Juno News - True North's Andrew Lawton with Barbara Kay

00:00:00.000 Joining me is National Post columnist Barbara Kay, also a board member with the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms and a tremendous advocate on issues of freedom and free speech. Barbara, thank you.

00:00:15.000 Oh, I'm pleased to be here. You cover everything. It's the columnist's life, everything from pit bull bites to transgender children to father's rights. You do it all, but the one thing I've found, especially in the last couple of years, is you've really taken a tremendous interest in the idea of free speech, because there's been a lot of material to work with, admittedly, but you've taken up this battle in a way that very few of your colleagues, even in the fairly right-of-center commentary world in Canada, have. Why is that?

00:00:45.000 I see the erosion of free speech as the issue of our time. It frightens me very much. The trans issue happens to be a kind of focal point where the intrusion on our free speech rights have kind of landed in a very big way, and I think in a very dangerous way. 1.00

00:01:06.280 But I see free speech on campus erosion, it scares me because it strikes me as quite Orwellian. The things you are not permitted to say, which is one thing, and the things that you must say, compelled speech, which is another, and a far more invasive kind of wrong.

00:01:28.440 So, yes, it has, and I think also the rise of Jordan Peterson probably encouraged a lot of people to speak their minds more freely on this issue.

00:01:40.480 But I've been following the free speech heroes, like Mark Stein and a lot of others on Islamophobia, for example, for a number of years now.

00:01:52.000 And it bothers me terribly that so many of my colleagues in the media have kind of pooh-poohed them and said, oh, it's a kind of hysteria, you know, you're making too much of this.

00:02:05.480 So I guess that spurred me even more to think, you know, you mentioned Mark Stein, when you look at a decade ago, Mark Stein versus the BC Human Rights Commission, and Ezra Levant and his Human Rights Commission battles, there was a fair amount of unanimity, even among liberal columnists, then that this was awful and censorship is wrong.

00:02:28.140 And I really wonder where that went. I mean, I can name, I'm not going to, but I can name a lot of names of columnists that were very much in those gentlemen's corners and very much alongside the free speech issue as champions, because everyone in the press really specifically should be, and they've lost that.

00:02:46.800 And I wonder how that happened, how even people that should be at the forefront of this battle have tended to fall into that trap of intersectionality or that trap of thinking that free speech needs to be balanced against far mushier concepts.

00:03:01.860 I think they got sucked into the belief that social justice ends justified a certain amount of restraint.

00:03:15.260 Identity politics has made it clear that the right to free speech ends when you start offending a certain recognized victim groups.

00:03:28.020 And this is, people have stopped being interested in truth and more interested in comfort, the comfort of groups that are seen as vulnerable, that deserve our compassion.

00:03:41.600 And along, and along with that compassion, accommodation, and part of that accommodation is the need for them to feel safe.

00:03:50.600 So, and this new right came along, the right not to be offended.

00:03:57.600 So, of course, that has been one of the issues that galvanized me even more.

00:04:02.600 Where does this come from, the right not to be offended?

00:04:05.600 But only certain groups.

00:04:06.600 You know, you can offend people that love Israel.

00:04:09.600 You can offend Christians. 1.00

00:04:11.600 You can offend white men of European descent. 0.97

00:04:15.600 No problem there.

00:04:16.600 So, look, anyone who's interested in fair play, who believes that the foundation of democracy is individual rights and not group rights.

00:04:25.600 But I think, to get back to your question, I think that my colleagues in the media, a lot of them, or in academia as well, they are afraid for their careers.

00:04:36.600 They are afraid to step outside the group because of the internet.

00:04:42.600 I think social media has had a tremendous influence on people and it's not a pleasant thing to be Twitter swarmed.

00:04:49.600 No, it certainly isn't.

00:04:50.600 No, and I'm sure you know all about that.

00:04:52.600 Well, I think we both know a fair amount about Twitter swarming and you have to have a very thick skin.

00:04:57.600 You also have to have a certain detachment that is born of perhaps independence to be able to do this.

00:05:07.600 If you're, I mean, I'm old, not to put too fine a point on it, and I am financially independent.

00:05:14.600 I love what I do, but if it stopped tomorrow, it wouldn't change my lifestyle.

00:05:20.600 My mortgage is paid.

00:05:21.600 You know, my kids are out of the house.

00:05:23.600 So, a lot of my colleagues, they have a mortgage.

00:05:27.600 They have kids.

