Geoffrey W. Sutton PhD, Psychology and Culture

  At first, it seems like a no-brainer—a young male wants to compete as an athlete so he declares himself to be a girl and joins a girls’ team where his maleness will give him/her an advantage. It’s like cheating. Everyone knows boys and girls are not created equal right? Let’s have a look at some data. The reason we have different sports teams for boys and girls is based on evidence that there is a performance gap, which some report as 10% or higher in favour of boys ( Hilton & Lundberg, 2020 ). It depends on the sport. Is there any scientific evidence that can help calm the strong anti-trans girl rhetoric? Well, there is some evidence worth considering by those who believe in the value of scientific evidence. Unfortunately, beliefs, ideologies, and strong emotions are barriers to examining the evidence so, I’m not too optimistic that evidence will win the day. Nevertheless, I will consider what we can learn from science in this post. About words Some readers might won...

Tweeden's report of her long felt anger in the face of a revealing photo of sexual harassment by Al Franken makes big news for several reasons. We know sexual harassment knows no political boundaries. It's not just a problem for conservatives who have been under fire. But now there is evidence of a Democrat's sexual assault-- plus a photo and an apology. Leeann Tweeden says she accepted Franken's apology, which adds to the complexity of how to handle sexual harassment in society. Sexual harassment is wrong. No one of a sound mind denies the obvious. Different groups concerned about people who are accused of sexual harassment handle reports differently. This difference raises the issue of what consequences should apply to Franken and others when there is evidence of harassment. Voters will judge when they have an opportunity regardless of what any official administrative group (ethics panels etc.) decides. So, politicians have consequences of a different sort t...

I changed the channel from the struggling Mizzou to CNN whilst waiting for my wife to join me in plans to watch something entertaining on Netflix. The talking heads were reviewing the latest Weinstein sex scandal allegations. Just seeing the pictures of famous women across the screen has an effect. One man with power can influence so many lives. We saw this before when Cosby was in the news. We've seen stories on college campuses and reports of clergy abuse. One attorney is tuned in to the psychological trauma. "I heard (attorney) Gloria Allred say the other day on CNN: 'Sexual harassment harms people,'" said Kendall. "And it's true. It does. Your body remembers the trauma. Your heart remembers the trauma. It changes you and makes you make decisions about life, like, I'm going to go in another direction. You don't know the harm it can do." ( US News ) Beyond the Film Industry The talk about what to do in the film industry is...