The benefit of having plenty of trans people is that high-ranking members of the [progressive stack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_stack) can be trotted out as a shield to prove that we're not counterrevolutionary right-wing Bad Guys. Thus, [Jacob Falkovich noted](https://twitter.com/yashkaf/status/1275524303430262790) (on 23 June 2020, just after _Slate Star Codex_ went down), "The two demographics most over-represented in the SlateStarCodex readership according to the surveys are transgender people and Ph.D. holders", and Scott Aaronson [noted (in commentary on the February 2021 _Times_ article) that](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5310) "the rationalist community's legendary openness to alternative gender identities and sexualities" should have "complicated the picture" of our portrayal as anti-feminist.
The benefit of having plenty of trans people is that high-ranking members of the [progressive stack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_stack) can be trotted out as a shield to prove that we're not counterrevolutionary right-wing Bad Guys. Thus, [Jacob Falkovich noted](https://twitter.com/yashkaf/status/1275524303430262790) (on 23 June 2020, just after _Slate Star Codex_ went down), "The two demographics most over-represented in the SlateStarCodex readership according to the surveys are transgender people and Ph.D. holders", and Scott Aaronson [noted (in commentary on the February 2021 _Times_ article) that](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5310) "the rationalist community's legendary openness to alternative gender identities and sexualities" should have "complicated the picture" of our portrayal as anti-feminist.