This is an ethics council. Things like advocating against the right for certain classes of people to exist in public spaces are relevant to deciding if someone should be a member of an ethics council.
The Heritage Foundation is famous for their attacks on LGBT people, saying that they shouldn't have children and shouldn't have basic human rights. Literally there are tweets from the exact person in question suggesting that trans people don't exist.
> Today
@heritage
will critique gender identity
@UN_CSW
because powerful nations are pressing for the radical redefining of sex. If they can change the definition of women to include men, they can erase efforts to empower women economically, socially, and politically. #CSW63
That tweet does not say anything like "trans people don't exist", or that they should be harmed in any way, or that they aren't human. That tweet expresses a perfectly reasonable sentiment that many others share: that human beings are sexually dimorphic and cannot change sex. This sort of hyperbole on the part of transactivists is very frustrating: anyone who doesn't agree with extremist gender ideology is painted as a "bigot".
This is more important than one AI ethics panel with questionable authority. Google is in a position to censor and influence a huge amount of speech on the internet, and the fact that they were targeted by and arguably caved to a small extremist group is very troubling.
> That tweet does not say anything like "trans people don't exist"
It advocates "critiquing gender identity," which I take to mean asserting that gender identity is either not real or not important. Gender identity is the defining characteristic of trans people, so when someone critiques it as a concept, that implies that they think trans identities are made up, possibly for some insidious purpose, ie. that trans people don't really exist. I've heard people say things like "there's no such thing as a transgender, you're either a man or a woman," and this tweet makes me think that James would agree with them.
> or that they should be harmed in any way
Advocating against legislation to protect marginalized groups harms them directly.
> That tweet expresses a perfectly reasonable sentiment that many others share:
Many people in the world share the sentiment that apostates should receive the death penalty. If you lived in a place or time where this was considered a reasonable sentiment, I hope that you would not let it stop you from doing everything you could to oppose murdering people. We currently live in a society where many people believe that trans people should not accepted. I'm willing to be an "extremist" in order to change that.
> that human beings are sexually dimorphic
This tweet says nothing of the sort, nor would I expect it to, as no one in the history of the world has ever suggested the contrary.
> and cannot change sex
This is a red herring. The public controversy is not over what features of human biology can and cannot be changed, but over how society should treat trans people.
> transactivists
trans activists
> This sort of hyperbole on the part of transactivists is very frustrating: anyone who doesn't agree with extremist gender ideology is painted as a "bigot".
If you call the idea that we ought to respect the identites of trans people "extremist gender ideology," I am very happy to call you a bigot.
>That tweet does not say anything like "trans people don't exist"...
The claim that all trans people are actually just cisgendered people trying to fool everyone does imply that trans people don't exist. It also implies that trans people are inherently deceptive. You are demonizing trans people when you claim this. Trans people are not mean-spirited demons who are trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes and to say that is unethical. Trans people are not "activists" for just being themselves and expecting to be treated with basic human dignity.
Said another way, she works for an organization that supports extremely dubious scientific anti-global warming 'research'. I won't repost the other postings by people up above that were basically saying transgender people don't exist, or shouldn't exit.
When did she do this?