Juno News - February 06, 2020Trans Politics and Free Speech (feat. Barbara Kay)
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
157.4098
Summary
Coming up, Barbara Kay and I talk about transgender research, free speech, and academic inquiry in the wake of a controversial event at McGill University involving controversial researcher Dr. Kenneth Zucker, who was invited to speak about gender dysphoria.
Transcript
00:00:06.660
This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:12.640
Coming up, Barbara Kay and I talk about transgender research, free speech, and academic inquiry.
00:00:25.100
Hey, welcome to another edition of the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
00:00:32.760
Great to have you tuned into Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:36.300
Of course, irreverent is very similar to irrelevant.
00:00:39.940
So I had someone on YouTube last week ask me if I was calling myself Canada's Most Irrelevant Talk Show.
00:00:46.100
No, a couple of letters off, but very important letters. That's a different show.
00:00:49.840
I won't give you suggestions, but there are several shows that might fit the bill of being Canada's Most Irrelevant.
00:00:56.040
In any case, it's good to have you tuned into the show today.
00:00:59.100
I want to talk about free speech in the context of a debate that happened, or not even a debate,
00:01:04.500
an event that happened at McGill University a couple of weeks ago.
00:01:09.100
And the debate was really around whether this event should be allowed to happen,
00:01:13.840
as is so often the case when it comes to any sort of remotely contentious subject matter in 2020.
00:01:22.280
I mean, this has been going on since 2019, 2018, 2017, and so on and so forth back.
00:01:28.140
But the dialogue in this case was going to be a talk by Dr. Kenneth Zucker,
00:01:36.800
someone who, despite being accused of conversion therapy,
00:01:39.840
is actually a researcher who advocates a wait-and-see approach
00:01:44.220
before going through irreparable procedures to affirm a transgender person's believed gender.
00:01:52.160
And this is just a very condensed way of describing a backstory
00:01:56.820
that I know we'll talk to Barbara Kay about in just a moment.
00:01:59.980
But Kenneth Zucker was going to be speaking at McGill University.
00:02:02.860
Trans activists were not happy about this talk, but it didn't get shut down.
00:02:09.060
And I think there's a lesson in this that we can learn a bit about.
00:02:12.320
Barbara Kay covered it through the planning process and also throughout the event itself
00:02:17.260
and wrote a piece in the Post Millennial about it.
00:02:19.960
But the hopefulness, I guess, for this year and what it may bring to the cancel culture wars
00:02:25.040
came in a column she wrote that we'll talk about momentarily.
00:02:28.680
That is, Will 2020 Be the Year of Reason in the Cancel Culture Wars?
00:02:33.700
Author and columnist Barbara Kay joins me on the line now.
00:02:37.320
Barbara, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.
00:02:41.600
Now, I thought this was a fantastic piece for a couple of reasons.
00:02:45.340
I think, number one, you went through the subject matter of Ken Zucker and free speech
00:02:50.980
and the importance of having a dialogue on gender.
00:02:54.180
But you also brought the rare dose of good news on these issues that we don't often hear
00:03:01.980
And I was wondering if you could tell me why this story is one that gave you a little bit
00:03:08.220
Well, the good news aspect of it was very welcomed.
00:03:14.140
He thought at first, oh, no, this is going to be just, you know, another cancel culture piece.
00:03:20.260
The good news was that the people in charge of this event, and this is, this is, we're
00:03:26.680
talking now about Dr. Kenneth Zucker, who is a leading international expert on gender dysphoria.
00:03:33.400
And until a few years ago, he had been a longtime director of the gender identity clinic at
00:03:42.040
And then his approach to treating children with gender dysphoria has now become a subject
00:03:50.140
of controversy in the trans community because he treats children holistically.
00:03:55.940
He calls his approach developmentally informed therapy or developmentally informed psychotherapy.
00:04:03.820
And that means when a child presents as gender dysphoric, he doesn't just say, okay, you're a boy
00:04:10.820
or you're a girl, he says, well, let's talk about what life is like for you.
