transphobia: you swine, all of you

[barney]

From the Spectator, another account of scarcely believable identity tripe. If you are a man (or a lesbian) who likes sex with women with the normal female equipment but won't have sex with a trans-woman who has a penis, then you are a bigot who is causing mental harm to men who identify as women but still have their penises. Well, now you know what you have to do - it's your moral duty.

Article:

Some women have penises. If you won’t sleep with them you’re transphobicJames Kirkup

2 July 2019

I’m bored with writing about politicians and Brexit so this is an article about genitals instead.

Feel free to make your own jokes about the sentence above, but I promise what follows is not funny. You could not, as the old phrase goes, make it up.

Most of us, I think, like to see ourselves as tolerant and open-minded. Live and let live is the prevailing social attitude of our times. For all the division and acrimony in political debate and online, British society is, by international and historical standards, strikingly liberal and tolerant.

This is a good thing. People should not face abuse or exclusion or hostility because of who or what they are; we all should be judged on what we do.

The eternal question of tolerance is how far it extends. We are all familiar with the old debates about whether toleration requires accepting acts of intolerance that you find distasteful, but that’s not what this article is about. It’s about whether toleration requires accepting genitals that you don’t fancy.

And yes, this relates to transgender people and the notion of transphobia.

A lot of institutions, companies and organisations are terrified of being seen to be transphobic. Even the allegation, however baseless, that someone discriminates against others on the grounds of their gender can cause enormous harm to a reputation.

So keen are public bodies to avoid this fate that they overstep the relevant laws. The Equality Act 2010 says you can’t discriminate against someone because of either their sex (whether they are anatomically male or female) or their ‘gender reassignment’ (such as when a person born male decides to ‘live as a woman’). But quite a lot of councils and other public bodies routinely ignore physical sex and base their work solely on questions of the social concept of ‘gender’.

That’s a problem, and not just because it ignores the law. It’s a problem because it overlooks the physical differences between people born male and people born female. Those differences exist and they matter, for reasons that I hope don’t need setting out here.

After all, most people instinctively understand those differences, because those physical differences are not just a foundation of how societies have organised themselves, they are the basis of sexuality and sexual attraction.

This is, again, something I hope I don’t have to spell out too clearly, but I think most people would accept that when it comes to sexual attraction and activity, anatomy matters: heterosexual people are sexually attracted to people who have different bodies and genitals to their own; homosexual people to those with the same.

But in the looking-glass world of transgender rights, the proposition I’ve just set out is contested and even controversial. For some people, reducing sexuality to a simple question of ‘genital preference’ is reductive, exclusionary and yes, transphobic.

How so? Well, consider the trans-rights mantra that ‘transwomen are women’. It means that someone who feels themselves to be a woman, who says they are a woman, is a woman, full stop. That person’s biology is irrelevant, because the idea of gender trumps the fact of sex. It’s not necessary or even common for transwomen to have sexual reassignment surgery. Some women have penises: get over it.

That raises many questions, including about sexual attraction. If you’re a heterosexual woman attracted to men with male bodies and genitals, would you consider sex with a person who did not have such a body or such genitals? If you’re a man who is sexually excited by women with breasts and vaginas, would you be aroused by someone who had neither?

These aren’t quite the questions asked in a recent study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, but that’s what it boils down to. In the study, people were asked to imagine they were ‘single and looking’ and then to say which of the following they would consider as a ‘potential dating partner’: a cisgender woman; a cisgender man; a transgender woman; a transgender man; or a person with a non-binary gender identification. (‘cis’ means ‘not trans’. The simple fact that the study used the term is telling, since not everyone accepts the term.)

You might not be completely flabbergasted to learn that 87.5 per cent of the respondents said they would only consider ‘cis’ people as potential sexual partners.

And if that was all the study and its authors had to say, I wouldn’t be writing about it: ‘dog bites man’ isn’t a story.

But one of the authors of that study wasn’t willing to confine herself to accurately and fairly reporting the results of that study.

That author is Karen Blair. To give her full bio, she is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia; an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and Chair of the Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity Issues (SOGII) Section of the Canadian Psychological Association.

