Razib Khan vs. transgender people

Razib Khan is a Bangladeshi-American writer and anti-transgender activist. Khan comes to anti-trans “sex science” via “race science” and is best known for laundering extremist views about race into mainstream media.

Khan hopes to usher in the “second age of eugenics” through genetic screening and manipulation to increase “good” traits and eliminate “bad” traits. Many of Khan’s like-minded colleagues consider being trans and gender diverse to be undesirable traits to be eliminated from the gene pool.

Since founding the group blog Gene Expression in 2002, Khan has been published in numerous anti-trans publications, including, Quillette, Substack, New York Times, Unz Review, Taki’s Magazine, and VDARE.

Background

Newamul K. “Razib” Khan was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1977. Khan’s family moved to the US in 1982. Khan lived in upstate New York as a child before the family moved to Oregon.

Khan earned two bachelor’s degrees from University of Oregon in 2000 and 2006. While there, Khan wrote a blog called Razib’s Rants, which later became Gene Expression. Following graduate work at UC Davis, Khan was a software engineer before receiving money from Ron Unz to write about hereditarian and eugenic topics.

In 2010, Khan co-founded the group blog Brown Pundits with Zachary L. Zavidé and Omar Ali. Khan has also promoted an “intellectual brown web.”

In 2015, the New York Times announced they had contracted with Khan to write monthly pieces, but they rescinded the offer following protests.

Podcast

Khan has platformed a number of anti-trans guests, including:

Bryan Caplan
Ross Douthat
Diana Fleischman
Sarah Haider
Jonathan Haidt
Richard Hanania (3 episodes)
Carole Hooven
Iona Italia
Lee Jussim
Eric Kaufmann
Claire Lehmann
Glenn Loury
Megan McArdle
Charles Murray
Steven Pinker (2 episodes)
Tania Reynolds
Matt Ridley
Stuart Ritchie
Kat Rosenfield
Christopher Rufo
Oliver Traldi
Leighton Woodhouse
Colin Wright
Cathy Young

In a 2023 Steven Pinker interview, they discuss “The ghost in the machine, particularly as repurposed today in service of gender ideology.”

References

Khan, Razib (March 16, 2023). Steven Pinker: The Blank Slate 20+ years later. Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning https://www.razibkhan.com/p/steven-pinker-the-blank-slate-20

Khan, Razib (April 2, 2023). Steven Pinker: The Blank Slate 20+ years later. Unsupervised Learning https://unsupervisedlearning.libsyn.com/steven-pinker-the-blank-slate-20-years-later

Cussins, Jessica (June 26, 2014). Quantified and Analyzed, Before the First Breath. Center for Genetics and Society https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical-times/quantified-and-analyzed-first-breath

Khan, Razib (June 18, 2008). Curing the Gay. Unz Review https://www.unz.com/gnxp/curing-the-gay/

Mallot, Jason (June 02, 2006). Happy 4th Birthday GNXP. Gene Expression. https://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/06/happy-4th-birthday-gnxp.php

“Godless Capitalist” (July 11, 2003). GENE EXPRESSION biographical sketches. Gene Expression http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000734.html [archive]