To address the suggestion that Dawkins was Just Asking Questions I'm reminded of another forum where "Just Asking Questions" was described as "JAQing off"
Certainly he was asking questions, but that was not all he was doing. You may have heard of the Socratic method. This is a means of teaching where you don't tell the student the answer but allow them to come to that conclusion by directing their thoughts though the use of questions.
We don't need to intuit where Dawkins thought the answer lay. Those familiar with his output know that he is skeptical of identity politics. What's more he's been consistent for years.

Note this tweet from four years ago.

[twitter.com]

Son of Sokal?
@PeterBoghossian
brilliant hoax paper [bit.ly] satirising pretentious charlatans of Gender Studies
@GodDoesnt

That recieved 671 retweets, 52 comments and 1.1 K likes

His more recent tweet received 2.8 K retweets. 2.5 K comments and 9.8 K likes

What appears to have changed is not Richard. He's the same person with the same views he had when he received that award. He still benefits from being secure in his position and able to say controversial things without having to worry too much about the consequences. However trans activists seem to be far more prominent and more organised online as has the backlash.

As for my own views.

I think that for many years we've operated in a society where sex is assumed to be binary and indistinguishable from gender. It was under that paradigm that society has put in place accommodations to address the inequities between the sexes/genders. Only recently has the discussion on the difference between sex and gender become more mainstream. I accept there is a difference and have no animus toward the gender non conforming. However I think people have reasonable questions about how these existing accommodations should now be applied.

It is perhaps understandable that those with more direct experience consider many of these to be settled questions and are frustrated that the rest of society needs to catch up. However there is certainly an aggressive vanguard of activists. Some appear to cross the line and support unreasonable arguments branding those who disagree as bigots. Some are may base their arguments in more reasonable terms but, at the risk of being called the tone police, produce more heat than light. There are certainly equally uncivil and aggressive skeptics on the other side who do enjoy the solidarity of bona fide bigots. The greatest offense can be taken not from being on one side or the other but even for not picking a side.

I'd be more than happy to discuss the matter with Richard unfortunately replying to his tweet has instead treated me to a front row view of a rather uncivil exchange between zealots of both sides. It's filled my mentions for the past 11 days.

I believe that there is a reasonable discussion to be had. I'm interested in the discussion though I don't yet have any simple answers. However the reasonable discussion at present appears to be buried under and very emotive and emotional argument that makes it harder for those in the centre to engage. Twitter just brings out the worst in everyone.

I see nothing wrong with Professor Dawkin's statement. Perhaps he fails to meet that group's "purity" standards. Neither do I and it bothers me not a bit.

The AHA, which claims to be a bastion of free thought and diversity of opinion just punished a distinguished scientist and champion of free thought for... his expressed thoughts and opinions.

I like Dawkins and cancel culture is a bitch. Republicans have used it and now sometimes the left. It makes no sense but is a way of saying "you do these things too and it means we are all bad." That idea can go back as far as they want in order to find something. It is ignorant. This is no way to make us all forget and band together and it is no way to make politics acceptable.

Cancel Culture bothers me I don't believe from the article just read that Dawkins is trying to be hurtful. But his comments are still off-base and need to be challenged. That does not follow that he deserves to be "crucified" (Ha!) for it. That loss of subtlety is the problem with cancel culture.

Ezra Klein had an excellent article on this. I hope you can access the link. It is the NY Times.
[nytimes.com]

I don't believe any person to be a leader of agnostic or atheist.

He didn't say anything controversial in my opinion. Being so "woke" where facts are considered offensive is becoming a detriment to society.

Just on the face of that article it does seem as if he is being vilified for asking questions. Such powerful things, questions, people have been vilified, killed etc for asking the wrong ones throughout history. I wonder what it means when a question causes such an intense reaction?

Busily revising history.