Some activists come to believe that fictions can better serve the cause—perhaps even conceptualized as a 'greater truth'—than inconvenient facts.

But this approach won't serve these causes well.

When it comes to preventing murders of trans people, understanding what led to their deaths matters. The evidence suggests that that nebulous boogeyman ‘transphobia’ is less of a factor than poverty, male violence, and sex work, which is deadly for women & trans people alike.

So saving the lives of these trans people has less to do with policing women’s speech and erasing sex distinctions in the law and more to do with extending social supports to help trans people escape abusive relationships and exit sex work.

But while this assessment better fits the facts, it doesn't cleave to the narrative.

(Let the witch burnings continue!)

Our liberal truth-seeking processes and institutions are suffering, too. If a narrative cannot accommodate inconvenient facts, it will be tempting to shut (or shout) down research designed to seek the truth and silence the people who speak it.

Activists on the left are playing with fire when they say there’s no way to get closer to any shared set of facts that can serve as a shared basis for political dialogue and action, or when they subordinate truth-seeking processes to a preset agenda.

The way back—it seems to me—is to seek understanding first, and then deliberate and decide what to do.