00:04:16.640
Otherwise, let's talk about your family dynamic.
00:04:20.760
Let's talk about, you know, have you had previous referrals for anxiety or depression or, you
00:04:29.280
And very often it turns out that gender dysphoria is not the child's primary problem.
00:04:35.740
Uh, so he, uh, because many of his patients did end up, uh, returning to their natal sex as
00:04:45.460
their preferred identification, um, he became known as somebody who was, uh, uh, treating
00:04:53.360
children with what is falsely called conversion therapy.
00:04:56.860
Uh, so they came after him, he got fired from CAMH and, uh, ever since he's been a sort of focal
00:05:07.160
point for controversy, uh, even though his research is probably the most cited of anywhere, you
00:05:13.940
know, anyone in the world, he's a scientist, a researcher, a clinician.
00:05:16.680
So that's the background on Dr. Zucker and, um, uh, uh, uh, a professor in the psychiatry
00:05:23.560
department wanted to invite him to speak and immediately, and of course knew.
00:05:31.600
Um, and there is, um, they have some divisions in the psychiatry department.
00:05:40.880
The head of the, uh, division is a professor Samuel Visier, and he believes that Dr. Zucker's
00:05:49.280
research is well worth sharing, but he also knew it would be controversial.
00:05:53.620
So the reason it didn't blow up, I think is that Dr.
00:05:57.300
Uh, professor Visier made a concerted effort to reach out to, uh, stakeholder groups in the
00:06:05.180
trans community, like queer McGill and other, uh, other activist groups, uh, who are LGBT
00:06:21.560
He said, this is going to be, you know, uh, very, it's about research.
00:06:29.140
It's going to be a very safe and open environment.
00:06:33.620
I mean, he really reached out and as a result, although there was pushback and there was
00:06:38.640
resistance to it, uh, it took the form of, you know, sending letters to the administration.
00:06:45.640
We wish it would be canceled, but you know, nobody took to the streets or, um, nobody threatened
00:06:51.920
to, uh, to ring alarms or to, to, to have a mass protest.
00:07:01.240
There were no protesters, uh, people from the LGBT community did come, uh, people, researchers
00:07:08.120
who actually opposed Dr. Zucker's approach did come.
00:07:13.780
Uh, I would say it was an extremely successful evening.
00:07:17.680
Uh, and it did have an extended Q and a, I did actually write, I did a big write up of it
00:07:23.760
for the post-millennial, uh, a 3000 word write up of it, um, following the event.
00:07:32.400
So it was hopeful in, in, in the respect that something very controversial did go forward
00:07:38.920
And the part that I mentioned in the column that I thought was really disheartening and
00:07:45.740
I understood it entirely and would view it the same way is that when you first receive
00:07:49.920
this invitation, you put it in your calendar with a question mark.
00:07:53.300
So right out of the gate, no other information.
00:07:56.220
The expectation is there's a good chance this isn't going to happen.
00:08:00.100
And I don't know when it became that that was the more likely presumption, but, but it has
00:08:09.160
And, you know, I would say on the flip side of that, it used to be that the culture warrior
00:08:14.660
in me would almost welcome things getting shut down years ago because I thought, okay, it's
00:08:22.680
Now I'm at the point and have been for quite a while where I want to have the dialogues.
00:08:26.300
I want to have the debates and it gets very tiring.
00:08:29.440
The fire alarm routine, the let's cancel it, the D platform, it gets very tiring.
00:08:33.840
And this was one where I would have been right in alignment with you that, oh, there's no
00:08:40.440
Well, I, I was pleased, very pleased to be proven wrong on this.
00:08:44.460
And I'm, by the way, I, I'm entirely, uh, aligned with you, uh, in that a couple of
00:08:51.560
years ago too, I was much more worried about it and now I'm just plain discouraged and depressed
00:08:58.600
about it, uh, so this really was a bright light, but just as the fact that it went forward
00:09:04.580
was good news, I have to say that there's a little bad news attached to it in one sense.