In a blog, Blair has been pondering her findings and what they tell us about how tolerant we are. She doesn’t seem happy that most people wouldn’t consider dating a trans person, or, as she puts it, would ‘exclude’ them from their pool of potential romantic partners.

Refusing to consider dating trans people, Blair suggests, contributes to trans people suffering mental and physical harm:

‘What then, does this mean for trans people’s overall well-being if the majority of people within society won’t even consider them as potential dating partners under hypothetical conditions? A lack of social support could contribute to some of the existing discrepancies in mental and physical well-being within trans communities.’

Why might people be reluctant to consider dating trans people? Blair doesn’t know, because her study didn’t ask them. But that doesn’t stop her speculating. It’s because of prejudice and ignorance, she says:

‘…exclusion was likely the result of factors ranging from explicit transprejudice, such as viewing trans persons as unfit, mentally ill, or subhuman, to a lack of understanding or knowledge about what it means to be a transgender man or woman.’

And what does Blair suggest we all do about this? The — delicately implied — answer might not surprise you:

‘Ultimately, each individual has the freedom to decide whom they date or are interested in dating, and thus the article does not suggest that any single individual must include trans people within their dating pool. However, the article does suggest that examining and following the overall societal patterns of including or excluding trans people within the intimate realm of dating can be used as an indicator of overall acceptance and social inclusion of trans people.

In other words, it is one thing to make space for trans people within our workplaces, schools, washrooms, and public spaces, but it is another to see them included within our families and most intimate of spaces, our romantic relationships. We won’t be able to say, as a society, that we are accepting of trans citizens until they are also included within our prospective dating pools; at the very least, on a hypothetical basis.’

Got that? Toleration doesn’t just mean treating transgender people fairly and equally, ensuring they have the same rights, freedoms and entitlements as anyone else. It means being willing to have sex with people, not on the basis of the body and genitals they have, but because of the gender they say they are.

It means that straight men who exclusively seek sexual partners with vaginas should instead expand their ‘prospective dating pool’ to include people who describe themselves as women and just happen to have penises. It means that lesbians who incline towards sex with people who have vaginas, also need to widen their horizons and be open to sex with women who have penises.

And if you’re not prepared to have sex with a transgender person, you’re contributing to a transphobic social climate that causes real mental and physical harm to trans people. If you want to be really progressive and inclusive, you know what to do.

Here, a thought experiment is in order. Try to imagine this line of argument being pursued in a different context, away from the transgender debate.

Imagine someone making a serious and sustained argument of the following sort:

‘Here is a group of people. You say you aren’t willing to consider having sex with them. That means you are causing those people real harm and you are a bad person. You should put aside your reservations and reconsider having sex with them.’

What would we think about that argument? What words would we use to describe these notions and the people who promote them? I leave it to others to answer that question.

Here’s another question. So what? Is one short, silly blog by a non-famous junior academic worthy of attention? I think so. Blair’s blog was published by Cambridge University Press, an offshoot of one of the world’s great universities. Blair has made similar points in Psychology Today too.

Like it or not, that matters. It lends weight, legitimacy. If it’s OK to say this stuff at Cambridge University Press or in Psychology Today, it’s OK to say it in other places too. This is how the window of what is acceptable to discuss moves. This is normalisation.

I recently spoke to a lesbian friend who is active in the Labour party who said that she routinely comes under social, and sometimes quite explicit, pressure from ‘progressive’ friends to sleep with transwomen. ‘I’m sick of being told I should like penis. I don’t like penis. That’s why I’m a lesbian. That’s the whole point,’ she said.

Since I started writing about sex and gender last year, I’ve had a lot of conversations with women – and a few men – who say they worry that some of the people promoting transgenderism are advocates of ‘queer theory’, and are engaged in a quite deliberate attempt to break down societal norms and barriers in order to make it a lot easier for people with penises to put those penises into a much greater range of people than is currently permitted.

I generally view that worry with a fair bit of scepticism; it all sounds a bit far-fetched and even conspiratorial. But then I read things like Karen Blair’s blog, and I wonder.

[Belle]

Thanks for posting this; we used to subscribe to "The Spectator" but stopped as our subscription bills increased as our reading/viewing/listening time decreased!!

