Florence Ashley, “Science Has Always Been Ideological, You Just Don’t See It” (2019) 48:6 Archives of Sexual Behavior 1655–1657

In this letter to the editor, I comment on the controversy surrounding the disruption of Kevin Hsu's talk at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality Conference. Responding to J. Michael Bailey and Bruce Rind who accuse critics of being ideologically-motivated, I highlight how the science/ideology dichotomy they present is a false one, and that science always retains a normative, value-infused element. Hsu and Bailey's support of the theory of autogynephilia is not pure science, but equally ideological. In light of science's ideological elements, I tentatively propose the notion of epistemic violence as a means of choosing between competing interpretations in scientific research involving marginalised populations.

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