00:09:10.220
And that is that the stakeholder groups that were most actively, uh, against this going
00:09:18.260
Um, I think they didn't really have time to gather their, um, how shall I say, uh, to mount
00:09:30.260
what would be, uh, a really organized, uh, protest.
00:09:36.360
And I don't mean protest in the sense of, uh, fire alarms.
00:09:39.460
I mean, they, I, I, their immediate, their response was, okay, I guess this is going forward.
00:09:45.980
The administration absolutely didn't have any qualms about it at all.
00:09:50.020
I mean, after all, look, we're talking about, we're talking about a very highly accredited,
00:09:58.520
You can't, you can't come and say, well, this is some flake or this, this is a guy who's known
00:10:07.340
He's, he's an honest, objective researcher who has had success clinically, uh, in dealing
00:10:18.900
He, he does endorse, uh, transitioning, um, if it's clear after going through a period of
00:10:26.880
therapy that this is the right thing for that person.
00:10:30.560
Uh, so it's not like he's, he's, um, some kind of a, a hate figure, not at all.
00:10:36.820
So it did go forward, but, um, I have seen correspondence between the, some of these groups and Professor
00:10:48.580
And my impression is that they are going to, next time this comes up, that there will be
00:10:56.220
some, some protocol in place that will insist on representation from the trans community.
00:11:05.220
They have a, uh, a kind of mantra, nothing about us without us.
00:11:12.080
In other words, nobody should be allowed to present, um, a lecture or a talk without input
00:11:20.460
or without actual representation, uh, during the program.
00:11:24.860
As if there was always going to be two sides and one is going to be anti-trans and one is
00:11:31.160
As if every single, um, uh, academic presentation was in fact, uh, assumed to be a political statement.
00:11:41.300
Uh, this I find very unfortunate because, um, if, if you must, if, if every single, um, uh, psychological
00:11:51.540
difficulty or, you know, disorder or this form of dysphoria, uh, or anything that is on the
00:12:01.580
spectrum of, of, um, what we would think of as disorders.
00:12:06.180
Uh, but if you prefer a better term than fine, but if every time somebody, an academic in
00:12:13.940
the field is going to make a presentation, um, and is going to need input from that group,
00:12:22.080
It's not, that's not scientific, um, because that, that is actually, uh, saying, well, science
00:12:29.820
is so politicized and I'm not saying that science never has been politicized.
00:12:34.340
It often, one of the points that one of the, um, people made in the Q and A was science has
00:12:42.600
always been tinged with social values and that is true.
00:12:46.100
Uh, the reason that it took a very long time for homosexuality to be removed from the list
00:12:52.100
of pathologies is because of a social value, not a medical, not a medical assessment.
00:12:58.100
Yeah, now I would take from that, that it makes it all the more important to hear from
00:13:02.700
And some people would, in response to that instead say, uh, you know what?
00:13:07.580
We shouldn't hear from these different perspectives.
00:13:09.960
Well, no, but they're, I think what they, they would, they would, they're more moderate
00:13:16.900
And I think they would, what, what they would say is, well, yes, have your, invite your scientists,
00:13:23.180
but you're not, that person should not have the whole floor.
00:13:26.280
They shouldn't have the whole evening to themselves.
00:13:28.320
Uh, a question and answer period is not sufficient, um, to, uh, give balance to the evening.
00:13:35.960
So if you're going to plan something in the future, I think we're going to have a protocol
00:13:41.120
in place that, you know, but I had a discussion with Dr. Zucker about this after the presentation
00:13:48.380
And I, I walked down the hill with him from the neuro, the Montreal Neurological Institute
00:13:57.520
He had to catch a plane and I was like, well, if that were the case that every single, uh,
00:14:05.760
condition that, that, that was being discussed by a researcher had to have representation from
00:14:12.240
the actual group, then you couldn't get anybody giving a presentation, say on, uh, autism spectrum
00:14:18.680
disorder, unless you had a group of autistic people there or a representation from the autistic
00:14:27.180
And I, I don't think there really is such a thing as a trans community.