Professor Jordan Peterson has been at the pointy end of these 'trans' debates since Canada instantiated laws (C16) FORCING people to use pronouns specified by transgender people. The Professor believes as I do; that it's a slippery slope to authoritarian control once you FORCE people by law to use particular speech; he made the point that it was the first time in western legal history where the law itself compelled what you had to say. The Professor incurred the ire of academe for his stand on this, the world over. Clearly, universities are not the standard-bearers for freedom any longer. Quite the contrary.

None of the articles, essays, op.eds I read about transgender issues surprise me; I would have fully expected that the reach of these kinds of minority demands - and identity politics in general - to descend into farce. Only it isn't so funny. In Australia we are increasingly seeing the workplace dictating the beliefs and habits of Australian people and woe betide if you deviate from the 'orthodoxy' and express your own views. Again, entirely anticipated. When my nephew studied Medicine (he started in 1989) the university monitored his social group, their behaviour and attitudes lest these prove detrimental or threatening to community medical practice. I was appalled when I found this out and I'm even more horrified by the modern tendency to censor, finger-wag, demonize, control and destroy the careers of anybody (watch out if you're in the public eye!) perceived as a threat to vested interest groups. Thought policing is the order of the day. The insatiable moralizers of today's identity politics would make figures like Mary Whitehouse (in Britain during the 50s and 60s) look decidedly libertarian!!

Identity politics is all about upending the social paradigm; replacing the 'establishment' with another kind of group-identifying 'establishment'. Under the aegis of 'social justice'. Its advocates behave just like the aristocrats and lords of the feudal system; no less unforgiving, demanding, dictatorial and ruthless. As my late father observed, "everything is always all about who gets what". If you drill down into that idea you'll see the soundness of it. My father would not have been socially acceptable today; he held his own, singularly individual views and was always respected - if not agreed with.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that if folks feel they cannot succeed under the current system then a new one, favouring them, has to be invented. Welcome to the world of identity politics.

[david johnson]

Many of today's claimed "phobias" are not such.

[John F]

Bill C-16 – No, its Not about Criminalizing Pronoun Misuse
by Brenda Cossman

From the sound of it, Bill C-16 – an Act to Amend the Canadian Human Rights Code and the Criminal Code is all about speech – or rather, its curtailment.

Psychology Professor Jordan Peterson has made headlines the last two weeks, claiming that the Bill before the federal House of Commons is an unprecedented attack on free speech. He has claimed that the new law will criminalize the failure to use an individual’s preferred pronouns. In a rally at the University of Toronto last week, he went so far as to say that the bill is the most serious infringement of freedom of speech ever in Canada.

The thing is – he is wrong.

Bill C-16 does three things.

First – It adds the words “gender identity or expression” to the Canadian Human Rights Code. This will prevent the federal government and businesses within federal jurisdiction – like banks – from discriminating on the basis of gender identity and gender expression.

The federal government is late to this game – most of the provinces and territories already include gender identity and gender expression in their provincial Human Rights Codes.

In 2002 the Northwest Territories were the first government in Canada to explicitly prohibit discrimination against trans people by including gender identity in their Human Rights Code. In 2012, Manitoba added gender identity to their human rights legislation. In that same year, Ontario and Nova Scotia added both gender identity and gender expression to their human rights laws. Prince Edward Island as well as Newfoundland and Labrador followed suit in 2013. In 2014 Saskatchewan made provisions for gender identity, and in 2015 Alberta joined the club, adding both gender identity and expression to their Human Rights Code.

The other five provinces and territories—British Columbia, Québec, New Brunswick, Nunavut Territory, and the Yukon—have implicit protection, having interpreted their Human Rights Codes as including gender variance under existing prohibited grounds.

Bill –C-16 is just the federal government catching up on long overdue human rights protections for individuals within its fairly limited jurisdiction.

Non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression may very well be interpreted by the courts in the future to include the right to be identified by a person’s self identified pronoun. The Ontario Human Rights Commission, for example, in their Policy on Preventing Discrimination Because of Gender Identity and Expression, states that gender harassment should include “Refusing to refer to a person by their self-identified name and proper personal pronoun”. In other words, pronoun misuse may become actionable, through the Human Rights Tribunals and courts. And the remedies? Monetary damages, non-financial remedies (for example, ceasing the discriminatory practice or reinstatement to job) and public interest remedies (for example, changing hiring practices or developing non-discriminatory policies and procedures). Jail time is not one of them.

