The West is a theocracy. Not a Christian theocracy – or even an Islamic one – but rather a theocracy of warring ideological cults that are struggling against each other as the gods and demi-gods of the Greek pantheon once did.

My bookshelf is padded out with Dawkins’ work. As a student of science and supporter of the romanticised philosophy of secular humanism, I often revisit his older works with fondness.

Though I sit to the centre-right of conservative libertarianism, the bulk of Dawkins’ following shuffle through the increasingly toxic halls of the West’s university campuses. He is an intellectual ‘hero’ – a thinker and a writer whose natural habitat is some grand ancient hall filled with lively debate.

Those rooms are becoming increasingly scarce and ‘debate’ a thing nearing extinction.

The Left have been falling out of love with Dawkins at roughly the same rate as the rise of Woke, which should surprise no one. Dawkins is a man of ‘facts’ while Woke is an ideology constructed on ‘truth’. One is literal, the other is subjective.

By the time the Guardian ran the headline, Is Richard Dawkins destroying his reputation? the free-fall of reality in Western Civilisation had already begun. He is fighting the same species of demon that plagued the mind and work of Charles Darwin, except that Darwin had the advantage of civilisation at the dawn of higher knowledge – a species that was clawing and scratching for answers. Dawkins is trapped in the suffocating thrall of an anti-science, witch-burning mob whose thatch is laid down by international corporations and soaked in the oil of unelected bureaucracies.

It is an interesting time in which some of the ‘grand thinkers’ have been slain by their careless and disturbing politics. Sam Harris is an example of a man who speared himself with the now infamous line: ‘Hunter Biden literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement – I would not have cared.’

Many have lamented that it is a shame we cannot hear what Christopher Hitchens would have to say about our present state of decay. No doubt he would find a way to make us laugh in the face of oblivion before attaching a few safety ropes to those who are yet to fall.

For a man who has said he would ‘like to leave the world a better place’, Dawkins finds himself trying to recognise the world as it is today. He is not alone. A few minutes spent with the youth on TikTok is enough to make anyone seriously re-evaluate the survival prospects of the West. These kids are not ‘like, the smartest generation ever’ (which they should be, given their unprecedented access to information), they are a confused nightmare festering in a hyper-socialised environment where ‘identity’ has become a sort of currency instead of achievement.

Evolution is not perfect, and it has certainly gone down a dead end with identity politics.

The war against Dawkins started in earnest when the American Humanist Association withdrew its Humanist of the Year award a full quarter of a century after it was given.

Dawkins was about to learn that the first step of discrediting the ideological opposition is to remove any accolades or accomplishments they have so that they can be sidelined. It is no different to tearing down a statue or burning a pile of history books.

In this case, the award was revoked over a Tweet that the American Humanist Association claim ‘demeaned marginalised groups’ under the guise of scientific discourse.

This decision is not only a verdict against Dawkins, but a statement that factual scientific discourse is not acceptable if it interferes with the feelings of a protected ideological group. This is the same argument from several centuries ago when astronomers wanted to re-order the solar system in defiance of religious teaching. In that case, religion sensibly adapted to fit the facts, but trans ideology has decided to destroy science and anyone who speaks for it.

This amounts to the Australian Humanist Association making such ridiculous claims that, ‘…over the past several years [Dawkins has] accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalised groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values.’

Dawkins’ comments have been perfectly reasonable.

‘In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.’

Which he followed with:

‘I did not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic “discuss” question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting the issue.’

Previously, Dawkins had written:

‘Is [a] trans woman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no. If by self-identification, yes. I call her “she” out of courtesy.’

Implying that trans people cannot change gender is a scientific fact, not an attempt to marginalise a community. If an ideology makes a false claim and then tries to pressure society into accepting it, they cannot be surprised when scientists and free-thinking citizens loft their eyebrows and say, ‘No, that’s not true.’

We have to stop indulging this idea that false beliefs deserve legal protection when they seek to erode or erase the rights of genuine identities – such as women.

One activist outlet said that they are ‘so very tired’ that Richard Dawkins is still questioning whether trans women are really women. I suspect Dawkins isn’t ‘questioning’ anything. Like every person, he probably knows that trans women are really men. There are some species on this planet capable of changing their biological sex – but humans aren’t one of them. The best we can do is mimic.

Not only are humans stuck with the sex they’re born with, there are only two sexes – it’s a binary system. Even when genetic abnormalities arise – as happens with every part of our body – those who are born still have a genetic sex. There has never been a single true human hermaphrodite (that is, a person with two functioning reproductive systems of opposing gender). Gender is not a spectrum, it is a coin that gets flipped when mum and dad get a little too cosy.

No one is denying the existence of transgender people, as is often and wrongly claimed by various press outlets. What is being said by the scientific community (at least, those who are still interested in fact), is that biological sex cannot be changed.

This matters, because the cry of ‘trans women are women’ leads to the demand of men competing against women in sports or sharing private sex-segregated spaces. If the trans movement is forced to face off against scientific fact and stick with ‘trans women are men who identify socially as women’, then they automatically lose their other arguments.

As every good debater knows, you cannot win an argument when the underlying premise is false – and yet that is what the trans activist movement has forced society to do.

The adults in the room need to sort this conversation out right now, because the next generation has no love or interest in reasoned discussion. How many speakers are hounded out of universities by kids screaming into megaphones or wailing hysterically? Watch the average student rally and notice the utter lack of intellectual discipline amid the swearing, abuse, and threats of physical assault.

Speaking on Piers Mogan’s show, Richard Dawkins confirmed that ‘there are two sexes, and that’s all there is to it’ before commenting on the social media bullies that have been attacking JK Rowling. The most successful female author, and arguably the most successful author of any gender, has been subjected to threats of rape and murder from the ‘love is love’ community along with major Hollywood companies erasing her name from a billion-dollar industry she built from scratch. The people living off her talent don’t even have the decency to say her name.

‘It’s bullying,’ said Dawkins. ‘And we’ve seen the way JK Rowling has been bullied, Kathleen Stock has been bullied. They’ve stood up to it, but it’s very upsetting the way this tiny minority of people has managed to capture the discourse and really talk errant nonsense.’

There are plenty of things I disagree with Dawkins on, politics being one of them, but the difference between Dawkins and the trans activist movement is that you can sit down and have a calm and reasoned discussion with him.

The story of Dawkins is a cautionary tale. He went from the darling of the Left to a rallying point of hate – a totem poll around which the most radical and angry revolutionaries dance.

It doesn’t matter how loved or respected you are – or how much you have contributed during your life. These activist ideologies are ruthless and populated by a generation that cares nothing for respect or achievement.

Like the ‘Great Leap Forward’, we are watching the mass purging of reality.

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