American Anthropology Association defends cavemen transsexuals by canceling science panel, which warns it’s a ‘declaration of war on dissent’

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) announced that it was canceling a panel discussion that covered why biological sex is a necessary category for the academic discipline.

The move comes as one panel participant has warned that the group has gone “off the rails.”

The panel, titled “Let’s Talk about Sex Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology,” was to take place in Toronto in November, during the organization’s North American annual conference.

“This decision was based on extensive consultation and was reached in the spirit of respect for our values, in order to ensure the safety and dignity of all of our members, as well as the scientific integrity of the program,” said AAA in a statement about its controversial decision. 

The association claimed that the wealth of scientific evidence argues for “sex estimation” and not “sex identification.”  

A letter in support of the decision by scientists Agustin Fuentes of Princeton University, Kathryn Clancy of University of Illinois, and Robin Nelson of Arizona State University, published by the association, said the use of “a biological binary for something like sex,” ignores the science.  

“People who are non-binary, trans, or queer, and/or those who occupy sex categories other than ‘male’ or ‘female,’ have existed across all human societies and throughout all of human evolution,” said the letter.  

But Elizabeth Weiss, an anthropology professor at San José State University, warned that behind the cancellation were activist who are guided by emotions rather than by the science, according to Fox News. 

“So just as we are getting better and better at identifying what is male and what is a female and the skeletal record, we are getting more and more attacked for knowing how to do this,” Weiss said in an interview with Fox. “Truth is not necessarily considered an objective goal and the victims’ narrative is more important than facts. Who tells the story is more important than the data, which we obviously know is not true.” 

Speakers, in addition to Weiss, who were scheduled to speak at the panel discussion also protested the decision in a letter to AAA. 

“Your suggestion that our panel would somehow compromise ‘the scientific integrity of the program’ seems to us particularly egregious, as the decision to anathematize our panel looks very much like an anti-science response to a politicized lobbying campaign,” they wrote, according to Fox News. “Anthropologists around the world will quite rightly find chilling this declaration of war on dissent and on scholarly controversy. It is a profound betrayal of the AAA’s principle of ‘advancing human understanding and applying this understanding to the world’s most pressing problems.'” 

Weiss recently spoke out about the movement to deny white anthropologist access to native American archaeological and anthropological museum specimens, in an event titled, “Can We Save Archeology?”  

“Under pressure from native American activists, she has faced harassment, ostracism, and denial of access to museum specimens essential for her research work,” said a description of the talk she gave to National Association of Scholars (NAS) on Sept. 29. “Should native American archaeology be the sole enclave of native Americans?”  

The talk was promoted by NAS on X, formerly Twitter, with one pointed question. 

“Can archaeology be saved from the ravages of identity politics?” asked NAS in the tweet.

For anthropology, the answer, thus far, is “no.”