The second thing that the Bill does is add the words “gender identity or expression” to two sections of the Criminal Code. So surely this must be what Peterson is getting at? Criminalizing something? Well, lets take a closer look.

It will add the words “gender identity and expression” to section 318(4) of the Code, which defines an identifiable group for the purposes of “advocating genocide” and “the public incitement to hatred” It joins colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation or mental or physical disability.

Finally, Bill C-16 also adds “gender identity and expression” to section 718.2(a)(i) of the Criminal Code dealing with sentencing for hate crimes. The provision provides that evidence that an offence is motivated by bias, prejudice or hate can be taken into account by courts in sentencing. The list already includes race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or any other similar factor.

So what does this mean for pronoun misuse? Well, refusing to use a person’s self identified pronoun is not going to be considered advocating genocide – unless the refusal to use the pronouns was accompanied by actually advocating genocide against trans and gender non-binary folks.

Similarly, it’s hard to see the refusal to use the appropriate pronoun – without something else – rising to the threshold of hate speech. Hate speech laws in Canada have only been used - and only can be used – against extreme forms of speech – explicit and extreme forms of homophobic, anti-Semitic or racist speech. Moreover, prosecution needs the approval of the Attorney General.

It is entirely appropriate for gender identity and expression to be added to the list of identifiable groups. Hate speech directed at trans and gender non binary individuals should be treated the same as hate speech on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation. But being treated equally means that the speech will have to be extreme and the Attorney General will have to approve the prosecution. These are not run of the mill prosecutions against professors who refuse proper pronoun usage. Offensive, sure. But criminal? Not unless it was accompanied by some other really nasty speech that promoted hatred towards trans and gender non-binary folks.

To return to the claim that Bill C-16 is the most serious infringement on free speech in Canada? Well, Professor Peterson is simply showing his ignorance about the history of free speech in Canada. There have been many limitations on free speech in Canada – many with which I disagree. Obscenity and indecency laws for example have long limited a broad range of literary, artistic and political expression in Canada – indeed far more so than our hate speech laws.

Personally, I am not a big fan of hate speech laws. I worry that prosecutions under hate speech laws end up bringing more rather than less attention to the offending speech, and more often than not, turn the offensive speaker into a martyr. I would rather see words fought with words. But I also understand the arguments in favour – as the Supreme Court of Canada has said, it “send[s] out a strong message of condemnation….the community as a whole is reminded of the importance of diversity and multiculturalism in Canada, the value of equality and the worth and dignity of each human person being particularly emphasized.”

As long as we have hate speech laws, it is a legal no-brainer that trans and non-gender binary individuals should be afforded the same protection as all other Canadians.

And that’s what Bill C-16 is about. Equality for trans and non-gender binary Canadians. It’s pretty simple. And right. And decent.

http://sds.utoronto.ca/blog/bill-c-16-n ... un-misuse/

[Belle]

I'll never agree that C16 is anything but dangerous deep state penetration of the rights of the people to say and think what they like. We have no mandated words in this country; it is anathema, even while we grapple with out of control PC and identity politics. But to prosecute somebody because they refuse to use mandated pronouns - that's stalinist, to say the least. I'm so surprised that people have bought into the so-called 'good intentions' of this stuff; the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This kind of thought control is a vestige of the kind of authoritarianism that we thought we'd gotten rid of decades ago, but it's back with a vengeance.

And what really gets me going is that it's all based on so called 'equality', predicated on the notion that fellow citizens are so despicable and ungenerous that government has to correct their behaviour. Thanks, but no thanks. It's anything but 'pretty simple'. Dr. Peterson is absolutely right about it. And it's precisely for this reason that vested interests have made it their first order of business to destroy his reputation. He provides that kind of a threat to the new world order. Were he not a threat in the least he would be left alone, as other benign individuals are. People are obsessed about those they fear.

I was with my doctor during the week - a specialist (Gastroenterologist). He is reading Peterson's "Twelve Rules for Life" and he observed to me, "it's not really an easy read because behind it lies solid academic research and a wealth of professional experience; it puts the lie to the notion that Professor Peterson's followers are disgrunted, un-educated, toxic males (because they're all reading it)!!! Can you see the pattern emerging here; people who disagree are not only wrong but bad!!

