I agree that Sam Harris' outright dismissal of removing gender from birth certificates seems silly, and I also don't think his "both sides" framing landed quite right.

But I also think that it's almost impossible to respond in a very useful way to someone who begins each question with an inaccurate assumption. And the failure of this conversation therefore lies much more in the hands of Ina than in Sam.

I don't think we should be "mad" at Ina for her shortcomings in this conversation, because of course she is the one facing the real world threats to her safety and personhood. But responsibility must be assigned to the person who has the power to influence something. And Ina has the power to change her part of the conversation, whereas Sam has to try to manipulate her into having a good conversation. And so the power of changing this conversation for the better ultimately lies more with Ina.

What we need is someone like TaraElla to have a public conversation with someone like Sam Harris. Then maybe we could actually get somewhere.