I follow Eliza Mondegreen both here on Substack and on Twitter. On January 10th, she tweeted a thread recounting an experience she had while trying to get into an event at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She has locked her account for privacy now, so I will respect that and not copy nor try to link her tweets from this post.
While I was writing this, Eliza posted an article on the gender:hacked Substack.
The event was canceled due to protests.
The Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate In the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T
About
By Professor Wintemute: Since 2018, there has been a debate in the United Kingdom about whether or not the law should be changed to make it easier for a transgender individual to change their legal sex from their birth sex, and about exceptional situations, such as women-only spaces and sports, in which the individual’s birth sex should take priority over their gender identity, regardless of their legal sex. This debate inspired the foundation in 2019 of an organisation, LGB Alliance, which rejects the political coalition of LGB and T and challenges some transgender demands, on the basis that they conflict with the rights of lesbian and bisexual women or the rights of children who might grow up to be LGB adults.
(OB Comments) The Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism took care to disavow their own event beforehand:
CHRLP note: the CHRLP invited Professor Wintemute to give this talk based on his record as a human rights and LGB scholar. We note that Professor Wintemute is also a trustee of the LGB Alliance. The CHRLP does not endorse the views of the Alliance or of any speaker. The CHRLP is committed to a respectful and inclusive space for debate.
(OB Comments) Well thanks, good to know you don’t actually mean it about the pluralism, or in fact the human rights.
Speaker:
Robert Wintemute (McGill LLB and BCL 1982) is a Professor of Human Rights Law at King’s College London, UK. Since 2003, he has participated as a lawyer for the applicants or third-party interveners, or as an expert witness, in 15 successful cases challenging discrimination against LGB individuals or same-sex couples in the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the United Kingdom Supreme Court. On 23 March 2022, he argued the case of Macate v. Lithuania before the 17-judge Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (restrictions on a book of children’s stories because it included a princess who fell in love with a woman and a prince who fell in love with a man). The Court’s judgment will be published on 23 January 2023.
It was shut down due to transactivists claiming that the idea of debate over their rights is by its very nature fascistic, and cannot happen. What I suspect, is that the reason that they can’t have debate is because exposure of their actual demands is at its base both homophobic and serves the patriarchal structure that feminists have been fighting for centuries.
Outside the event, a man who claimed to be lesbian was preventing women from accessing the venue, and claimed that he recognizes the women as fascists because before he came out as trans he was a Nazi. But what is evident is that he still carries his own authoritarian tendencies. He does not allow women, lesbians, nor gays to dissent against his views. In another case, a man claimed that the blockage against letting the women in to the event is not bullying. No explanation why, but it seems to me a case of self-justified pre-emptive violence.
I wonder how long it will take for most people to recognize how this movement is homophobic and misogynistic. The media are not helping the facts move towards recognition, either.
Transactivism cannot withstand scrutiny.
terrifying. I honestly believe modern civilization is crashing. Combine the reality of climate change, political paralysis, and the sheer insanity across the spectrum. I am almost 60 and have no real interest in being around when the Mad Max world becomes real.