As you see, I'm passionate about this as I'm an advocate for freedom of speech. Obviously we'll never agree, but I'm thankful that many of my cohort do - including quite a few from the medical profession!!

[John F]

I'm an advocate for freedom of speech

All speech? Including hate speech, libel, conspiracy to commit criminal acts, betrayal of vital military secrets to an enemy nation in time of war? Just for starters. Nowhere in the world is freedom of speech absolute and unconditional, nor should it be.

My concern here isn't about Canadian law, which doesn't affect me (or you either), but about the general principle. Mere civility and good manners, including so-called political correctness, can't be enforced by law and shouldn't be, but unjustified speech that can do actual harm is a different matter.

So is freedom of thought, discussed in a different thread. Only when one makes one's thoughts public by communicating them with others, does any of this apply.

[Belle]

I'm an advocate for freedom of speech

All speech? Including hate speech, libel, conspiracy to commit criminal acts, betrayal of vital military secrets to an enemy nation in time of war? Just for starters. Nowhere in the world is freedom of speech absolute and unconditional, nor should it be.

My concern here isn't about Canadian law, which doesn't affect me (or you either), but about the general principle. Mere civility and good manners, including so-called political correctness, can't be enforced by law and shouldn't be, but unjustified speech that can do actual harm is a different matter.

So is freedom of thought, discussed in a different thread. Only when one makes one's thoughts public by communicating them with others, does any of this apply.

Speech that incites violence, mayhem and/or murder doesn't fall under the 'free speech' banner. It never has. But to clearly express what you believe, whether or not it 'offends', is the key here. One cannot enforce civility and good manners by diktat of any kind. This is a social compact which is developed through respect, parenting and civic modelling from others, otherwise it's a sham.

[barney]

I'm an advocate for freedom of speech

All speech? Including hate speech, libel, conspiracy to commit criminal acts, betrayal of vital military secrets to an enemy nation in time of war? Just for starters. Nowhere in the world is freedom of speech absolute and unconditional, nor should it be.

My concern here isn't about Canadian law, which doesn't affect me (or you either), but about the general principle. Mere civility and good manners, including so-called political correctness, can't be enforced by law and shouldn't be, but unjustified speech that can do actual harm is a different matter.

So is freedom of thought, discussed in a different thread. Only when one makes one's thoughts public by communicating them with others, does any of this apply.

I just don't accept that using him or her for a trans-gender person does them harm.If someone identifies as a woman, I'll call her "she". But I'm not using some totally new term as though, as the queer orthodoxy has it, there are some 50 genders out there. And, like Belle, I resent the use of the law to try to enforce it.
In Australia right now, the country is gripped by the very complex case of Israel Folau, the country's best rugby player, who was sacked by Rugby Australia for posting on his Instagram page a paraphrase of the Bible saying that idolators, fornicators, adulterers, drunkards and gay would go to hell if they did not repent. This, a second offence, was deemed not inclusive of homosexuals. (At least half the national team are Pacific Islanders, mostly devout Christians, who feel excluded by the Folau sacking; they apparently feel being inclusive of them rates low on Rugby Australia's priorities). It doesn't help that the main sponsor of the national team is Qantas, whose CEO is a gay activist. There are many issues here, not least the extent to which corporations or employers can direct the expression of private beliefs (which I think is a real concern).
Many called it hate speech. But atheist philosopher Peter Singer, who entirely disagrees with Folau, said all the devout Christian was doing was warning of a risk, analagous to the warning on cigarette packages that smoking kills. It certainly isn't hate speech; it has the opposite intention, however misguided. I think the law is a very blunt instrument for tackling these kinds of problems.

[barney]

Further to the above, it is very sad that the issue has been taken up by both sides and made a central battle in the culture wars. No one wins when that happens, and the stakes become very high. The worst thing is when proponents on both sides say, in effect: "I agree vehemently with your right to agree with me. Otherwise p..s off and shut up."

[Belle]

I'm an advocate for freedom of speech

All speech? Including hate speech, libel, conspiracy to commit criminal acts, betrayal of vital military secrets to an enemy nation in time of war? Just for starters. Nowhere in the world is freedom of speech absolute and unconditional, nor should it be.

