Richard Dawkins decries gender surgery for kids as 'surgically mutilating children'

"Be nice? Yes, let's be nice. What is NOT nice is hormonally or surgically mutilating children, cheating your way to stealing women's athletic medals, lying your way into women's spaces, debauching language etc." he wrote.

In her post on Monday, Rowling wrote that time and again, she's "seen and heard well-educated people who consider themselves critical thinkers and bold truth-tellers squirm when put on the spot" about transgender ideology.

"'Well, yes, maybe there's something in what you're saying, but it's hateful/provocative/rude not to use the approved language/pretend people can literally change sex/keep drawing attention to medical malpractice or opportunistic sexual predators. Why can't you be nice? Why won't you pretend? We thought you were one of us! Don't you realise we have sophisticated new words and phrases these days that obviate the necessity of thinking any of this through?'" she wrote, mimicking the arguments she hears from those who feel her messaging on the topic is too harsh.

She added, "Either a man can be a woman, or he can't. Either women deserve rights, or they don't. Either there's a provable medical benefit to transitioning children, or there isn't. Either you're on the side of a totalitarian ideology that seeks to impose falsehoods on society through the threat of ostracisation, shaming and violence, or you're not."

"Brave and courageous people, like @jk_rowling, who speak out about the distortion of the definition of woman, will allow the tides to turn," he wrote in a social media post with a clip from the episode.

Aside from publicly praising those who have taken a stance against transgender ideology, Dawkins has also taken action within his own professional circles.

British outlet The Telegraph reported on Dec. 30, 2024, that the Freedom From Religion Foundation pulled the article "Biology is not Bigotry" from its site following backlash from pro-trans individuals. In turn, Dawkins resigned.

In his resignation letter to the foundation, Dawkins called the removal of the piece "an act of unseemly panic" and accused the foundation of having "caved in to hysterical squeals from predictable quarters and retrospectively censored that excellent rebuttal."

Fox News' Alexander Hall and Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.