00:14:30.180
There's a community of trans activists, uh, but normal, ordinary transgender people, they,
00:14:39.680
They don't spend their 90% of their time meeting, you know, in committee meetings and, and, and,
00:14:46.420
uh, hanging out, um, in, in, in, you know, neighborhood meeting places to discuss, you know,
00:14:56.360
I mean, that's the problem with any of these identity politics discussions is that very
00:15:03.880
That's co-opted by an organization or a network of activists that doesn't necessarily speak
00:15:08.720
for the average person in that group, whether it's a racial group, a religious group, a trans
00:15:15.360
group, sexual orientation, whatever the case may be.
00:15:19.360
And you know, the problem, if you're going to demand that representation there is that
00:15:23.680
you can keep drilling down further and further and further.
00:15:26.880
And eventually you have so many different groups and cross groups and concurrent groups.
00:15:35.980
I mean, no matter how far you go, you're never going to be able to meet that if you decide
00:15:42.180
And I see that's the logical extension of that way of thinking.
00:15:45.360
And in this particular case, if you're talking about trans activist groups, they themselves
00:15:52.600
are not pleased to give public forum space to detransitioners because that doesn't fit
00:16:02.680
So this idea that when you talk about the human condition, when you talk about varieties
00:16:09.360
of aberrations from the norm, then members of that group must be represented.
00:16:20.360
This sort of turns academic research onto, I mean, academic research is not supposed to
00:16:26.960
be fighting political battles all the time or any of the time.
00:16:31.700
They're supposed to present their research and they should be given space for that.
00:16:36.200
In the in the Q&A, by the way, one of the first speakers was a young woman who had transitioned
00:16:45.940
So she was a detransitioner who had stopped taking testosterone and who made a case for more
00:16:55.340
therapeutic intervention before allowing transition or at least hormonal transition.
00:17:02.240
And she said and that that is the Zucker approach, is it not?
00:17:07.020
So she was actually there to speak up on behalf of a more holistic approach.
00:17:14.340
And immediately, in response to that statement, somebody across the room, it was a horseshoe arrangement,
00:17:24.340
you know, like lecture halls are in institutions like this.
00:17:29.240
And immediately, a trans man, a young trans man across the hall who, you know, was obviously
00:17:35.380
a little bit agitated by the detransitioner speaking their truth.
00:17:43.200
He said, oh, because the detransitioner had said I was I was getting quite suicidal because
00:17:53.640
So this trans man said, well, I was suicidal because I needed to transition.
00:18:03.980
But what I liked was the fact both had their say.
00:18:07.580
Everybody listened very respectfully to both of them.
00:18:10.500
And my first response to that mentally was to say, well, people say that they feel unsafe
00:18:19.360
when they hear views that they disagree with or that that that they find offensive.
00:18:26.620
Well, this this trans man, I think, found what the detransitioner young woman said.
00:18:33.200
I don't know about offensive, but he found it agitating.
00:18:36.500
He was he was, you know, wanted to speak his his own truth, which he did.
00:18:41.440
And everybody listened to him very respectfully.
00:18:44.260
There was no feeling that anybody felt unsafe or that, you know, it was it was a very civil
00:18:52.200
and very comfortable evening for anybody who wanted to say anything.
00:18:59.240
And I said to myself, well, look, this whole idea that you can't be safe hearing from somebody
00:19:07.940
whose opinion makes you uncomfortable is ridiculous because I'm looking at people doing exactly
00:19:15.740
And they're just going to have had their say at a forum in which this very necessary approach
00:19:23.240
has to be discussed openly and nobody is stopping people who buy into the affirmation, the immediate
00:19:33.180
affirmation approach from holding their seminars and their lectures without input from the Dr.
00:19:44.240
So it seems very unfair to me that they should be.
00:19:49.700
And I'm anticipating now, I don't know what's going to happen at McGill.
