Hello, world, I'm the dad of a trans kid
Those words would have seemed strangely foreign to me some fifteen years ago. But life has a way of reminding us that this beautiful, maddening, largely unpredictable world still has plenty of surprises in store for us.
To this very point, I could never have anticipated the journey my family would be on when our young son made it painfully clear there was something very wrong with his assigned gender. I would spend the last decade and a half dismantling my old worldview and constructing a new one that actually matched with reality. I also watched as enormous political energy and resources were poured into a campaign to dehumanize that child and falsely portray him and the trans community as a threat to God and country.
This podcast series is based on a soon-to-be-published book of the same title. But it is not just about my trans son, although his existence is the reason I’m speaking. It is about a country that has become increasingly addicted to certainty. Certainty about who counts as a real American. About what a real family looks like. About whose children have the right to exist and whose don’t. About what God wants and what God forbids and which laws should be written to enforce the answers.
To be clear, I am not against faith. What I am against is the political use of certainty — the manufactured kind — as a weapon against people whose very existence threatens the carefully-crafted false narratives of those in power. In the episodes that follow, I will explore the relationship we have with uncertainty, both as individuals and collectively as a society.
Curiosity, I’m going to argue, is the most underrated civic skill of the twenty-first century, and critical thinking is not just a nice-to-have skill. It is the discipline that keeps a self-governing people from being misled by those in power.
The cure is what I’m calling Scientific Rebellion. A movement not limited to scientists or scholars. A movement led and sustained by anyone who refuses to outsource their judgment to people who have not earned it. A movement to confront the manufactured certainty currently being weaponized against transgender kids, teachers of honest history, climate experts, and doctors who follow the evidence. And I'd like you to join it.
Are you ready?
This is Peter Tchoryk. Welcome, to the rebellion.
Hello, world, I'm the dad of a trans kid
Episode 2: The Case for Scientific Rebellion
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Four Words to Start a Rebellion is a multi-episode series available on the Scientific Rebel podcast and on the Scientific Rebel.com website.
Episode 2, The Case for Scientific Rebellion. This episode explores the alarming emergence of Christian Nationalism and the effects on scientific inquiry and critical thinking.
The next episode is "Driven by Fear." We hope you join us.
This is Peter Tchoryk.
Welcome, to the rebellion!
