Gladwell’s Confession on Trans Sports and Intellectual Dishonesty

Over the past 25 years, Canadian sociologist Malcolm Gladwell has become an influential intellectual figure, mainly for his ability to communicate complex ideas in a way that any audience can understand. His influence is wide-ranging: executives, students, journalists, and politicians of all ages follow him, though he has been particularly popular among university students. Because of the way he brings ideas about human behavior and sociology into popular culture, his prescriptive power exceeds that of many other contemporary thinkers who may be more brilliant but are far less accessible to the general public.

Gladwell is the prototype of the postmodern intellectual, capable of conveying both valuable and harmful ideas, yet always under the aura of wisdom that the media and audiences seem to have granted him since The Tipping Point—I’m not sure whether it’s because of the things he says or a combination of his appearance and manner of speaking.

The sociologist has gone viral again in recent weeks—not for a brilliant insight into the keys to success, but for a confession: he admitted to behaving like a complete coward during a 2022 panel at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference when discussing transgender athletes. As he explained earlier this month in a podcast, despite disagreeing with trans inclusion, he felt pressured by the MIT environment to act otherwise, and he now says he feels ashamed of having done so. He currently aligns himself with those who oppose transgender athletes competing in the women’s category.

He also recounted that his turning point—Gladwell’s favorite concept—came when, during the panel, a trans athlete turned to one of the panelists, Ross Tucker, and said, “You have to let us win.” The sociologist recognized the perniciousness of such extreme planning but continued to argue that hormone-treated and artificially modified men should compete with women in major sporting events.

Without wanting to deny the speaker his right to revise his position or feel embarrassed, the most important and revealing thing he said immediately afterward was, “Cultural winds have shifted,” he asserted, “even the advocates are having to shift their feet and make a different claim.” Consistency cannot be denied, even if he is hardly heroic: “The values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are,” he wrote in Outliers in 2008.

These days, I’ve read conservative commentators claim that Gladwell’s regret isn’t enough because it seems to ignore the fact that he was fully aware he was endorsing something wrong, unnatural, and unjust—and didn’t care. Meanwhile, I’ve also read that we shouldn’t criticize or shame him for his apology, as doing so might discourage others from changing their minds. Both approaches are traps: one can deeply despise Gladwell’s cowardice while still celebrating the fact that he has expressed regret.

“I feel I change my mind all the time. And I sort of feel that it’s your responsibility as a person, as a human being—to constantly update your positions on as many things as possible,” he said years ago, “and if you don’t contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you’re not thinking.” And it’s true: changing your mind is important; it is a mark of wisdom. But it’s fair to clarify that the sociologist hasn’t changed his mind about trans people; he has simply acknowledged that he hid his true opinion out of cowardice.

In the podcast, Gladwell also admitted that he believed 95% of the audience at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference disagreed with the panelists’ stance, but no one dared to say so, as if that in itself excused his own silence. A small nuance: none of the attendees was the forum’s presenter, which was titled “Transgender Athletes: A Conversation led by Malcolm Gladwell on Data and Participation Policy.”

The sad part of this story is not Gladwell’s position on the matter. Despite having some thought-provoking ideas that play well on TikTok, the sociologist should never be considered a major reference for a listener with true intellectual aspirations, as most of his sociological theses overemphasize external factors—or even luck—and minimize individual responsibility. That’s the kind of discourse that flatters the masses’ ears but has also brought us to a place where younger generations know everything about their rights but have never even heard of their obligations.

The sad thing, as I was saying, is everything else. The lamentable role of MIT in hosting a conference that attempted to provide scientific, sociological, and intellectual support for the aberration of the supposed inclusion in trans sports, the reality that cancel culture is real, the risk of ostracism is real, and the fear of financial ruin is real as well. I suspect Gladwell would not have participated in his shameful farce at MIT if he had not first seen what happened to J.K. Rowling simply for analyzing the trans issue from a common-sense perspective and pointing out the blow that transgender culture is delivering to so-called classical feminism and to women in general. Needless to say, if anything can be a woman, then nothing is. This is queer theory’s greatest feat: women have disappeared.

Still, the most striking aspect of Gladwell’s strange exercise in regret is his reference to the “winds of change.” It is overwhelmingly intellectually dishonest to suggest as an excuse that in 2022 it was justifiable to lie about such a serious matter because public opinion seemed to be moving in another direction. No one is obliged to be born a hero, which is why it’s sometimes worth recalling what Ronald Reagan thought on the matter: “Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.” I’m afraid Gladwell wasn’t keeping time.

The good news is that cowards are the best at detecting danger, far above average. And if Gladwell—who, at least in 2022, behaved like a coward—has realized that the winds have shifted, we can take satisfaction that the conservative fight for truth and common sense is finally forcing the hand of the once-powerful and untouchable woke culture and the violent cancel culture.