00:19:52.700
I just have this strong feeling that the next step after this will be to insert protocols
00:20:00.620
that may preclude Dr. Zucker having a repeat performance there or anyone else who does not espouse
00:20:13.740
But I should say also that when we were walking down the hill and I we were talking about his
00:20:20.100
approach and he was telling me about some of his interesting cases, obviously not by name.
00:20:25.900
And I, you know, he treats children age three to 12.
00:20:29.520
And I said, so I'm sure you keep the data on this.
00:20:32.920
I said, I, I'm curious to know, uh, what percentage of your clients or your patients, um, end up
00:20:41.280
after therapy, uh, reverting to or feeling comfortable in their natal sex.
00:20:48.760
And he, without a beat being skipped said 88% and I was like, wow.
00:20:56.360
And that was almost the last exchange we had before he had to grab a cab, you know, to,
00:21:02.940
And I was like, I, I, I, my, my reaction was, I guess it's just as well, this didn't come
00:21:09.360
up in the Q and a, because I think that would have caused a great deal of consternation and
00:21:16.800
I think that saying that would have aroused, uh, so much, uh, intense discussion that that
00:21:27.660
should be for another time, uh, because he was there to discuss his research, not to
00:21:34.560
So it was just as well, it didn't come up, but I did include that in my post-millennial
00:21:38.780
piece and it's, it's getting, you know, it's getting a lot of Twitter play.
00:21:43.580
And you know, what's interesting here is there's that age old saying the fact that you can't
00:21:49.160
choose your facts, like you can choose your opinions applies here.
00:21:54.480
And ultimately people are going to try to shoehorn it into their political ideology if they don't
00:21:59.040
like it and say, well, this just reinforces that he's doing conversion therapy and all
00:22:02.580
of these other things, which we know is not true.
00:22:05.280
But the fact that this dialogue happened, the fact that people that were very rattled by what
00:22:10.720
the other had to say, were able to come together, both share in an open environment, you still
00:22:16.380
have this concern that McGill would potentially put up roadblocks or activists would put up
00:22:22.540
Whereas I would try to be an optimist here and say, how could we replicate this?
00:22:27.720
How could we, was there a lesson to take out of this or a roadmap to take out of this,
00:22:32.420
uh, to basically make it so something like this could go on in the future?
00:22:36.880
Do you think it will just be an anomaly when all is said and done?
00:22:41.080
And I, the only reason I say I'm, I'm concerned that, that further events of this type might
00:22:46.560
be precluded is because I, I have seen evidence, um, that certain allies of the trans movement,
00:22:56.000
uh, the, you know, uh, have said, uh, quite openly to Professor Vissier, uh, we're not, we're
00:23:06.220
Um, and we have to, we have to work out, uh, I don't know if they use the word protocols,
00:23:14.420
but we, we have to work out some kind of a, you know, uh, um, a plan d'action or whatever
00:23:21.580
you want, uh, to make sure that, uh, trans, he didn't use the word activist, the one I'm
00:23:29.620
thinking of, uh, that, that people in the trans community, whatever, feel represented,
00:23:34.400
feel adequately represented if this is going to go forward again.
00:23:37.940
So I, I think this, this kind of, um, uh, credo that you can't talk about gender dysphoria
00:23:48.620
without representation from the community who have their own, uh, quite politicized idea
00:24:01.260
because it's not scientifically based the, you know, these are their claims that affirmation
00:24:08.340
is the necessary, um, approach to dealing with gender dysphoric children.
00:24:14.900
And, and I say children advisedly, because if you're dealing with gender dysphoric adults,
00:24:19.480
I think we're talking about a whole other, you know, uh, ball game here.
00:24:23.600
So we're, we're mainly concerned with children.
00:24:25.660
So this idea that if you don't affirm, and especially adolescents, we talked a lot, uh,
00:24:32.800
one of the hot buttons in this field is what's called rapid onset gender dysphoria, a term that
00:24:39.160
trans activists do not like, uh, I guess they would prefer late onset, uh, you know, Dr.