My concern here isn't about Canadian law, which doesn't affect me (or you either), but about the general principle. Mere civility and good manners, including so-called political correctness, can't be enforced by law and shouldn't be, but unjustified speech that can do actual harm is a different matter.

So is freedom of thought, discussed in a different thread. Only when one makes one's thoughts public by communicating them with others, does any of this apply.

I just don't accept that using him or her for a trans-gender person does them harm.If someone identifies as a woman, I'll call her "she". But I'm not using some totally new term as though, as the queer orthodoxy has it, there are some 50 genders out there. And, like Belle, I resent the use of the law to try to enforce it.
In Australia right now, the country is gripped by the very complex case of Israel Folau, the country's best rugby player, who was sacked by Rugby Australia for posting on his Instagram page a paraphrase of the Bible saying that idolators, fornicators, adulterers, drunkards and gay would go to hell if they did not repent. This, a second offence, was deemed not inclusive of homosexuals. (At least half the national team are Pacific Islanders, mostly devout Christians, who feel excluded by the Folau sacking; they apparently feel being inclusive of them rates low on Rugby Australia's priorities). It doesn't help that the main sponsor of the national team is Qantas, whose CEO is a gay activist. There are many issues here, not least the extent to which corporations or employers can direct the expression of private beliefs (which I think is a real concern).
Many called it hate speech. But atheist philosopher Peter Singer, who entirely disagrees with Folau, said all the devout Christian was doing was warning of a risk, analagous to the warning on cigarette packages that smoking kills. It certainly isn't hate speech; it has the opposite intention, however misguided. I think the law is a very blunt instrument for tackling these kinds of problems.

Folau just isn't very bright bringing all this up and making life difficult for himself. He's already carrying one minority card and surely there's a 'credit' system there??

As for Rugby Australia; what a joke. Total turmoil and irrelevance. I think they'll win the court case but lose in the court of public opinion. I also think the law needs to keep out of issues of personal belief and expression. It will be interesting to see where any religious freedom legislation lands; the whole thing worries me because it's a can of worms.

The whole thing could be blown away instantly if people would just accept that the state cannot prevent - nor should it - their feelings being hurt. You just couldn't make this stuff up!!

[jserraglio]

I'll call her "she". But I'm not using some totally new term as though, as the queer orthodoxy has it, there are some 50 genders out there.

When in fact there are less than a dozen.

[The Tralfamadorians]said their flying-saucer crews had identified no fewer than seven sexes on Earth, each essential to reproduction. Again: Billy couldn’t possibly imagine what five of those seven sexes had to do with the making of a baby, since they were sexually active only in the fourth dimension.

The Tralfamadorians tried to give Billy clues that would help him imagine sex in the invisible dimension. They told him that there could be no Earthling babies without male homosexuals. There could be babies without female homosexuals. There couldn’t be babies without women over sixty-five years old. There could be babies without men over sixty-five. There couldn’t be babies without other babies who had lived an hour or less after birth. And so on.

It was gibberish to Billy.

[John F]

[John F]

Speech that incites violence, mayhem and/or murder doesn't fall under the 'free speech' banner. It never has. But to clearly express what you believe, whether or not it 'offends', is the key here. One cannot enforce civility and good manners by diktat of any kind. This is a social compact which is developed through respect, parenting and civic modelling from others, otherwise it's a sham.

So you do accept a legal, enforceable limit on what people are allowed to say. The issue, then, isn't freedom of speech per se but what limits should should should not be imposed on it by law and why, which is for each society to decide as it sees fit.

That can change as a society's values and practices change. Time was when a personal insult, at a certain social level, would provoke a challenge to a duel in which one or both of the duelers would often be killed. Failure to answer the challenge was counted as cowardice. (At a lower level it might provoke physical assault, a punch in the nose.) When duelling was made illegal and the killings prosecuted as murder, insults were let pass unless they were both defamatory and untrue, when the aggrieved party didn't draw his sword but sued for libel. Otherwise we think nothing of a kind of speech which formerly was deadly.

