LGBTQ2 The Inquisition Lives!

"It is hard to imagine that a court would make such a finding [of discrimination]."
"The point of showing the video was to discuss the content of the ideas, and a court would have to balance the rights to non-discrimination with the values of academic freedom and freedom of expression."
Law Professor Brenda Cossman, University of Toronto

"I'm familiar with U.of T professor Dr. Jordan B. Peterson]. I follow him. But can you shield people from those ideas? Am I supposed to comfort them and make sure that they are insulated away from this [controversy over policy guidelines that refusal to refer to an individual by their self-identified personal pronoun]? Like, is that what the point of this [interview] is? Because to me, that is so against what a university is about. So against it. I was not taking sides, I was presenting both arguments."
"...When they [students] leave the university they're going to be exposed to these ideas, so I don't see how I'm doing a disservice to the class by exposing them to ideas that are really out there. And I'm sorry I'm crying. I'm stressed out because this to me is so wrong, so wrong."
"I don't get why I'm being seen as transphobic by virtue, by proxy, of me saying saying, just stating, just exposing people to an idea."
Lindsay Shepherd, teaching assistant, Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario

Dr. Jordan Peterson (left), Lindsay Shepherd (right)  Vice  The head of Wilfrid Laurier University officially apologized to a teaching assistant for a meeting in which she was berated for playing a video clip of controversial professor Jordan Peterson in a classroom.

"So the thing about this is, if you're presenting something like this, you have to think about the kind of teaching climate that you're creating. And this is actually, these arguments are counter to the Canadian Human Rights Code. Even since ... C-16, ever since this passed, it is discriminatory to be targeting someone due to their gender identity or gender expression."
"I understand the position that you're coming from and your positionality, but the reality is that it has created a toxic climate for some of the students, you know...."
"It's more about the effect than the intention. Obviously that wasn't your intention. But, nevertheless, it disturbed students enough...."
Nathan Rambukkana, supervising professor, Wilfred Laurier University

"Um, so gender-based violence, transphobia, in that policy. Causing harm, um, to trans students by, uh, bringing their identity as invalid."
"Their pronouns as invalid - potentially invalid."
Adria Joel, manager of Gendered Violence Prevention and Support, Wilfred Laurier University

Wilfrid Laurier University professors Nathan Rambukkana, left, and Herbert Pimlott, right, reprimanded teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd for showing a video featuring controversial U of T professor Jordan Peterson without denouncing his views. Wilfrid Laurier University

Well then, is it understood now that society must gird itself punctiliously and take steps to extend their pronoun vocabulary to include ... let's see: "zim", "xe", "thon", "herm", and a galaxy of others, because the simple fact of politically correct life is that these and other pronouns are now required of those among us of patience and goodwill to surrender our conventional use of civil language to denote the presence among us of the aggrieved, the dreadfully wronged victims of yore, demanding their just due.

As respected members of our society, of course. Not so much respected any longer are those who hold out in respect of conventional civility and language to match, language that reflects heritage and culture, not so much dependent on the whims of the entitled who from the depths of their juvenile-arrested minds insist that society turn itself inside-out on their behalf. Which is to say, to mollify their outraged sensibilities that there any any among us so warped and cruel that we would deny them this yet-another victory foisted upon an appeasing public.

University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson. Tyler Anderson / National Post

And if there is any one single individual who has stepped into the foetid, roiling swamp of blame for upsetting the trans applecart, it can be none other than clinical psychologist and tenured professor of psychology at University of Toronto. Who, in a fit of displeasure at the pressures in the university environment to conform to popular demand that whining gender-confused students be 'respected' by acknowledging that they are not to be insulted through being addressed as 'her', 'him', 'ms' or 'mr', while 'they', bending the plural toward a singular gender-neutral designation is preferred.

By defying the appeasement of these childish demands, Professor Peterson has been identified as a Nazi, no less. He has become notorious, his name and his refusal to bow to the demands of irate transgenders and their myriad of supporters, inclusive of the very-careful-to-accede-to-left-society's championing of LGBTQ2 'rights' against the transgressors who revel in denying them, he has become anathema to right-thinkers, and a champion of the troglodytes who revel in denying trans' "human rights" entitlements.

Clearly, Lindsay Shepherd, a teaching assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, is one of those backward types having brought in a video of an interview taken from a well-known and -watched television show, The Agenda, interviewing Dr. Peterson on the politics of grammar, so virulently controversial. For her students, felt Ms. Shepherd, this was as good a lesson as any on communications, language and the intersection of politics. She presented this lesson neutrally, content to have the students reach their own conclusions. For which sin she was brought  to an interview with university heavies to 'explain herself'.

Several hundred students attend a rally protesting the views of U of T professor Jordan Peterson, who refuses to use non binary pronouns.    Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

In June the federal Liberal government passed Bill C-16 prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or expression, an initiative typical of this government that celebrates free speech rights, yet enacted this legislation that restricts free speech. It is a measure undertaken to stifle controversy over addressing trans people in the manner to which they prefer to be addressed, by insisting under the law that this is not a matter of free choice, but mandatory. On the other hand because the bill criminalizes extreme speech, it's hard to see how insulting a trans person by referring to that person as he or she would fall under that category.

Canada's hate-crime laws include inciting to genocide or deliberately inciting to hatred toward an identifiable group in categories inclusive of colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation and mental or physical disability; fairly exhaustive. Charges can be laid only with the approval of a provincial attorney general. The Ontario Human Rights Commission's policy guideline claims that "refusing to refer to a person by their self-identified name and proper personal pronoun" could be considered gender-based harassment.

But a witch-hunt, an inquisition has been launched and in fact, hatred and blame attached squarely to the reputation of Dr. Peterson, as an enemy of alt-gendered victims of societal discrimination. The lines have been drawn; all those who believe that Dr. Peterson's reaction to an unreasonable demand that societal attitudes and an entire language undergo a change to pacify the demands of a tiny segment of society is reasoned and reasonable, are themselves now charged with unforgivably, criminal phobic behaviour.

Cassandra Williams, a U of T student union member, at a Peterson protest in October. Peterson sparked a storm by declaring he would not use pronouns, such as "they," to recognize non-binary genders.  (Vince Talotta)