00:05:28.600 And they can't afford to, you know, become toxic or to become, I mean, look at these professors that have lost their, you know, over what?

00:05:41.600 Trying to stand up for freedom of speech.

00:05:43.600 So, it's become, these activist groups have achieved tremendous power, power to enforce legislation that is built on thin air, not science.

00:05:56.600 The power to have people fired for a look, a gesture, a tone of voice, something that happened 30 years ago.

00:06:05.600 So, people are afraid.

00:06:09.600 Academics are afraid, and people in the media are afraid.

00:06:12.600 And they also tend to believe that, well, if it's going to bring about social justice, maybe it's not too big a price to pay.

00:06:20.600 A little bit of free speech quelled here.

00:06:24.600 You know, well, if it looks like transphobia, maybe I shouldn't say that.

00:06:29.600 All that, you know, once you start down that slippery slope.

00:06:34.600 Because the little battles are never little when all is said and done.

00:06:38.600 And this was the big problem going back to those Human Rights Commission battles a decade ago.

00:06:42.600 We were so busy fighting the idea that a government agency could tell you what you can't say.

00:06:47.600 The idea, even I'd say five years ago, of compelled speech gaining such steam was, I think, foreign to even a lot of free speech activists.

00:06:55.600 So, now we aren't only waging that same battle as to certain groups, universities, government agencies, employers saying you can't say that.

00:07:03.600 But also groups that are saying you must say that.

00:07:07.600 And that was the challenge with C-16.

00:07:09.600 That was what Jordan Peterson first started speaking about.

00:07:12.600 We saw that with the Law Society of Ontario, formerly the Law Society of Upper Canada.

00:07:16.600 Very similar dynamic. Lawyers must say a certain thing.

00:07:19.600 And the summer jobs program.

00:07:21.600 Yes, you must say that you're pro-abortion rights or Trinity Western University.

00:07:25.600 You must disavow, essentially, what is your core religious belief.

00:07:29.600 And when that side is gaining steam, and free speech advocates, I don't think, have many successes to speak of in the broader cultural battle.

00:07:38.600 I think we fought an isolated incident, certain things very effectively.

00:07:43.600 How do we tackle this?

00:07:45.600 I think it's very difficult to tackle this because it's now systemic.

00:07:52.600 And we now have, for example, on this trans issue, we now have entire medical associations that have bowed to...

00:08:04.600 They're willing to say, okay, we're not going to stand up for science.

00:08:10.600 We are going to stand up for the right of, you know, people to have what they want, their gender identity.

00:08:19.600 And we will deny what we know to be scientifically valid.

00:08:23.600 You have endocrinologist associations who are not standing behind their own scholarship, their own research.

00:08:33.600 So when it's that systemic, you know, and you have politicians, social services, the academy, law enforcement, they're all in on it.

00:08:45.600 They're all in on these, you know, they're standing behind the identity groups.

00:08:51.600 They're not standing for freedom of speech.

00:08:54.600 You have the Supreme Court entrenching the right to gender identity, which is basically saying the right for somebody's delusion to have precedence over another person's, your right as a citizen, not to be compelled to use invented words.

00:09:15.600 So that's the Supreme Court.

00:09:17.600 They found that right. 0.78

00:09:19.600 They discovered that right.

00:09:21.600 That right does not exist.

00:09:22.600 I don't even know if I would go so far as to say it's a delusion in many cases.

00:09:26.600 I mean, for whatever reason, my approach has always been almost libertarian on this, which is if you want to identify as another gender for whatever reason, I don't really care. 0.82

00:09:36.600 Where I take a tremendous amount of issue is when someone tells me I have to not only care, but I have to care in a way that puts me squarely on a side that might not be my own.

00:09:46.600 Yeah.

00:09:47.600 And that's the challenge here.

00:09:48.600 And I fear that we are spending way too much time talking about an issue that is such a minuscule percentage of the population.

00:09:56.600 Why is the trans issue occupying so much space when it is statistically such a tiny issue?

00:10:02.600 It's very interesting.

00:10:03.600 I've never seen a movement take hold of a population so quickly.

00:10:09.600 Some people compare it to the recovered memory syndrome that turned out to be, you know, a kind of social contagion and a form of hysteria.

00:10:19.600 But this is, I believe, a kind of social contagion that has infiltrated and taken over every aspect of society, as I said.

00:10:29.600 It's in all our institutions now.

