The Campus Trans Diktat: No Debate, No Dissent—And No JokesBefore firing me, my university investigated everything I’d said about gender ideology, right down to the satirical quips I’d made on Twitter.
Frances Widdowson
6 Sep 2022
As many academics have learned in recent years, any expression of skepticism in regard to trans activism can now have negative career implications. Female academics such as Oxford University professor Selina Todd, former Edinburgh University rector Ann Henderson, and former Sussex University philosophy professor Kathleen Stock have discovered that even one’s physical safety—not just emotional and psychological wellbeing—can be put at risk if one challenges the extraordinary (as I see it) idea that self-defined gender identity must supersede biological sex in all spheres of policy.
The scope of the academic taboo surrounding this issue is something I’ve had the chance to observe personally. While it is widely known that my 2021 termination by Mount Royal University (MRU) in Canada was connected to my expressions of dissent on Indigenous issues, I also was targeted for my objection to “progressive” gender dogmas.
My problems began in 2018, at a time when I was still an associate professor in MRU’s department of economics, justice, and policy studies. I hadn’t yet formed any strong opinions about gender ideology—except to such extent as I was disturbed by heavy-handed attempts to prevent anyone from freely discussing it. And it was this latter concern that led me to invite noted “gender-critical” feminist Meghan Murphy to address the question, “Does Trans Activism Negatively Impact Women’s Rights?” at MRU on March 15th, 2019. The event, part of an ongoing project known as the Rational Space Network’s Critical Thinking Series, proved to be a rallying point for those seeking to push me out of the university.
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While the speakers at this event included a trans activist, Julie Rei Goldstein, and an MRU Women’s Studies professor had been invited to acts as facilitator (she never responded to the invitation), critics claimed the event was nothing more than a pretext to attack on trans people. The MRU Women’s Studies Program and the university’s Pride Centre organized a counter-event scheduled for immediately afterwards, under the claim that a “therapeutic conversation” was needed to discuss the “impact on trans folks of having our identities and safety considered debatable.”
A number of MRU professors encouraged students to believe that the event betrayed my animosity toward trans people. One faculty member demanded that the cameras be shut off during the event, so as to protect a “vulnerable” population. Another, MRU’s Program Coordinator of Women’s and Gender Studies, posted a long Twitter thread calling Murphy a “TERF”—a term of abuse that stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist." (When a student publicly suggested that the event was structured in such a way so as to stack the deck against trans activism, the prof sent them heart and fire emojis.) As a result, for the first time in my MRU career, I had students stating on their course evaluations that they’d felt “uncomfortable” in my class.
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If my critics sound as if they’re farcically intolerant of dissent—even going so far as to indict me for using standard parliamentary procedures in the service of free speech—that would be a correct inference. Their tactics and rhetoric became so absurdly overbearing, in fact, that I found my only effective means of hitting back was through satire. Alas, it turns out that when it comes to this particular issue, all are expected to bow their heads, and no one is allowed to titter.
It was a lesson I learned when my academic union, the Mount Royal Faculty Association, invited participants to a workshop about the “white supremacy culture” supposedly permeating the union’s ranks. This email invitation found its way to an editor at Quillette, who posted a widely-circulated Twitter thread poking fun at its contents. In doing so, he noted that the meeting would “be conducted by [an MRU professor] who goes by they/them pronouns. They is a member of the General Education Department at MRU, and they also runs a workshop addressing issues regarding pronouns. According to their LinkedIn profile, they ‘developed, implemented, facilitated, and assessed the efficacy of dozens of educational programs on social justice and LGBTQ+ topics for thousands of participants.’”
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Some people ask why more academics don’t push back against ideologues on university campuses, or at least demand that their dogmas be debated. But this episode shows why that is often impossible. In the current environment, an activist professor may not only reject invitations to debate; he or she can also smear third-party efforts to conduct such debates as an exercise in “debating the trans community’s very existence” (or some such). Even when commentary enters the realm of irony and satire, it turns out, discussion is verboten.
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Source:
https://quillette.com/2022/09/06/for-campus-pronoun-puritans-the-rules-are-no-debate-no-dissent-and-no-jokes/