00:24:49.180
Uh, but this is an area of concern because the numbers are escalating rapidly and there is
00:24:55.300
evidence to suggest that it is something like a social contagion rather than based in, um,
00:25:03.140
Uh, so this instant affirmation, which is what, you know, you can get, you can get hormone
00:25:09.760
blockers prescribed, uh, after a 15 minute interview by some endocrinologists, um, in this country.
00:25:16.200
And Dr. Zucker happened to mention, he's done a lot of collaboration with, uh, scientists
00:25:22.960
in the Netherlands on this issue and they're, they're very deep into this issue.
00:25:27.140
Uh, they've done many studies and, um, in, in the Netherlands, for example, if you're referred
00:25:32.380
to a clinic for gender dysphoria, uh, they take quite a long time before you're actually
00:25:39.220
It can be up to 18 months before you actually get prescribed, uh, hormones.
00:25:43.900
And during that time, you have plenty of time to, uh, work through whatever other issues
00:25:54.320
And, and so it's just not that instant affirmation here.
00:26:00.100
Um, and that, that is really what it boils down to the dissension between people like Dr.
00:26:06.300
Zucker and people who are allies of Dr. Zucker's approach like me and you, I guess.
00:26:11.360
Uh, oh, we're asking for, we're not saying there's no such thing as gender dysphoria.
00:26:16.540
We're not saying that, um, people with it should not have the right to have support, um, and
00:26:24.600
Uh, we're not even saying that they shouldn't have the right to go on hormone blockers.
00:26:28.640
All we're saying is, uh, that children should not be rushed into this.
00:26:33.040
Um, that instant affirmation is not the way to go.
00:26:36.220
It's, it's not, it's not, uh, what I would call a good quality care and, uh, it's not
00:26:48.280
Um, and yet we're being told by trans activists that we're the ones that are, um, putting
00:26:54.420
impediments in the way of people that, that, uh, need compassion, need support, uh, and all
00:27:00.760
the rest, but I don't, I don't say, uh, that we are lacking compassion.
00:27:05.860
I, I think that one has to put prudence and, and, and medical caution ahead of, um, uh, what
00:27:14.300
they call compassion, which, which many of us call negligence.
00:27:17.940
It seems as though Barbara, you're relying heavily on the scientific arguments for what
00:27:23.940
Zucker and his peers are putting, putting forward here.
00:27:26.740
But I wonder if that misses the, the point that's more important, rather, if that's more
00:27:33.300
about the free speech side of this and the academic inquiry side of this, because there's
00:27:41.760
There's a possibility that anyone positing a scientific theory is wrong.
00:27:45.320
My belief, and I, I know this is yours from other conversation we've, other conversations
00:27:50.320
we've had, is that you have to put all of these ideas forward to decide and to figure
00:27:56.660
And that's why that moment that you shared of the detransitioning woman speaking up and
00:28:01.900
the person who did transition speaking up is important.
00:28:05.020
I mean, one of them says detransitioning, uh, helped her.
00:28:11.380
These two are compatible with one each, one another, and they're compatible with what
00:28:16.020
So I wonder though, if the scientific argument gets too in the weeds for people, because
00:28:22.960
when Zucker mentions that 88% statistic, for example, instead of the fundamental question
00:28:32.260
I fear that that will open the door to people starting to pounce on him even more and say,
00:28:41.120
Well, I think what people who are against his approach would say is, well, he can say
00:28:46.500
what he wants about them ending up being comfortable, but basically he's talked them
00:28:50.680
out of, you know, uh, something that they need.
00:28:54.120
And, uh, they, and they would say, well, uh, either the people coming to him are not really
00:29:01.940
Uh, like people that detect transition, they'll often say, oh, but they weren't really gender
00:29:06.600
Yeah, they, they, they weren't trans in the first place, so they don't count.