00:10:31.600 And it's a campaign that just seemed to grow out of nowhere and just kind of envelop us.

00:10:39.600 And the reason I did say it is a delusion, I mean, dysphoria, is the sense that you're in the wrong body, that there is such a thing as a wrong body.

00:10:49.600 And by the way, gender dysphoria exists.

00:10:51.600 I'm not saying it does not exist, but as you say, it's a very small part of the population.

00:10:56.600 And I have no problem with them being who they want to be.

00:11:00.600 What I have a problem with is them compelling me to say that biology has nothing to do with gender.

00:11:09.600 That compelling anyone to say that there is no link between a person's natal sex and, you know, the gender they decide they want to be.

00:11:19.600 That's not science.

00:11:21.600 And the people who make what is ostensibly a factual claim are vilified.

00:11:25.600 Well, yes.

00:11:26.600 And you are forced to use words that you don't want to use.

00:11:29.600 For example, I, you know, on Twitter, I use the word affliction to describe gender dysphoria. 0.98

00:11:37.600 And somebody said, you can't say that.

00:11:40.600 And I'm like...

00:11:41.600 It's in a book of diagnostic ailments.

00:11:42.600 I don't think affliction is all that well.

00:11:43.600 Well, hello, yeah.

00:11:44.600 I said, well, it means you are transphobic.

00:11:47.600 And I said, well, I think diabetes is an affliction.

00:11:51.600 Do I hate diabetic people?

00:11:53.600 I mean, both depend on taking medicine for the rest of your life, okay?

00:11:57.600 So if you have to take medicine for the rest of your life to keep you feeling well, then you have an affliction.

00:12:05.600 But this idea, you can't say that.

00:12:07.600 But here's what you must say.

00:12:09.600 When I describe myself, I'm not supposed to describe myself as a woman.

00:12:13.600 I'm supposed to describe myself as a cis woman.

00:12:16.600 I don't do that.

00:12:18.600 Because why is the default?

00:12:20.600 The trans woman is allowed to call herself a woman.

00:12:23.600 I must identify as a cis woman.

00:12:26.600 The idea is that if I call myself a woman and I call her a trans woman, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. 0.56

00:12:35.600 Because her inner...

00:12:36.600 Now you're differentiating...

00:12:37.600 Well, that's right.

00:12:38.600 That's right.

00:12:39.600 And to even mention you are a biological male who identifies as female.

00:12:46.600 Fine with that.

00:12:47.600 I'll call you she, her.

00:12:48.600 I have no problem with that.

00:12:50.600 But I will not stop identifying your reality and you can't make me.

00:12:59.600 And you know, when you're an ideologue, you think if you change the language, if you force people to use language that accords with what you wish were reality, then magically perhaps that reality will become reality.

00:13:15.600 I mean, there's a lot of magical thinking going on here.

00:13:18.600 And in fact, it's what's being taught in the schools.

00:13:21.600 Magical thinking.

00:13:22.600 Unicorns.

00:13:23.600 You know, gender bread charts.

00:13:24.600 This is all magic.

00:13:26.600 And children believe in magic.

00:13:28.600 And that's why it exemplifies the danger of compelled speech so perfectly.

00:13:35.600 And I think that's why it's in the news so much.

00:13:37.600 Because people that care about freedom of speech are particularly horrified by this.

00:13:45.600 And there's something about gender, sexuality that is the obsession of our times.

00:13:52.600 That it is the singular and identifying feature of an individual.

00:14:00.600 And these people think about nothing else.

00:14:03.600 It's really a little creepy.

00:14:06.600 And no, it's extremely narcissistic to begin with.

00:14:10.600 But there's more to life than your sexuality and your gender, you know.

00:14:16.600 But once you're into this, it is cult-like, once you're in there, that really is all you think about if you're an activist.

00:14:23.600 Yes.

00:14:24.600 People who actually do transition and are non-political, and I've met some lovely trans people, they don't care.

00:14:31.600 Well, they're like a lot of the gay and lesbian activists.

00:14:34.600 Yeah.

00:14:35.600 They just wanted to live their life.

00:14:36.600 Totally, yeah.

00:14:37.600 That's exactly what they want.

00:14:38.600 They don't want to be involved in politics.

00:14:40.600 And they have no problem identifying themselves as biological males or biological females.

00:14:45.600 They know the score.

00:14:47.600 So it's a very different kettle of fish.

00:14:49.600 But the trans activists, they've grabbed the attention.

