On Wednesday, Nature, one of the most widely read scientific journals, published a report titled “How climate change could drive an increase in gender-based violence.” It summarizes a recent review paper in Lancet Planetary Health that found extreme weather events, including storms, floods, and heat waves, were associated with an increase in violence against women and “sexual and gender minorities.”
What do “sexual and gender minorities,” such as transgender, so-called “queer,” and asexual people, have to do with violence and abuse experienced by women and girls?
Absolutely nothing. The paper, however, offers the following rationale — “due to … binary sex and gender systems and hetero-cis-normative societies, these groups tend to be at high risk of [gender-based violence].” Anyone operating in the real world knows that women and girls experience a unique set of vulnerabilities in the aftermath of a natural disaster. In many cases, policies rectifying gender-based violence are diametrically opposed to those rectifying sex-based violence. “Sex” refers to anyone born female. “Gender,” in this context, refers to anyone who identifies as a woman.
Activists have so thoroughly enmeshed themselves in academia that they have managed to brainwash and intimidate researchers who purportedly care about women’s well-being into embracing an agenda that undermines it. For example, proposed solutions, such as “shelters and relief services (including toilets and bath areas) designed to be exclusively accessed by women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities,” don’t acknowledge the risk of sexual predation in gender self-identified spaces. The review also excluded studies pertaining to violence against “cisgender heterosexual men and boys.” If the analysis included unrelated minority groups in examining women’s safety, why not expand the purview to understand the effects of violence on everyone?
Natural disasters can lead to truly horrific outcomes, including intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and the forced marriage of girls due to poverty and the desire to preserve a family’s reputation after a daughter is victimized. These concerns shouldn’t be used to shoehorn concerns about the environment or marginalized groups; these are research questions that should be pursued independently. The politicization of research, and unwillingness to acknowledge this bias, will tarnish the public’s trust in science and policy for decades to come.
Dr. Debra Soh is a sex neuroscientist, the host of The Dr. Debra Soh Podcast, and the author of The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths About Sex and Identity in Our Society.