00:29:12.340
You know, if someone says they are trans, oh yes, affirm immediately.
00:29:15.520
But then 10 years later, when they've been on testosterone and everything else for all
00:29:19.260
those years and they say, no, I should not have been affirmed.
00:29:22.000
Uh, they would say, well, you know, that's, that's, uh, then you weren't really trans and
00:29:29.600
You know, that's, that's not on us, but it is on them because, uh, since you don't know,
00:29:34.800
and we do know study after study after study, I mean, we have to rely on, uh, science at
00:29:40.460
some point and if study after study in, in many different countries, uh, all come to the
00:29:45.320
same conclusion that after puberty, children who are presenting as gender dysphoric, uh, before
00:29:50.740
puberty, end up comfortable being, uh, you know, uh, identifying with their biological
00:29:59.240
sex, uh, we have to pay attention to that and we have to assume these are good faith.
00:30:05.840
It's replicated and that's part of the scientific method is replication, replication.
00:30:10.140
Whereas, um, many of the theories, the gender dysfluidity, uh, theories are based entirely
00:30:16.680
They admit that, um, there's no scientific studies.
00:30:20.180
It's proving that anyone is, you know, this idea that gender fluidity, all, all it is,
00:30:25.720
is observation and, and surmises and assumptions and.
00:30:33.140
I, I guess the point that I am more unsettled by and in what these activists do is that they
00:30:39.640
don't care about the science and they don't care about the free speech side of it.
00:30:44.820
And I guess it's a matter of which way is a more compelling, uh, direction or which way
00:30:52.040
And I'm not sure I know the answer to that yet.
00:30:54.200
Well, I mean, I think one of the, uh, I think, I think one protocol or one, uh, guideline for
00:31:01.300
university administrations should be, uh, look, uh, if somebody is accredited in a, in a,
00:31:08.360
uh, in a real discipline, I mean, psychiatry, you can say, oh, all psychiatry is bunk, but
00:31:18.600
There is actual literature, uh, and, and, and the scientific method is used for, for a lot
00:31:26.600
Um, so if somebody is highly accredited, he is the editor in chief of the, um, archives of
00:31:33.860
sexual behavior, which is the preeminent journal, peer reviewing journal in his field.
00:31:40.960
So if somebody is that accredited, you cannot say that he does not have the right to make
00:31:49.760
a presentation, um, via a department at a regular university like McGill on the grounds
00:31:57.820
that you are not happy with, uh, his approach or his, his, uh, uh, uh, his brand of.
00:32:11.820
And if you're not having a, have your own symposium, have your own voices.
00:32:15.440
I mean, this is the problem is that no one is saying they can't be heard.
00:32:19.840
And this is what makes me want to pull my hair out over this dialogue when it happens, if you
00:32:25.000
can even call it that is that someone else speaking does not threaten your right to speak.
00:32:31.720
And, and, and of course there are, there is the argument that, uh, people have a right
00:32:39.800
So, uh, yes, have your own symposium, have your own conference, have your own, whatever
00:32:46.220
Uh, you know, there, nobody is stopping the other side.
00:32:51.680
Nobody is deplatforming anybody on the other side.
00:32:54.760
Nobody is, uh, asking them to do anything except stop, stop cancelling or stop trying
00:33:03.100
to cancel those whose attitude or whose approach or perspective, uh, they don't like it's and,
00:33:13.760
In this case, the administration wasn't even, didn't even consider for one second, uh, cancelling,
00:33:19.360
even though they received numerous, um, demands for it.
00:33:23.740
And I did, I was in touch with the provost and, and asked if it had been a consideration.
00:33:31.040
Uh, so I think that was one of the reasons why there was no serious protest because the,
00:33:38.040
the administration hadn't even wavered for a second on it.
00:33:44.040
I'd love to see, I'd love to see this be a paradigm for, uh, the next time.
00:33:49.420
And you know what, I'm, I'm very grateful that you saw this through, through the planning
00:33:53.520
process and through the, the event itself for two reasons.
00:33:57.480
Number one, I think there's an important dialogue that has been put forward by Dr. Zucker.
00:34:02.160
But I also think more poignantly, the process is the punishment when it comes to shutting
00:34:08.840
people down in a lot of cases, whether it's security fees that are made just to shut down
00:34:13.920
the event or whether it's all of these groups that have a say in trying to dilute or ultimately
00:34:20.260
And for this one, the process seemed to be the savior of it.
00:34:24.620
It was the process that showed dialogue is important in the process that ultimately was
00:34:31.260
So whether it can be replicated in the same way that the scientific method requires as
00:34:36.560
far as doing this event and in other forms, I think it's important that it happened and
00:34:41.180
important that people saw that it happened and that no one was unsafe, that no one was
00:34:48.160
No one was irreparably damaged by words in an academic forum.
00:34:54.460
I, I, I, I do agree with you when you say the process is the punishment, I should say that
00:35:00.200
I do think, uh, Professor Vissier who organized this, uh, was pretty courageous because, uh,
00:35:18.840
I would say days and days, uh, were just occupied with responding to, um, you know, hostile, uh,
00:35:30.040
And he tried his, his language was so conciliatory.
00:35:34.380
He made such a, a passionate, uh, beautiful introduction to the event, uh, in which he made
00:35:42.200
a plea for reconciliation, uh, between the two sides.
00:35:46.740
And, um, you know, this, this idea of, of goodwill and good faith.
00:35:52.420
It was a very beautiful, I included several paragraphs of his introductory remarks in my
00:35:57.700
post-millennial piece because I thought I've never seen anyone so, um, so, uh, idealistically,
00:36:06.700
uh, and trying so hard to bring two sides of, of, of a, basically a political situation together.
00:36:19.500
I don't think from, you know, any official credit for that, but I'm giving him credit.
00:36:24.140
Yeah. Well, he gets it from me as well. So he's getting his due here. It's not a great
00:36:28.060
honor to get your due on the Andrew Lawton show, but we'll, uh, we'll do what we can.
00:36:31.620
Barbara Kaye, National Post columnist, joining me on the line now. Barbara, thank you so much
00:36:35.840
for doing this and also for coming on today. Really appreciate it.
00:36:41.420
You know, it's interesting. When I invited Barbara, I wanted this event to basically serve
00:36:46.700
as the launching point for a broader discussion about free speech. And it ended up going as live
00:36:52.280
programming does in a bit of a different direction. We were spoke speaking more about the specific
00:36:57.320
event and about gender identity and all of these things, but I still think that's an important
00:37:02.280
dialogue to have. And there are a couple of reasons for that. Number one, it's not a dialogue
00:37:08.120
that people want to entertain and not withstanding this McGill event, which by the way, they did try to
00:37:14.280
shut down. When Zucker was in a documentary, a BBC documentary that looked at the pro and anti-transitioning
00:37:22.680
arguments, and he was not an anti-transitioner, by the way, that documentary has become so controversial
00:37:29.160
that even CBC was subjected to calls for boycotts. I mean, people can boycott CBC, but boycotts for being
00:37:35.960
too transphobic for supposedly airing or was, or planning to air the documentary. And I don't even think
00:37:42.200
it ever happened. So the idea that you can't even have a discussion about research with a researcher
00:37:49.480
without going down this road into identity politics is absolutely insane. So like I said,
00:37:54.440
we didn't speak as much on the broader umbrella of free speech. We focused on this event, but also I
00:38:00.040
think in doing so illuminated perhaps a bit of hopefulness on the horizon, but also what the stakes
00:38:06.200
are when it comes to trying to have discussions in an academic context or any other context. So my thanks
00:38:11.800
to Barbara Kay for coming on. My thanks to all of you for tuning into the show here. We'll be back
00:38:17.000
next week with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show here on True North. This is the Andrew
00:38:21.800
Lawton Show. Thank you, God bless, and good day Canada. Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show.
00:38:26.840
Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.