00:14:54.600 And they are very aggressive.

00:14:57.600 And there we're talking about a small subset of a small subset.

00:15:00.600 Exactly.

00:15:01.600 And they, boy, are they aggressive and physically aggressive, too.

00:15:04.600 And the people who are on the front lines of this battle are people I would never normally, you know, associate or ally myself with.

00:15:14.600 Radical feminists or even just feminists who believe in original principles of feminism. 1.00

00:15:19.600 Well, that right there is a fascinating point because now they've been given a name that is derogatory in the far left circles.

00:15:25.600 Exactly.

00:15:26.600 Terps.

00:15:27.600 I've never seen this word in my life until a month ago.

00:15:29.600 Trans, exclusionary, radical feminists. 0.96

00:15:31.600 Yeah.

00:15:32.600 But even these women who would readily describe themselves as the bra burners of their generation are now privileged. 0.67

00:15:38.600 Yeah.

00:15:39.600 And they're now not real feminists. 1.00

00:15:41.600 Or white feminism is the other one. 1.00

00:15:43.600 Women that refuse to kowtow a feminism that also takes into account all of these other battles. 1.00

00:15:48.600 And is there a possibility then that these groups will just cannibalize themselves out of existence?

00:15:53.600 Well, it's certainly quite a vicious fight and it sometimes comes down to physical violence.

00:15:57.600 This does not happen the other way, by the way.

00:16:00.600 You don't have female to male trans people attacking biological males and having this out with them. 0.79

00:16:12.600 It's only the male to female who are so, they seem very angry at feminists who insist that they have worked very hard for women's rights and there is no way they're going to have someone with male genitalia counseling a rape victim in a rape center. 0.51

00:16:32.600 Like, there's just no way that is going to happen.

00:16:34.600 And, you know, these activists are, see they don't, they're like the two mothers fighting over the baby and Solomon, you know, King Solomon.

00:16:43.600 Yes.

00:16:44.600 And he was very clever.

00:16:45.600 He said, give the baby, you know, we'll divide the baby in two. 0.70

00:16:49.600 And the one who was not the true mother said, okay, divide the baby in two.

00:16:54.600 Well, and then the true mother said, no, give her the baby. 1.00

00:16:57.600 So he says, now I know you're the true mother.

00:16:59.600 Well, the feminists are the true mother because they are, some of them are saying, okay, yes, you really are a woman. 1.00

00:17:08.600 Then you have to be in the locker rooms, then you, but these, these other women, they're just, they're just not having it. 1.00

00:17:14.600 But the, but the activists are saying, yeah, we don't care if you women in the rape shelters feel uncomfortable with us. 1.00

00:17:22.600 We don't care about your trauma.

00:17:24.600 We don't care about what rape does to, to you. 1.00

00:17:27.600 It's about justice.

00:17:28.600 It's about, no, it's not.

00:17:30.600 Well, let's say it's about justice, but really it's about us.

00:17:33.600 I want to feel like I'm a real woman and in order for me to feel that way, you have to feel uncomfortable, but too bad for you.

00:17:41.600 So it, there's a viciousness there that is quite scary.

00:17:46.600 And the people, the trans activists on social media that I've had interactions with, they are ruthless, obsessed with this issue of being called women. 0.57

00:17:59.600 They, you know, call me a woman and I'm like, no, you're a trans woman and I'm a woman.

00:18:05.600 I mean, it's babyish, it's infantile, but in a way that's what it comes down to.

00:18:09.600 It's Twitter.

00:18:10.600 You're blending in.

00:18:11.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:12.600 I mean, you know, but I'm just, I'm, I'm giving, I'm trying to give heart to other people to say, don't bow into this pressure.

00:18:17.600 Don't change the language you know, because once you keep going down that route, no word will mean anything.

00:18:25.600 It, you, you, the person that controls the language is, that's, that's what Orwell was talking about.

00:18:33.600 This is, this is where totalitarianism begins, is controlling the language.

00:18:38.600 Yes.

00:18:39.600 And that's where we're at right now.

00:18:40.600 National Post columnist Barbara Kaye, thank you so much for joining me.

00:18:43.600 Thank you for having me.

00:18:44.600 For the True North Initiative, I'm Andrew Lawton.

00:18:46.600 For the True North Initiative, I'm Andrew Lawton.

Juno News - July 22, 2018

True North's Andrew Lawton with Barbara Kay

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