Back on topic. As Cossman's analysis clearly shows, and despite the claim of your guru Jordan Peterson, the amendment to the Canadian constitution does not actually limit what people in Canada are legally allowed to say, not unless it "incites violence, mayhem and/or murder." It's not merely about pronouns and political correctness, as Peterson asserts. That is a red herring. If he believes gay people should not be given the protections that other minorities have under the Canadian constitution, he should say so.

[barney]

I'll call her "she". But I'm not using some totally new term as though, as the queer orthodoxy has it, there are some 50 genders out there.

When in fact there are less than a dozen.

According to Facebook, there are now 71.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ ... users.html

[jserraglio]

When it comes to sex, there is no such thing as too much or too many.

[Belle]

Speech that incites violence, mayhem and/or murder doesn't fall under the 'free speech' banner. It never has. But to clearly express what you believe, whether or not it 'offends', is the key here. One cannot enforce civility and good manners by diktat of any kind. This is a social compact which is developed through respect, parenting and civic modelling from others, otherwise it's a sham.

So you do accept a legal, enforceable limit on what people are allowed to say. The issue, then, isn't freedom of speech per se but what limits should should should not be imposed on it by law and why, which is for each society to decide as it sees fit.

That can change as a society's values and practices change. Time was when a personal insult, at a certain social level, would provoke a challenge to a duel in which one or both of the duelers would often be killed. Failure to answer the challenge was counted as cowardice. (At a lower level it might provoke physical assault, a punch in the nose.) When duelling was made illegal and the killings prosecuted as murder, insults were let pass unless they were both defamatory and untrue, when the aggrieved party didn't draw his sword but sued for libel. Otherwise we think nothing of a kind of speech which formerly was deadly.

Back on topic. As Cossman's analysis clearly shows, and despite the claim of your guru Jordan Peterson, the amendment to the Canadian constitution does not actually limit what people in Canada are legally allowed to say, not unless it "incites violence, mayhem and/or murder." It's not merely about pronouns and political correctness, as Peterson asserts. That is a red herring. If he believes gay people should not be given the protections that other minorities have under the Canadian constitution, he should say so.

The law proscribes what HAS to be said, not the reverse. Are you suggesting Prof Peterson has risked all from a faulty position? He is supported by many other public intellectuals. The state has no business meddling in this way. Stalinist.

[barney]

When it comes to sex, there is no such thing as too much or too many.

Not sure where you are heading with this. Sure, people can call themselves what they want, who cares? I can call myself a billionaire, but it's not grounded in reality. Is your point that people can call themselves what they want when it comes to sex, and because they do so that it is in fact so? I wouldn't accept that.

[lennygoran]

I can call myself a billionaire, but it's not grounded in reality.

Barney that's what Trump did-it turns out he's not as rich as he said he is-we'd know more if we could examine those darn tax returns of his! Regards, Len

[barney]

True. But one thing seems very likely, Len - he will leave the White House richer than he entered it (having secured a pardon in advance if the next President is a Republican).

[lennygoran]

True. But one thing seems very likely, Len - he will leave the White House richer than he entered it (having secured a pardon in advance if the next President is a Republican).

Barney your comment had me take a look at this:

"A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be absolved of guilt for an alleged crime or other legal offense, as if the act never occurred. The pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the jurisdiction. ... Pardons can also be a source of controversy."

The Dems just have to somehow pull this one out! Regards, Len

[barney]

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I trust the Democrats much either. Trump has set the bar so low for a president in terms of integrity, honesty, consistency and personal behaviour that I'm not sure the office of President will ever quite be the same. Maybe I'm just pessimistic. I certainly don't think the world can afford another four years of Trump - he has a powerful effect on Australia too, especially if a trade war does kick off with China.

[lennygoran]

Maybe I'm just pessimistic.

Barney both Sue and I are plenty worried too-the Squad is causing me more and more concern-AOC played a race card-just what we need here in the Democratic Party at this point. Regards, Len

[Rach3]

A history of which I was not aware, and even more shocking ( if that is even possible ) considering Britain was fighting the Holocaust Nazis at the time :

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/15/business ... index.html

[barney]

You should try to see the Imitation Game, the film mentioned in the article. I think it was pretty good. It is (fortunately) unimaginable today how sordid and secret this part of gays' lives had to be as recently as Turing's time.