial Ideas. The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/peter-singer-is-committed-to-controversial-ideas’

Robertson, Amy Farr (August 2, 2014). Peter Singer and the TERFs: We Know You Better Than You Know Yourself. Thought Snax https://thoughtsnax.com/2014/08/02/peter-singer-and-the-terfs-we-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself/

Bartlett, Tom (12 November 2018). Here Comes ‘The Journal of Controversial Ideas.’ Cue the Outcry. The Chronicle of Higher Education https://www.chronicle.com/article/Here-Comes-The-Journal-of/245068

Johnson, Harriet McBryde (February 16, 2003). Unspeakable Conversations. The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/unspeakable-conversations.html

Selected writing by Singer

Singer, Peter (August 20, 2014). Doing the Most Good. Boston Review https://www.bostonreview.net/forum_response/peter-singer-response-against-empathy-peter-singer/

Singer, Peter; Sagan, Agata (April 13, 2012). How Much Should Sex Matter? Project Syndicate https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/how-much-should-sex-matter

Media

Sam Harris (November 27, 2023). 342: Animal Minds & Moral Truths: A Conversation with Peter Singer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3LSdnzvp1I

Tyler Cowen (June 7, 2023). 181: Peter Singer on Utilitarianism, Influence, and Controversial Ideas. Conversations with Tyler https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/peter-singer/

Lex Fridman (Jul 8, 2020). 107: Peter Singer: Suffering in Humans, Animals, and AI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llh-2pqSGrs

TED (May 20, 2013). Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Diuv3XZQXyc

Richard Dawkins Foundation (June 14, 2009). Peter Singer – The Genius of Darwin: The Uncut Interviews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU